Sunday was again a beautifully hot sunny day. We boarded a train for the 90 minute journey up the coast to the community of Tigre. Tigre, named after the jaguars that used to inhabit the area, used to be an important commercial port and is now a busy tourist destination. It marks the entry point to the Paraná Delta, an interconnecting web of rivers and streams which are now bordered by fancy rowing clubs, holiday camps, hotels and holiday homes. The latter range...

This afternoon sees the arrival of La Famille Senac. One thing I forgot to mention yesterday, which greatly increased stress levels at the already tense estancia, was that Jean-Luc (Fabrice's brother) received a call that morning to say that the apartment that we had booked for the Christmas week was no longer available due to illness. Not great news the day before everyone was due to arrive, a couple of days before Christmas. After a little to-ing and fro-ing...

Having not managed to stay on an estancia (ranch) in either Salta or El Calafate we decided to remedy this with a stay at La Porteña, near San Antonio de Areco in the Pampas area just outside BA. La Porteña dates from 1822 and is a National Historic Monument, a beautiful old farmhouse converted into a small hotel. We were booked into a huge room in the main house, beautifully furnished in period pieces. After a thrilling 2 hours at the Retiro bus station in B...

Culture buffs that we are, this morning we visited the MALBA - Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires. This appears to be essentially BA's modern art museum. It is not big. On the ground floor there were a few pieces of recently acquired art by Latin American artists and on the second an eclectic mix of paintings, sculptures and other media. Some interesting bits and pieces but I'm no connoisseur. Losing the Latin American connection somewhat, Tracey Em...

Look at that, a picture of Evita's tomb to accompany a blog about Buenos Aires. No marks for originality! We arrived in BsAs (as the locals insist on abbreviating it, I'll stick to BA from now on) early afternoon on the 17th and headed to the trendy Palermo Viejo district that was to be our home for the week. Pete Steward very kindly offered his 19th floor triplex penthouse apartment complete with rooftop hot tub. That'll do very nicely indeed, we can't than...