2017 – Buenos Aires
Thursday 12th January
Leaving Home
We leave a wet Cornwall from St Austell station and make our way to Bristol where we go and collect Amelie and Ellis from school. We are staying the night in Bristol so that we can get a ten o’clock flight to Amsterdam in the morning.
Amsterdam
Friday 13th January
Our journey begins with an uneventful flight to Amsterdam where there is a six hour stop over to get our evening flight to Buenos Aires. This allows us a few hours in the city wandering the snow blown streets and having a meal in a canal side café.
Saturday 14th January 2017
Buenos Aires
We arrive at 7am weary but excited. After a slow exit through customs and immigration control we are met by our Explore rep. She takes us to a little beat up old car with a rather aged driver and the four of us potter into the City. It is Saturday morning so there is little activity on the roads and the streets are not busy so we get to the Hotel about 9am.
The sun is up and the day warms to a pleasant 27C with clear blue skies. The city feels remarkably European in terms of its scale and architecture. We leave our bags at the hotel as we are unable to get into our room until the afternoon. We change in the Hotel toilets and go out to explore.
Cash is our first requirement and we are amused by the numbers of shady looking men who stand around in the streets muttering ‘Cambio Cambio’ (change). They are most put out if you acknowledge them as there activity is clearly illegal.
We find we are located in the centre of the City and wander round a nearby shopping mall , Galleria Pacifico, which is a roofed section of streets with a vaulted central feature displaying art.
Having got our money and had enough of shops we head out through a park to the Palermo district of the city where there is a long linear park with a Japanese garden.
We sit in the park and take in the different birds and butterflies that are around us.
The Japanese Garden is too far for us to get to and we amuse ourselves watching the preparations for the end of the Dakar rally. 
The rally which has travelled across Bolivia and Paraguay before reaching its finale in Buenos Aires is attracting a large crowd and some of the competitors start to appear in beaten up Jeeps, Motorbikes and Lorries.
Wandering back to the hotel we stop at a neighbourhood delicatessen/bakers called Le Pain (part of a chain we later discover) where we have a light salad lunch before going back to claim our room.
At the hotel we shower and rest before going down to meet the group. We approach a young chap in the foyer who we mistake for our guide and have a strange conversation before realising we have made a mistake! Our group is large nineteen of us in total; all of an age, mostly our age and older ! Marcelo the guide is young and carefully explains to us how the trip is going to unfold and how we are to select and pay for our optional trips of which there seem to be many.
We meet up and eat with three others of the group Karen, Ricci and Mary at a nearby restaurant where we greet the sheer size of the steaks and the smoothness of the Malbec with mixed enthusiasm.
Sunday 15th January
A good night’s sleep and lots of fruit for breakfast which was lovely. We then board a bus to go on a guided city tour. We drive out through Palermo to La Recoleta cemetery where among others Eva Peron has her final resting place after her body has been on a world tour of welcoming places.
We wander around getting to know each other and absorbing a far from interesting narrative about the cemetery.
As we drive on to the Plaza de Mayo the main city square the sun is partly burning through the cloud and it is getting sticky.
Plaza de Mayo the former colonial heart of the city is the focus of religion and state, with the cathedral on one side
The square outside the palace is where ‘mothers of the missing’ (people taken during political unrest), had maintained their vigil and it still is the centre of protest in the City. On the pavement are the symbols of the white head scarves that the women had worn.
Our coach takes us on to La Boca.
After the lunch the weather starts to cool and we head back towards La Boca to the district of San Telmo and its mile long street market a colourful buzz of stalls, bars and music venues.
The atmosphere is great and we come upon some jazz that is just finishing, a band and some tango dancers that just seem right.
We do a detour to see the labour sculpture outside Eva’s residence and the church of St Dorrego before walking quickly back through the rain to the hotel.
We meet up with the rest of the group for a lovely meal across the road and retire to bed before our journey to the end of the world in the morning.
Friday 27th January
The Patagona trip ended yesterday and we got back into town late last night. We go down to breakfast to say further goodbyes to the rest of the group at breakfast. It is a bit odd having spent so much time with them to be suddenly on our own.
We walk quickly to the Opera House and join the first English tour of the day. It is sunny and hot and we arrive at the Opera House very warm.
An amazing building built in neoclassical style with marbles and stones from all around the world. There are enormous chandeliers and arched painted ceilings edged with marble or gold mouldings.
The auditorium is wonderful with seven storeys of seating. It is made up of stalls, ground floor boxes with grills where widows sit, two rows of first floor boxes, one row at the second floor with 5 boxes at each end, 2 rows of seating above with standing behind, one male and one female. In the Gods it is standing room only. It is locally known as the Hen House … because everyone is cooped up there! We thoroughly enjoy the visit as it is so culturally different to what we have been doing for the last 2 weeks.
We leave the Opera House and, back city mode, we enjoy an hour walking the streets acquiring a maté pot and enjoying a coffee. a take away diner we buy empanadas and salad for a picnic lunch which we consume in the shade in of a park near the hotel.
We go back to our room for a sit down before heading out to the railway station for a rail excursion to Tigre at the head of the delta of the River Plate. 
We eventually find the correct ticket booth to buy our ticket. It is an old booth in green marble and is somewhat incongruous amongst the 21st century improvements.
The train takes us out through the suburbs. It is crowded and buskers and food sellers move along the carriages noisily selling their wares
In Tigre it is a lovely afternoon and there are loads of families enjoying themselves beside the water channels. There are also a lot of boats, from big paddle steamers and small cruisers to speed boats, jet skis, rowing boats and canoes.
It is chaotic and fascinating and again a contrast to what we have been doing.
By the time we get back to the city everywhere is buzzing and the bars around the hotel are full and busy and the restaurants hardly open.
We have a meal across the road pack our bags, shower and sleep until 12.15 am when we are roused to catch a taxi to the airport to begin the Next Stage of our Trip.
World Wide Webbs 