It was hard to get out of bed as it was really comfy, but we were going on the Buenos Aires city tour, which was a bit pants, to be honest.

I really felt like an American tourist, being driven around in a bus around town and snapping away for twenty minutes, then being driven around again to the next place. The voice of the guide was sending us all to sleep as well. She insisted on doing the tour in Spanish and English, even though there were no Spanish speakers on the bus, just two Brazilians... She even told the same jokes in two languages, and all in a level tone of voice.

But we did tick off a lot of the sights:
-Av 9 de Julio: 16 lanes wide and not fun to cross (I found out later) as even the pedestrian green light does not guarantee safety from crazy drivers.
-Plaza 25 de Mayo: has the Casa Rosada where the seat of government is. It's even more famous because Evita used to give her speeches from the balcony there. There's also a cathedral with the mausoleum of San Martin, the general who helped liberate Argentina.
-La Boca: with it's colourful conventillos, houses made out of scrap metal from the boats and painted in bright colours. This is where the poor immigrants lived and to this day La Boca is a working class neighbourhood. There's also the famous football clubs of La Boca and Rio Plata, and Diego Maradona used to play there.
It's a bit Disneyfied now, and tourists can have their pictures taken with tango dancers or buy lots of tacky gifts (although there are some lovely paintings, there are also a lot of artists in the area). You are warned not to leave the touristy streets as it's a bit dodgy apparently, but as we had only 20 minutes, this was not an option anyway.
-Palermo: lots of parks and palm trees and as posh as it sounds. There are loads of dog walkers and they earn 100 pesos per dog per month. Some of them were walking around with nearly ten canines, making them more well paid than doctors! (the average pay for an Argentinian is 400 pesos per month)
-Recoleta: Hermes and Chanel territory. Also the place of the cemetery, which has nothing but mausoleums. Eva Peron is buried here and we spent our 20 minutes locating the Duarte family grave (it's not hard, just follow the cameras).

After the trip, I ventured out on my own. Ate a sandwich and got shortchanged , had lots of people trying to sell me things, kids asking for pesos and even the odd psst sound. It's as if I'm in Cuba again! I went to the American Express office (OK, not quite Cuba then) and got my travellers cheques changed, after being ushered by a friendly lady to at least three different queues.

Another thing that is vaguely reminiscent of Cuba is that, because of the bad economic situation, lots of people seem to have a Mickey Mouse job, a job that consists of doing absolutely nothing. I went into a cd shop and there were at least ten attendants waiting to help someone, and no one to help, plus about five security guys.

I then got talked into giving some money to an AIDS organisation by a guy who said my Spanish was so good, after asking me the time. Duh! Spending the last two / three weeks in the middle of nowhere has made me lose the street savvy I developed in Havana, I need to get it back!

I had a look at the buses for Cordoba as that's where I'm heading next, as the Journey Latin America trip comes to an end on Saturday the 4rth.

Back at the hotel I had a bath, possibly for the last time in months (cold shower horror awaits...) so I took my time to enjoy it. Twelve of us went to dinner to a parilla, and the choice was varied: grilled huge slabs of meat, grilled huge slabs of meat woith sauce or huge slabs of meat pinned on a brochette and then grilled. I had the latter, with a salad to balance out the cholesterol. I even only had half a one, but I have never eaten so much meat in my life. Well, not in one go...

Went to Cafe Tortoni and saw a one hour tango show, which was great. It's a beautiful dance and the music is very passionate. When queried about the lyrics, Duncan said, 'Oh, ehm, it's about love.' Which was not very convincing, even though he was probably right.

Afterwards, a splintergroup containing Duncan, Rachel, Catherine, Dave and Clive (and me) went to the Plaza Dorrego in the barrio of San Telmo. There's something perversely wonderful about sitting on a sidewalk terrace on the 2nd of December with a sleeveless top on. Duncan dubbed it 'the best temperature ever', having drunk quite a lot of wine already and being a bit of a one pot screamer...

We talked rubbish for a few hours, not wanting to go home before a respectable time, which in Buenos Aires means not before 3 in the morning. In the end we managed to be the last men standing (or sitting down in red Budweiser chairs), so at about 4.30 I had to wake Kirsty up to get into our room...