Wow - November already - this trip has gone so fast..... I left the Atacama desert and headed back to Santiago for a flight to Buenos Aires. My flight was at 10.30am, so like a good well heeled traveller I left the hotel to arrive at 08.30am - 2 hours in advance of my international flight. It took me a while to find the correct check in desk and handed over my ticket and explained that I was flying to Buenos Aires. All was OK she handed me the boarding pass and I showed me the gate number and boarding time - it was in 5 minutes. She had put me on the earlier flight !!!! So I had to run to the immigration queue and through security and managed to get to the gate with minutes to spare.... However, my pick up was not scheduled to arrive until 12.25 in Buenos Aires - ho hum I will just have to drink coffee. The 90 minute flight was uneventful, just the snow capped Andes out of the window. My veggie meal was wholemeal toast with a can of cold mushrooms in the middle ! On arriving into BA I immediately joined a very large queue for imigration, but this was only to get into the immigration lounge another longer queue awaited me there.... it took 50 minutes to get to immigration and 2 minutes to clear it ! I then joined another queue to get some Argentine pesos and finally got to the arrivals hall at 12:00. Luckily Pichi the driver sent to collect me arrived 10 minutes afterwards, and I had passed the time speaking to an eldery man who had wedged himself into a trolly and could not get back up again. He was waiting for his family to return from Cancun where they had spent a week in shelters awaiting Hurricane Wilma! The road to Defensa Once Once was closed for the Sunday market and therefore we had to park a block or two away and make our way through hundreds of people. The hostel is in a grand building, with an old fashioned elevator with the two metal doors, chandeliers and a faded European appearance. My room is huge and overlooks a square famous for its tango, I have a balcony and tall windows with shutters. I walk around the market, full of antiques, handicrafts and street entertainers. There are couples entwined in tango every where. Every spare space of street is taken up with people strolling in the sunshine. In the air is a the faint aroma of meat cooking. The Argentines love their meat and plenty of it barbequed. The Tango continues on into the night and I can lie in my room and listen to the haunting melodies drift across the square. Buenos Aires is a lively - open city where everyone tangos and watches Tangos it never seems to sleep. Dinner starts at 22.00 ...... Hope all are well... Take Care Lynne