We got a flight from Rio to Buenos Aires to save on time, it was such a mission trying to book it. We've been trying to book it for weeks unsuccessfully. The bus journey would have roughly been the same price as the flight, so we just went with it. After landing at the airport, we had to catch a 40 minute bus, then a taxi, as the airport is quite far away from the central area. It was late at night, and we'd heard the streets can be dangerous late night here, so thought best to grab a cab when we didn't know where we were heading. Our hostel is on Lima Street, which is centrally located, so that will be handy for us. We found it and checked in for a good nights sleep.

'Cambio'

The next day, our task was to try and exchange up some dollars we got in Rio . If you get some crisp large US dollar bill notes, you can exchange them at the black market on Florida Street. It's illegal supposedly, but there are men standing everywhere in the streets saying 'cambio', change. If you do it, you get more dollars to the peso, at present, the value is around 14, compared to just 9 if you draw out money from an ATM. We were a bit worried about exchanging money in the streets, but we walked up and down the street first, getting the prices of some people. We ended up settling with the first guy that we spoke to in the end. There are police walking up and down the streets too, so perhaps they turn a blind eye to it all.

Argentinean steak...

We could relax now the money was sorted, so we went off to explore some of the sights around us. There are lots of big shopping malls and the high street is pretty good too. We didn't do too much else that day as the weather is around 33 degrees so it's too hot to be wandering around the whole city. In the evening, we decided to go for a steak, well John wanted steak . As we're in Argentina, they are suppose to serve the best streaks in the world, so John wanted to give it a try. He found a restaurant online that someone we met earlier on the trip recommended. It serves half price steak, as long as you order it by 7.30pm, or until all the tables are full. It was over the other side of town, so we had to take the metro line to get there. We had to walk a long way from the line, so we were worried we'd miss it. We got in there and thought we were too late, but they gave us their last table, luck was on our side this time! We ordered quickly and John went for a lovely rump streak, I ordered chicken, sad i know, but I don't like steak. We had some red wine, which I don't normally drink, but this was actually really flavoursome wine that didn't taste too strong. When the food came out, the portions were huge, I will never eat all of it. They served us lots of mini side dishes, plus nearly a whole chicken and John's steak was quite a big portion, which was good for him. He loved the steak, but wished there was more! The only thing I didn't like about it was that we were rushed towards the end, because they have a second sitting of people, who pay the normal price, so they hurried everyone along! We sat outside in the garden finishing off our wine then left to catch the tube back.

Recollecta cemetery

Our next day was spent walking over to the Recollecta cemetery, which is where Eva Peron is buried . Not that we know much about her, but we decided to visit the cemetery as it's one of the main attractions here. We did also want to go to the boca juniors area, but it was a mission trying to buy a bus ticket without a bus card, so gave up on that idea. The walk there seemed to take like forever and my legs were almost giving up on me in the heat by the time we got there. We found the cemetery and entered through, it wasn't like any other one i've ever been to. There were rows and rows of miniature church like buildings, each one encasing a coffin or a whole family. It was like each one was a tomb where the dead get buried. They must have cost a fortune as some were made or marble, stones, and some had gold on. It seems the rich and famous could take their money through to the other side! We also found Eva Peron's grave, it was a smaller tomb than we'd seen, she was buried amongst her family. There were flowers surrounding her grave. Each and every grave was intricately built and the set up of the graveyard was well constructed. There were so many tombs here. I wonder how much it would cost to be buried here. The tomb next to Eva Peron's was up for sale, I expect that would be expensive to purchase. It was interesting to visit, but we didn't stay too long as we have to get back in time to attend a tango lesson, tango show and dinner tonight.

Tango lesson and tango show

We hurried back to our hostel to get ready for the tango lesson, show and dinner . We got changed and waited to be picked up, they were late, so we could have spent longer getting ready. When they arrived, there were about 15 people on the minibus. We said hi and got driven to the location of the show. I wasn't expecting it to be one of the main venues as they cost a lot of money, but it was some backstreet venue. We went inside to the dance studio and waited there for our tango lesson. More and more people were arriving so if we all have to dance in here, it's going to get rather cramped. Eventually our instructor came in and introduced himself and he separated the boys and girls. He showed us some basic steps, so we had to time them with the tango music. We danced with our own partners first, then we had to swap around, which I wasn't looking forward to as it takes me a while to coordinate my moves. We had the lesson for an hour, building up steps to put into a routine. Eventually we came together with our partners and danced the routine. It was fun, but both myself and John are not too good at the dance moves, so we just had a laugh trying! We did enjoy trying to learn tango anyhow.

Once that was out of the way, we went upstairs, where a gourmet meal was prepared for us. We had a choice of starters, main course and desert. We were also entitled to each have some wine. When they brought it to us, there was one bottle of red and one white. If that's just for us, we're going to be slightly tipsy tonight! We started on the wine and then our food came, it was delicious . We had the starters and main course when we were about to have desert, they dimmed the lights and the tango show began. We had to eat desert in the dark, but that's cool as we were watching the tango show. It basically took us through the years of tango in Buenos Aries, it started off in Paris and came to Argentina, where it became popular. It just so happened that our tango teacher was starring in the show. There were all groups of different dancers and they all performed well. The show lasted for around an hour and a half, by the time it had finished, we were all a little merry. We thoroughly enjoyed the evening, but we weren't ready to go back to bed. So when the minibus dropped us back to the hostel, we had some drinks there, met some other guys and ended up going partying in Buenos Aires until the wee hours of the morning. We went to some other bars and nightclub until my feet were ready to drop off, so took a taxi back to the hostel.

Getting robbed

The next morning, we were both suffering with a major hangover and were really tired as we'd had a late one last night. We're supposed to be catching a bus out of here today, which is a mission in itself. John checked out before me as he wanted to stop at the shop to buy something, so I said I would meet him in a bit. While he checked out, he was sitting on a bench in the park waiting for me and he had all his belongings with him . He just looked away for a split second and someone had come up behind him and took his day pack with his laptop and camera stuff in it. They ran off so quickly, that he wasn't able to chase them as he had his big rucksack there too. He went to the police station trying to report it, but had to go to several police stations carrying his other bag in the heat. I didn't know any of this at the time, as I was still at the hostel, so when we eventually met up, he told me. I was gutted that the laptop and camera stuff had been stolen, but to thank the lucky stars, I had backed up all our travel photos on the external hard drive the other day, so hadn't actually lost any pictures. It's a hassle we don't need, but these things can happen anywhere.

Due to all that happening, we couldn't catch the bus we wanted to, so had to end up staying another night in Buenos Aires. We booked a ticket out of here to Puerto Madryn for the next day. The bus terminal in Buenos Aires is the biggest one we've ever been to and we ended up loosing each other while we were inquiring to different companies about the prices. We spent a few hours frantically searching for each other, so that was an extra stress that we didn't need on top of what already happened. Eventually, I saw John, so shouted to him and we met up again. Next time, we're sticking side by side. We returned to stay in the hostel for a night, but there was a power cut, so went straight to bed as we were knackered. The next day, we caught the metro to the bus terminal, hoping that we could catch our bus as normal. We had a few problems trying to find where the bus went from, but we did in the end and hopped on it, putting what has happened in the last few days behind us.