Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Day 16 - 15/10/2012 (Monday)
Once again another early start. This time however it's not a bus! This completely threw me lol. Instead today we are getting in taxis and then getting on a ferry!!! It takes about an hour to cross the "river" (which I'm still convinced is the sea). We arrived a little after 7 for our 08:15 ferry. As soon as we got the to the terminal we could tell something was up. The place was dead. Alberto went to investigate and came back saying that because it was a public holiday the 08:15 ferry doesn't run until 11:15 even though it says 7:20 check in and 8:15 departure on the tickets. Slightly annoyed we got comfortable for our 3 hour wait. I was tempted to walk back to the hotel but we'd already checked out. The 3 hour wait seemed to drag. We ended up playing silly games like name the Capitol and US states.
We had to clear immigration before getting on the boat. This would be the 3rd time we'd been stamped into Argentina however this time we'd be staying for a few days and not a few hours.
The crossing was uneventful and we were picked up and taken to our hotel right in the centre.
As seems to be traditional whenever we arrive somewhere new we went for a big lunch. Alberto told us it was 20 minutes walk. An hour later we arrived to this strange restaurant with writing all over the walls. Sarah and I both ordered the recommend steak and my god, no word of a lie this steak was over an inch thick and so so nice. I'm never going to be able to eat steak back home knowing how good it is over here. After the meal we walked back to the hotel and couldn't really move given how much we'd eaten.
That evening we went to a kind of concert. It was a band of about 12 people who all played different types of drums. We went to the bar and Sarah ordered a "Vino Blanko" (white wine) what she didn't realise was it was a litre!! So the pictures of Sarah holding a drink that is 1000ml of wine! The drummers were amazing. It was hard to believe all the sound they were making was coming purely from them. The place was also packed. All the local guys loved there being so many girls but that meant that a few of them got hassled by them. Sarah was clever enough to pretend she didn't know any Spanish or English (which after her litre of wine was easy!)

Buenos Aires - Day 17 - 16/10/2012 (Tuesday)
Yay! No having to get up for transportation! In fact we had a lie in. We'd arranged to meet everyone for breakfast at 9 and then go on a walking tour at 11. We found a cafe and ordered, we then waited and waited and finally our food came out. It was already gone 10 and we were meant to be meeting the rest of the group at 10. What made things worse was the food was rubbish. We got back to the hotel at half 10 and had to jump in taxis to the walking tour instead of walking to the start like we had planned. The weather was a bit rubbish but the lady leading the tour was quite funny. She also wasn't very impressed countries government so she had quite a bit to say about that. She showed us loads of places and had some interesting theories into the past of some of the buildings. The most interesting fact she thought us was that Argentinians like to strike over anything. To the point where there is an average of 4 protests a day in the capital.
After the tour we grabbed some lunch and then went back to some sights we hadn't been able to go into on the walking tour. The best of which was the Cathedral. They had some guards looking after a tomb but they were not as good as beefeaters and they kept moving.
That evening we got to go to a "Tango Show". The reason it is in quotes is because everywhere you go around BA you hear two things. Cambio and Tango Show. The first is illegal money exchange people on the streets who want to sell you fake notes in return for other currency and the other are people trying to sell tickets to the tango shows.
When we arrived we got to order our food straight away while as others were whisked away. I had yet another amazing steak! After dinner it was our turn to be whisked away for our Tango lesson. Anyone that knows me will know that I'm not much of a dancer but following the bottle of red wine served with dinner I was ready to give it a go. To be honest it wasn't that hard. They showed us a few moves and we repeated them and tried it with a partner. Although there were far more guys than girls so i had to do it a few times. Then we had to do the final part of the tango where the man stretches out his leg and the woman wraps her leg around the man. It was so funny watching people trying it.
Once we got our certificates stating that we were fully qualified to dance the tango we went back upstairs to watch the professionals with a second bottle of wine to!
The bus back home was rather interesting! What I forgot to mention was that our trip is made up of 4 smaller trips. Tonight was the last part of the first trip and of the 15 of us only 6 of us would be going on (with someone new joining for the second part). Hence when we got back to the hotel we all wanted to continue with our last night. So us being us all went to a club. The prices in this club where out of this world. It was almost £8 for a tiny can of beer so no one really drank much but following all the wine that didn't stop anyone from dancing. Although we did try to tango to some dub step which didn't quite work.

Buenos Aires - Day 18 - 17/10/2012 (Wednesday)
We'd arranged to meet at 11am which given the night before was still way to early! Alberto wanted to show us some more of the sights so first we went to this huge grave yard full of massive crypts. Most of them were there to show off how much money the family had. The main attraction was the one that Evita was buried in. After that we went to an area called La Boca. This is some of the oldest dwellings in BA and are all painted in patch work colours. The story being that when they arrived by boat they used what paint they had left on the boat for their houses. The area is really rough now and you have to keep the the tourist streets and you can't go there at night. We got some lunch and where seriously ripped off. Everyone over paid but we were still short.
After lunch we explored some more and tried to go to the La Boca stadium where Maridonna used to play but we couldn't get in as there was a power cut.
That evening we had our welcome meeting for the next leg of the tour although we already knew each other and the new girl Suzy came with us on the walk that day so didn't have a lot to say so headed out for some food.

Buenos Aires - Day 19 - 18/10/2012 (Thursday)
On the walking tour on the first day they showed us BA's oldest coffee house so we decided to go there for some breakfast. Sarah and I had something called a submarineo. It's basically milk that you drop a chocolate bar into which melts and then you drink it. Our milk however wasn't very warm so it didn't quite work. We did get to steal some cake for the others as the portions where huge. We went and got lunch almost straight away after as we were about to jump on the longest bus of our whole trip. In excess of 22 hours.