We flew back from Iguazú to Buenos Aires; our last destination in South America. Because of this scary situation we had treated ourselves to a whole apartment - a first for us. The Airbnb apartment was located in San Telmo; a cool, arty area packed with Latin culture and antique shops. We were shown around the apartment by the owner's girlfriend and then took advantage of having our own space by... doing nothing. Although I found that I couldn't do this for long as I had Argentinian steak on my mind so I studied the city map with Mike's blog detailing his top 7 steak restaurants at hand. With this completed we arranged to catch up with Stephan - who had just arrived in the city - for steak (what else?) at Mike's 6th choice restaurant. This was a blue collar cheap joint with wine being served in penguin themed jugs. The meat was good but the chorizo sausage was delicious. We went out for a few drinks afterwards and agreed to meet up again the next day to try to buy some football tickets.

Buenos Aires was really hot for the six days we were in the city and this didn't change at night. We kept waking up to drink more and more water and then for the inevitable trips to the loo so when we woke up the next day we were really tired. But we had arranged to meet Stephan so we had to get up. We all caught the metro to the other end of the line and then walked 20 minutes to get to the River Plate football stadium. Here we hoped, following some research, to buy tickets for the match against Union the next day. But we were told that you could only buy them online, which we didn't want to do as without the blue dollar rate they were too expensive. But then the security guard leaned in and whispered to us that there was a guy selling tickets (illegal ones I guess). We couldn't see this guy but he found us. At first I was unsure as he was apparently offering us the best seats for a fraction of the price but after some debate we went for it at 500 pesos each (£27). (But only for Stephan and I as Katy wasn't keen.) We then walked back through the many parks, which got prettier as we got closer to town. We parted with Stephan when we went into the Japanese garden, which was nice but over priced. By this point we were very hot and hungry, which an ice cream hadn't fixed, so we caught the metro back and ate market products in our apartment.

After a cool down we headed back to Palermo on the metro for some shopping in a classy mall. This time I had more luck than Katy and bought a new pair of shoes- something a bit nicer to wear out than my walking boots in New York. Then it was time for the main event of the day - Mike's 3rd favourite steak restaurant - Don Julio. It was amazing; the best steak I think we've had in Argentina / the world! We ordered two 300g Bife de Chorizo (Sirloin steaks) one of them thick and the other a thin cut but they looked very different when they arrived and certainly much much bigger than 300g but I had no complaints and they tasted so so good. The impressive knife that was provided just cut straight through like a warm knife through butter. Heaven!

The next day was a Sunday which meant that the San Telmo market was taking place right outside our door. This is a market of at least 15 city blocks selling cool artisanal items and loads more antiques. We walked around for hours and bought some leather wallets at a good price. For lunch we had a great choripan (sausage) sandwich in the grounds of an abandoned building which was being used to house food and drink stalls. As we ate our sandwiches we heard an engine start up and then a kind of armoured tank drove out of a shed near us. It had been made so that it had shelves all over it which contained hundreds of books. It just drove off - I presume to become a book shop. Strange.

After the cool San Telmo market I met Stephan and we headed off for the River Plate vs. Union football match while Katy relaxed in the apartment. As we approached the stadium Stephan and I had our tickets checked multiple times; each time with more sophistication. The last check was the scanning of a barcode - the first time I tried, the light went red and I thought I had been ripped off but the second time it went green and we were in! As predicted we didn't have the great seats that we were promised but we still got a good view from behind the goal. I had understood that this was where the hooligans normally were but there were lots of kids in the area so I felt safe. River Plate dominated the start and finished the first half 2-0 up but they could have had many more. But in the second half Union played much better and got back to 2-2, which is how the game finished. As away fans are banned in Argentinian football it was strange to have a silent stadium when the opposition scored. We got back really quickly on an uncrowed metro and then picked up Katy for dinner at the same blue collar joint we had been to two nights before. I tried a traditional fried block of cheese as I had given up on everything healthy this late into the trip.

The next morning we took a stroll down on the water front in Puerto Madero, a posh financial area. We then tried to visit the nearby wetland reserve but it was closed. It was so hot so we retreated to the apartment and shortly after lunch I had a phone interview. This went well and got me a face-to-face interview for when I was back in the UK. With that sorted we caught the metro to the Congress area of the city for a 'free' walking tour. Like most walking tours that we've done this was great and packed with info. We started at the congress building, which was made in Europe and shipped over piece by piece. We then moved onto a strange building called Palacio Barolo based on Dante's book the 'Divine Comedy'. We were told that all the buildings in Buenos Aires were very different as people were trying to copy the European styles but got it slightly wrong. Our guide said they were like people; individually beautiful but together a mess. He talked a lot about the blue dollar and the mess the economy is in with unofficial inflation at 40% - strangely the government does not believe in inflation. He talked about the hyper inflation that they've previously had where prices were going up so far that the supermarket employees couldn't keep up with changing the prices and the price of an item went up before you could get it to the till. He talked about Perón (a previous socialist leader) and how he was overthrown by the military government who 'disappeared' 30,000 people - some were thrown out of aeroplanes. The military even killed the mothers (who are revered in Latin culture) when they protested, but they had nothing to lose. Pregnant women were allowed to have their children before they were killed and then the children were given to military families for adoption. Now these adults are being reunited with their families through DNA tests. He talked about how this military government started the Falklands war and fell when they lost with their young soldiers. He talked about how the sinking of the Belgrano was a war crime for which Margret Thatcher was the criminal. He talked about how today's government changes its policies so often and about the recent killing of prosecutor Alberto Nisman the day before he was going to give evidence against the government. He said the government had changed their story 3 times on why he died. He tried to finish on a positive note saying that the best policy was free football on TV.

After all that we needed a rest so went to have coffee in the city's oldest cafe - a classy joint. I got a traditional snack- donuts to dunk in hot chocolate - having truly given up on the health food. After that we changed some dollars on the blue market and that evening went back to the oldest cafe for a tango show. It was pretty impressive given its cheapness and was good fun to experience it in an old intimate setting.

On our last full day we went to the Recoleta Cemetery for a tour around this massive city of the dead where the rich and famous are buried. We were told that tombs can cost up to $45,000 and that now every religion can be buried there. The elderly lady who gave the tour had a story about every tomb; some belonged to old presidents, many to wealthy families and one belonged to a girl who was buried alive and then buried again. And of course one belonged to Evita, Argentina's sweet heart. We had to queue to get a photo of her grave, which (we are told) is the only one to have fresh flowers at all year round. The area around the cemetery showed us an insight to how the alive rich residents reside. Some of the areas could have belonged to London or New York. We walked through here to Palermo and met up with Federico (our Buenos Aires friend who we had met in Mendoza) for lunch. It was nice to catch up with him again and he told us about his plans to move to Europe to save and travel and we got to ask him about how the inflation affected him. After we left him we headed to the area of La Boca - known for its colourful metal buildings. I had been looking forward to seeing the area but we found it had been overrun by souvenir shops and tourist cafés. Katy commented "I'm glad we only paid 25p on the bus to get here" and "this is horrendous". The only thing we could do was dive in and buy my dad a very tacky magnet of the pope - he will loathe it.

To finish off our time in Buenos Aires, Argentina and South America with style we headed to Mike's number one steak restaurant, La Brigada, for two more sirloin steaks. They were fantastic as was the service! The waiter cut them open with a spoon to show how much they were cooked. We only experienced this feat of culinary excellence twice; once during our first Argentinian steak and now our last. Again the steaks that arrived were much bigger than quoted and with a great bottle of Malbec it was Perfect!

On our last day we returned to the wetlands that were now open but didn't walk far due to the heat. We had one more meat sandwich on the promenade and then it was back to the apartment to get ready and shower before heading off to the airport. We both felt a mixture of sadness that our Latin American adventure was over but excitement to be heading to New York.

Simon