Hola again,

Sorry for the long delay between blog entries but we`ve been living up the city life for a week and haven`t had the chance to update you. We have been in Buenos Aires since last Monday and are leaving today. A week in the city - well a lot can happen in BA!

The first day we arrive all we want to do is sleep following another huge bus journey (which are not getting any easier at all), but feel we must have a quick look around the central part of the city. We stayed at a hostel, Hostel Suites Obelisco (highly recommended), which is right in the centre and has all the theatres, bars and shops on our doorstep. BA is like many European Cities and for some reason I felt very at home here and quickly remembered how much fun window shopping was again! But our bed was calling us and as we had checked into a very nice room in our swankey hostel, we slept for most of the day!

Next day we couldn`t resist being geeks on tour again and quickly got our backpacks and waterproofs on to have a look around Recoleta and Palermo where all the expensive hotels are. We discovered Botanical Gardens, a zoo, and a Japanese Garden which was beautiful and a little oasis surrounded by sky scrapers. We found a modern art museum (much to my delight) and a really cool resturant. We keep remembering how good the exchange rate is and decide to live like kings, then realise that we`re not earning and don´t usually eat out every day no matter how cheap it is!

Wednesday is tango day!!! We stupidly decide we wanted to do tango, actually Tom forced me to do a lesson, and sign up for the hostel`s tango experience to have a lesson, dinner and drinks and then off to a local tango club. We prepared ourselves well with some cocktails at our hostel`s bar where the words free pour are an understatement, and then had a few beers and glasses of wine to make sure we were really sharp minded for our tango class. The lesson wasn`t so good for me as I had flip flops on (and can`t dance anyway), which didn`t work very well when the women have to walk backwards! Tom was great and enjoyed having to change partners after every dance as he got to hold all the lovely women in the class! After a few more beers we were ready to hit the club. Not really what you might have expected for a downtown club at 12pm at night. The average age in the room was around 45 and it was fairly well to do! Tom bottled it straight away, but a few in our tango class we already practicing their moves! It hit 2am and it seemed like the last set of songs were on and I forced Tom onto the dancefloor. Of course I just held on to Tom and let him sway me around the room as a leading man should, and I think we pulled it off quite well by surviving 3 whole songs! We definitely caught the tango fever!

Thursday we just went on a city tour and went round all the places we`d already gone but had someone telling us why they were there. It took us all the way into one of the poorest parts of BA to see the home of Boca Juniors one of the most famous clubs in Argentina and the original home of the owner of the "Hand of God" who is, understandibly, something of a legend around here.

Friday we took a walk around a new development called Puerto Madero by the water and had another big lunch and went back for a siesta and to prepare for our night out. When you get told that no one goes to a club until 2.30 we wondered what on earth everyone does until then, Alex slept for a bit but I kept on going which was pretty much the wrong thing to do. The club was awesome though and we had a really good time. We met a couple of Germans who had actually gone to bed at 5 pm and set their alarm for 12, which at 5 am sounded like the right thing to have done.

For me the weekend passed in a whirlwind of hangover, shopping, lunches, shopping, drinking, shopping, a cemetary, shopping, a Tango show and more shopping so i`ll let Alex tell you about it because i`m sure i wont be able to explain it well enough. - YES ladies you have to come to BA for shopping! Firstly its ridiculously cheap and secondly they have amazing little boutiques even on their high streets, which have some great one offs! As for vintage shopping - its in a league of its own with some of the most amazing finds that you can`t even get, let alone afford, back in the UK. I bought the most amazing leather hand bag but wanted so so much more however I have no more room in my rucksack following an earlier shopping spree in the week! Damn it!

Finally we couldn´t leave BA without going to a Tango show, and blew the budget to see one of the best in the city. The ticket did include a meal and drinks, but we couldn`t have guessed the formality of the evening ahead! Greeted with champagne and staff ushering you around this gorgeous building, we were treated like royalty and offered anything we wanted. A girl from our hostel had teamed up with us for the night and as a three we were offered a private booth with a great view of the whole stage. Following a fantastic three course meal that had the tiniest portions (that kind of posh food) but biggest flavours, we sat back and watched the show in awe with our wine glasses continuously topped up! It was an amazing night of music, dancing and wine. And we continued the party atmosphere back at the hostel with a few drinks with the barman (a legend). We highly recommend the night to anyone visitng BA.

And now we are getting ready to head off again. Travelling even further south to Puerto Madryn to try and see some whales!!

Love Alex and Tom