Another lazy breakfast. We then walked to the Teatro Colon (again with Gill who had also planned to visit the theatre). This theatre is the main concert hall and opera house. We took a guided tour of the theatre and it is really beautiful with marble and stained glass and gold leaf and mosaic floors and fabulous chandeliers, high ceilings, very grand auditorium with hundreds of boxes and huge stage. Well worth the visit. We left Jill to post her postcards and went off to put the blog up to date as we have been quite behind and are moving on tomorrow and probably won't have internet access for another couple of days...... We went to Starbucks as we needed to use skype for a UK hotel booking for Emma's graduation and we collected a specially ... read more

Got up and took a huge bag of joint washing to the local launderette for collection later. (Jo had run out of socks!) 3GBP well spent..... We walked to the main square and tried to take dollars out of our dollar card in order to pay the next leg of the trip's kitty. BIG PROBLEM. News on national TV implied that the Government has now banned the issuing of dollars from cash machines (which had been a common feature of nearly all the machines throughout the countries we have visited so far). Even the machines that say 'dollars only' would only dispense Argentinian pesos. This is a bit of a nuisance really as the plan had been to take dollars out when we needed them. Aaah well.... we'll sort something out. After no success with the ... read more

Left the Estancia around 9.30 am for a short drive to Cordoba, a reasonably large city. Arrived around lunch time and checked into a hostel where we were able to upgrade to a double room with private bathroom. We checked in and went around the corner to buy some lunch from an empanada bakery where the selection would have been excellent had they had all varieties available although cooking was continuous. After a chicken and a vegetarian with ricotta cheese empanada each and a drink, we wandered into town to the Main Square. We had a look at the Cathedral and walked down the pedestrian area and looked at the shops. We then returned to the hostel and had showers and sat around a while and walked back into the centre to find a restaurant for ... read more

It was our group´s cooking turn so we prepared a packed lunch just after breakfast had been cleared for people to take away for later of rolls with cheese/salami, tomato and cucumber with either an apple or banana and a chocolate bar. Ed went horse-riding at about 11.00am with the majority of the group to a nearby waterfall about 1 hour and a half away. He ate lunch at the waterfall then rode back to the ranch around 3.30 pm. The horses were very docile and clearly could have been left on automatic transmission and steering! All was nearly at walking pace as the pace was restricted by terrain and the other horses in the group. This was an extremely relaxing pace with nice green scenery over rolling hills with lots of gates to go through, ... read more

We left the campsite very early so we had to pack up the tent before it got light which is never fun and we set off on the road. After an hour's drive, we visited some ruins (Quilmes). We had a guide who explained that this was a large community whose elders and shaman lived on a hillside along with guards who could see who was coming and that community survived three wars with the Spanish and was the last stronghold of Incan people to successfully resist the Spanish for any length of time. When the elders were captured, they were hung drawn and quartered and the people were forced to walk several hundred miles in captivity, many of whom died and many of whom decided to jump off the hillside and kill themselves rather than ... read more