Sinead on an orange bike, Philippe doing the tango and a mad Scotsman at our door... only in Buenos Aires!

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Champagne really helps you get over the fact that you are stuck in a bus for 17 hours. Whiskey and wine help too. The bus company must have cottoned on to this fact a while ago, as we were plied with drink during our first experience of first-class travelling. We had stumped up the extra cash to get ourselves a fully reclinable seat with a little wall behind us. We did not regret the extra fiver spent as we whiled away the afternoon sipping beverages and watching movies before being fed a hot meal at the very Argentinian dining hour of 10pm. We arrived in Buenos Aires at nine in the morning feeling surprisingly refreshed and ready to roam.

A kind hostel representative pointed us in the direction of the metro system a few blocks away. Five stops and less than three pesos later we were at our hostel. We were too early for check-in and so deposited our bags, acquired a map and went to investigate the city. I picked a point on the map and we wandered in that direction. Having heard that "B.A." was the place to be, we were somewhat surprised to see that the streets were empty! It was like being in a parallel universe as we stood in the middle of Avenida de Mayo to take a picture of the park. It took us a while to remember that it was Bank Holiday Monday and that we had met most of Buenos Aires up at the Iguazu Falls. Almost everything was closed but the monuments and buildings were still there, so we headed off to do something cultural. We found the balcony in the Casa Rosada where Evita stood to address the crowd below her. We also stumbled into a tango exhibition in Harrod's that whet our appetite to learn the tango while in Buenos Aires. Could two co-ordinationly challenged individuals actually work together to create something that beautiful?

We made our way back to the hostel to claim our room and take a nap. We were roused from our sleep by a knock on the door, swiftly followed by the impressive entrance of a mad Scotsman. We were delighted when we recognised him to be Alex, our old friend from our Annecy days. He was in Buenos Aires for a few weeks learning Spanish! What is 4 years between friends?! Clearly nothing, when it comes to Annecy reunions. We exchanged insults and then decided to go get steak and beer in a local parilla.

Oh my God the steak was huge. I mean size-of-your-head huge. For just six euro we got a large slab of Argentinian cow. As we resurrected happy memories and updated each other on all the gossip, we didnt notice the time go by. This was not a problem though because Buenos Aires only wakes up at midnight! We guzzled beer in the Gibraltar Pub before laughing all the way home. It was just like old times. Alex turned up again the next evening and we again gorged on steak and beer while watching a free tango show in a restaurant in San Telmo. Buenos Aires really has a great nightlife, but you must be prepared to adapt to the local eating times - nowhere is open before 8.30pm!

Determined to do more than eat steak and drink beer, we signed ourselves up for the Tango Complejo Trip in the hostel. The morning of the tour we walked to Boca, the artistic area of Buenos Aires. As we passed the Boca stadium they were already preparing for the football match that evening. Several stalls were already setting up their massive barbeques in the park, pre-cooking several animals-worth of meat. The blue and yellow flags and scarves were out and security was already tight around the venue. We managed to get a photo of Maradona's star on the footballers walk of fame before making our way to Caminita. This colourful area has tango dancing, artwork and singing in the streets. Time after time you are encouraged (shouted at) to dine in one of the over-priced restaurants on the main street.

Next we decided to rent bicycles to get a better impression of the city. I know...me on a bike in a big city...bad idea. But given that Philippe had agreed to the tango lessons, I had to give it a shot. Philippe is Dutch and therefore merges with a bike once he sits on it. The fact that I havent sat on a bike in almost a decade didn't really come into it. As we set off on our bicycleta naranjas, the first hurdle was cobblestones. Great, aswell as trying to remember how to cycle I also had to deal with the vibrations from the street! As Philippe shouted directions I focussed on making my way across the giant intersection in front of me. We passed by the new Docklands area of Buenos Aires and made our way to the Eco-Reserve. The Eco-Reserve was basically a big field that still is home to some birds. I can't say I was all that interested in the field, but I was grateful to be out of the city traffic for a while.

When we emerged from the park we made our way to the boat terminal where we reserved our tickets for our day trip to Uruguay. Tempting faith we said we may aswell get our bus tickets out of BA aswell. We hadn't counted on it being rush hour in Buenos Aires!! There were cars everywhere. Even at the pedestrian crossings we couldn't manoeuver the bikes across the road to the bus station. Eventually we ended up stepping out and putting our hand up to the oncoming cars-if we hadn't we would still be there at midnight.

We passed on getting the bus-tickets, instead opting to go to the Recoleta area of town. We were running short of time, but did manage to find the statue of Evita Peron before we had to head back with the bikes. We thought it best to avoid the main arteries of the city, but everywhere was pretty full of traffic. After fifteen minutes of looking terrified and having to break for cars that stop in the middle of nowhere with no warning, I decided to act like a Porteno(resident), and I stopped being a considerate cyclist and went hell for leather through the busy streets of BA. It should be classified as an extreme sport!

When we dropped the bikes back about 6km later, I could have done with a stiff drink. We had no time for it however, as after a quick change we were off to the tango show. The bus collected us at 6.45pm and made its way through the (now familiar) surrounding streets to pick up other students. As other English speakers boarded the bus we traded stories of how rubbish our dancing would be, and decided that we were among friends. The class would be a bit of a laugh, and no one was extremely serious about learning the steps.

As we were seated at our table and fed a bottle of red, my shoulders relaxed. We chatted amiably with Kim, a girl from the bus, and by the time the class started we were up for the challenge. We fell over ourselves and each other for the first ten minutes, trying to learn how to walk in a circle while dragging our feet. The boys and girls were then seperated and each shown opposing steps. I was mortified to be volunteered (thanks Kim!) to demonstrate with the instructor. Then they set us loose with our
partners. Philippe and I were pleasantly surprised to learn that we could manage the 8 step routine without too much carnage. We seperated again to learn the advanced step, which led to much confusion over why the girls counted to 11 and the boys to 8. We figured it out in the end, and when we were presented with our certificates at the end of the class we were considering entering Strictly Come Dancing when we get back!

The show that followed the dinner put paid to these ideas. How legs can move that fast and lift that high is beyond me. As the girls were skillfully flung around the stage in their dresses slitted up their arm-pits and matching underwear (you'd need it!) they were admired by the men and women in the audience, but for different reasons! We saw five different classic scenes from Tango history and by the end the whole audience had fallen in love with the dance.

In one day we had sprinted through what there is to do in Buenos Aires. The next day we were up early for our day trip to Uruguay. We had heard that Montevideo was very similar to Buenos Aires, so we instead chose to take the (cheaper) three hour slow boat across the Plata River to Colonia. Another stamp added to the passports, we arrived there in time for lunch on a patio in the sun. As we enjoyed Chivita the most popular Uruguayian dish, an old-timers parade drove by. We followed our map around the square, pausing in one or two of the ten museums. The historical district of Colonia is a nice little area with cobblestones underfoot and well preserved old buildings everywhere. Deciding against visiting the Tile museum, we instead passed some time on the stoney beach where Philippe befriended every animal that passed. With only enough time for a beer, we toasted our brief visit to Uruguay and found our way back to the ferry.

A couple of hours later we were back in the hostel in Buenos Aires trying to fit all our stuff back in those tiny rucksacks. We are off to Puerto Madryn on another 18 hour bus to hopefully see some whales...

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