Wednesday 25th August - Santiago - Beunos Aires
Early morning bus departure to the airport to fly to Beunos Aires . We got some curious looks as Derek´s temporary passport was scrutinised by officials. A raggle-taggle mob of misfits boarded the plane ahead of us - they were part of a band and road crew. Derek finally recognised the small skinny ugly guy as Ronnie James Dio - the man who replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath many moons ago. He´s obviously still going strong on the road. When we arrived in B.A. (Beunos Aires) we found that the city is the destination for the worldwide convention of librarians (don´t ask!) so therefore there wasn´t too much prime hotel space in town. Compared with what we had in Santiago our place was slightly disappointing but it´s still fine. Mind you we did change rooms just because we couldn´t the TV whilst sitting in bed cos the TV was far away! We dashed straight to the Irish embassy only to find out it was shut when we got there so we consoled ourselves with early evening dinner. Sue ate her first Argentinian steak and declared it her ´best ever steak´ and it was 3 pounds in price.

Thursday 26th August - Beunos Aires
At breakfast we wondered why there were 2 waitresses in operation when none of the tables were cleared all morning and essentially only bread and tea were on offer - self service we would suggest! We dropped into the Irish embassy to give them what they needed, on our way to see Eva Évita Peron´s grave in a big cemetery . We got distracted by an enticing Italian lunch menu, and ate there for lunch. When we did make it to the cemetery we found we had trouble locating the ´tomb´ - thank goodness for Japanese tourists! All the graves/tombs there had coffins laid out behind the (sometimes glass) doors...Hmmm... We took our photos (one the bloody Japanese tourists had moved) and headed back to the Irish embassy where Derek once again became a proud citizen on his nation. As we stretched back on a nice big lawn to see the local version of ´Big Ben´ we couldn´t help noticing a couple of old people (they were pensioners we´d say) embraced in a passionate clinch that other people would know as ´snogging´! B.A. has many people who were employed as professional dog-walkers, up to a maximum of 12 dogs (labradors, golden retrievers, red setters, etc.) it would seem! The dogs are all immaculately groomed and look extremely happy loping around - none of them try to take bites out of each other.

Friday 27th August
Breakfast was more enjoyable this morning if only for the fact that the new ´pleasent´ waitress didn´t baulk at the prospect of us having cold milk with our tea . We walked down by the docks, past a couple of tall ships, on our way to the Argentinian Immigration Office - we were told Derek would need to go there to get his new passport stamped. We asked 4 or 5 people the way before finally finding the office down many long corridors of power. Of course once we got there we were told don´t worry as long as Derek keeps hold of his emergency passport it´ll be fine! It´d be nice if all these officials had the same information to hand instead of plebs like us going on wild goose chases all the time! We called into the tourist office to get some more information on our next move in Argentina. The locals in the cafe where we ate our lunch were getting very excited as Argentina beat the US in the Olympic basketball semi-final. We discovered the shops around the main tourist areas are purely tourist prices much like we would pay at home though that didn´t stop us buying a new pair of sunglasses each. The crossing of roads is an activity that requires concentration in B.A. as drivers move swiftly and lights at pedestrian crossings don´t mean you still shouldn´t look to see it´s safe as well! We´ve also noticed that a bell rings to warn pedestrians if a car is exiting a car-park - useful sometimes actually .

Saturday 28th August
No hurry to get up today and missed breakfast. Got the local ´tube´ equivalent to an area where we were told the locals shop. We managed to get Derek a couple of new tops but the women´s clothes left a lot to be desired so nothing new for Sue to raise her spirits! Had lunch in another nice local cafe and back to the hotel. Derek went to the internet cafe to catch up on football news and he came back stinking of smoke (cos everyone smokes in this country anywhere they like - Derek´s Dad would like it a lot!). We´ve seen them smoking in clothes shops, in hotel foyers - it´s a wonder doctors performing operations have a fag in their mouths as they ask for the ´scalpel please´!! Cigarette advertising is everywhere with huge billboards for Marlboro and Phillip Morris. We were again feeling down this evening - hopefully we´ll be in better spirits tomorrow - 2 weeks of being ´city bound´ is getting to us. All we seem to do is get up,eat, walk to the next place on the list to get something sorted, maybe eat again and back to the hotel . Still as our motto has alway been ít´s better than work so it is!

Sunday 29th August
The eternal traffic outside has gotten to be too much for us after last night so we checked out the hotel up the road and then checked out of where we were staying. For a little extra we got no noise, BBC World on cable TV (instead of CNN hurray!) and ´buffet breakfast´ as opposed to bread and tea. We walked through the mid-morning breeze and sunshine (past a man selling garlic with a beret adding to the European feel of the city) to the market in the San Telmo area. It was like stepping back in time as 80´s hits were played from the radios, not to mention the prehistoric technology available at the stalls for a snip. We hungered quickly and found the perfect respite in a quaint side-street local restaurant where we were tempted by the ´meat feast´ for 5 pounds for 2 people. Unfortuntely it was too much for us but we still enjoyed it. We were serenaded by a local chanteuse before we left to find a seat on the square where it was all happening . Despite being targetted by pigeons, we settled down for some relaxing people-watching over beer and wine in the warm spring sunshine. Sue has had an earache for the last 3 days but hopefully it will improve soon. We arrived late for the ´tango night´ in the local cafe so observed the locals in the very French bar instead. The rubbish we´ve noticed on the streets in B.A. is definitely the worst we´ve seen since we´ve been away.

Monday 30th August
Sleep was much easier with no blaring traffic racing past our windows. One of the staff at the reception desk here turns out to be called Patrick Murphy even though he is an Argentine - his Dad had some sort of Anglo-Celtic background. We phone the Irish embassy and were pleased to find out the post with our new cash and credit cards had arrived. Jumped in a taxi to the ´British Hospital´ (as it calls itself) where Sue could see an English speaking doctor - turned out we would have to back tomorrow to see the ear specialist. So back into another taxi to get to the Irish embassy before it closed for lunch . We paid the driver who had no change so we spent 10 minutes first looking for change and then deciding we´d better buy something to get change! Back to the hotel to sort out all the paperwork for the insurance claim, make some phone calls, buy another small rucksack and collect and sort out the laundry we´d had cleaned earlier. This is exactly the sort of stuff that´s meant we haven´t been able to ´move on´in the last 2 weeks. Now at last, we´re nearly there.

Tuesday 31st August
A bad night´s sleep for Sue with her ear infection getting worse. So after breakfast it was back into a taxi to head back to the British Hospital. After signing in, paying and waiting for about 30 minutes an ear infection was diagnosed in about 30 seconds. We took our Spanish prescription with us on the way to the bus station where we bought 2 ´luxury´ overnight seats for a 1500km, 19 hour journey to Peurto Icgazu for tomorrow evening. Next we visited a couple of pharmacies to try to get Sue´s prescription - but none of the pharmacies had both the drops and the antibiotics. In the end we bought them in different pharmacies accepting an alternative for the prescribed drugs. At the post office we discovered no sticky tape is allowed on letters or packages so we had to go and buy a new envelope and hope it all stays intact on the long journey back to Wiltshire. Once again, the morning had disappeared just getting things ´done´ - but hopefully this is the last bit for a while. We´re taking it easy for the afternoon as Sue´s ear is still quite painful but tonight we are off out to catch some local tango dancing.