The BuqueBus docked at the port of Buenos Aires around midday on 1st March, leaving me three and a half days to explore Buenos Aires… and to try to get used to the idea that I will soon be leaving Latin America behind. I had better luck with accommodation, checking in to Hotel O’Rei on Lavalle, right in the centre of the city. I was given a small, clean, old fashioned room overlooked the street, which cost no more than the lousy place I stayed before.

Marcela had promised to show me round the city, and I had decided to take her up on this kind offer! Seeing the sights with a friendly local person will always beat wandering around with a guide book, looking lost. I rang her up and she said she’d meet me in Plaza de Mayo.

When I spotted her I was reminded that my guide book said that Latin Americans generally – and Argentinean girls in particular – err on the side of elegance when dressing to go out or socialise. Though I had my “best” clothes on I felt very scruffy in comparison, but she didn’t seem to mind! After a drink in a nearby pub we went on a long walk via different city sights to a trendy area with restaurants where we had a meal. It was quite late (10 pm) but clearly things were only just getting going – the restaurant was still filling up when we had already finished our main course.

The waiters were dressed very elegantly and were mostly late middle-aged men, going about their job in a very dignified and aloof fashion, which verged on the unfriendly! I was struck by how they swept the white table cloths with a straight piece of hard flat plastic or metal. Since Marcela and I had walked a long way, we got the bus back to the centre and she made sure I made it safely to the hotel. Lavalle, the street outside my window, was still full of people when I went up to my room.

Next day, Saturday 2nd March, I got off to a slow start and then I rang Andrea who I’d met climbing Volcán Villarica a month before. She said she would come and meet me at the hotel, and early afternoon she and 2 other girls turned up. We all went for a pizza which was even better than the pizzas I’d had elsewhere in Argentina, and then we wandered down to the port.

Andrea explained that the port provides the nickname for the people from Buenos Aires, which is Porteño, or “Port People”, but that she herself lives too far from the centre to want to be called Porteña, and is just “from Buenos Aires”. We wandered back to the Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada and I got the camera out.

I’d arranged to meet Marcela again later, and in the end the 4 of us found her, and we all 5 went for a drink, before Andrea and her friends said goodbye. Marcela’s plan for me was to then head for the old district of La Boca, a poor area which is home to Club Atlético Boca Juniors and the place where tango was invented. A couple of streets full of colourfully painted houses, with artists at work, had several tourists wandering around taking photos. We found a little café where we sat outside listening to 2 men playing tango music on a guitar and on a typical tango accordion, called a bandoneon.

At the dock near La Boca we visited an old Antarctic exploration ship called the Uruguay and then went for a nice dinner. I had steak with Roquefort cheese – I think it was the most delicious meal I’ve had all trip, and possibly the best steak I have ever had!

The evening was rounded off with a visit to a Tango Club called “A Media Luz“- this was amazing, very atmospheric, and the dance show was spectacular. Marcela explained that “A Media Luz” is the name of a well known tango:

It was well after midnight when the show ended and people slowly started leaving for home. Marcela had arranged for her Dad to come and pick us up, and take me back to my hotel. This was in the family’s Renault R6, which happens to be the model of car that I learned to drive in.

Thus ended a wonderfully sociable Saturday in Buenos Aires… those early lonely evenings in Mexico now feel like they happened long ago, on some previous trip! As an added bonus, that Saturday night I had an extra hour of sleep – the clocks changed back one hour!