23:20 - After delays and missed messages yesterday, I finally met up with the group this morning. After breakfast, changed rooms (as of today I share with a lady for the next 3 weeks until we get to Lima) and then had another go at the 'The conquest of the Incas' book until Sally (our tour leader) and the rest of the group turned up. We are actually still missing two people but hopefully they'll turn up before we leave for Salta on Tuesday morning. Sally gave us some basic info on what we could or would do over the next two days and then took us around Buenos Aires. At the obelisque we actually witnessed a young man proposing on his knees to his girlfriend :-). We then walked to Plaza de Mayo where the Cathedral and the Casa Rosada (the president's office) are. Here there are still veterans of the Falklands war peacefully demonstrating about being forgotten. We then took a taxi to Boca, the poorest quarter in Buenos Aires. In fairness is actually quite pretty with it's colourful houses. It is here that initially immigrants arrived as it was the main harbour when Argentina initially opened up to immigration. The largest single contributors to immigration where Italians incidentally. There were quite a few stalls selling touristy stuff, but me being me, not too keen on walking around in the heat to shop, so I sat for a while with Sally at one of the Cafe's and got a little bit of a low down on our tour leader for the next 3 weeks. She's worked and travelled around South America for the last 5 years and will be turning 30 in October :-). This makes her by far the youngest member of the group. Incidentally, 2012 should be the last year of tour guiding for her and she should go back home towards the end of the year. She reminds me so much if Sally from London :-))). I do hope she's having a great time in Canada. After Boca we took a bus (line 29) into San Telmo. The well to do people of Buenos Aires used to live here before the yellow fever outbreak in 1871. They then moved away from the water to escape the disease into Recola and when they came back to their former homes to get their belongings, they found they had to buy them back from the squatters. San Telmo is now full of antique shops and on a sunday (like today was) it's market day so it was also packed with stalls of all kinds. Sally left us here to take a look around but as I have decided to go to a Fiesta Gaucha tomorrow, I made my way to Recola and the famous cemetery where Evita Peron is buried. I took a taxi (first time on my own) and went it to look around. It reminded me a lot of the New Orleans cemetery. It was a but scary to see some of the graves/monuments had been broken into and had been left in a state of disrepair with the coffins still there. Sally later explained that if every member of the family has died and something like that happens, they have to wait 25 years before even touching the graves. From there I went back to the hotel as we were all due to meet up in the evening for a briefing on the rest of the trip and then to go for dinner. I really can't wait to leave Buenos Aires and get to grips with the rest of this exciting trip. We had dinner at a place suggested by Sally and the meat was excellent. I even had my first non potato vegetable of the trip: tomatoes!!! A little aside on my room companion for the next three weeks: first impression is that she is a little peculiar... She must be 65 /70 and she is originally from Poland. Her name is Jolanda. She didn't join us for dinner as she wanted to rest...I am curious to see how she will react to the 6am starts we have coming up! That's it for today... I have taken lots of pictures and added them to the album for your amusement, so do take a look.