Buenos Aires

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Buenos Aires seems like quite a nice city. There are lots of cafes and restaurants around, and lots of shops. It seemed pretty wealthy too until we were sat outside a cafe in the evening and a constant stream of children came over asking for money.
On our first day here we looked around the central part of the city including the main plaza where the palace is situated. It is from the balcony of that palace that lots of people have given various rousing speeches, including Eva Peron. We also looked up and down the shopping streets and went to the cinema to watch Spidey 3.
That evening we went to an old tango cafe to have dinner and see a Tango show. It was quite fun. The band consisted of three old men - one with a keyboard, one with an accordian and the other with a double bass. There were two singers and two dancers. We thought it might be a bit more steamy, but it was quite good anyway.

Yesterday was a typical autumn day, with grey skies and plenty of drizzle, so we didn't really do very much. Today we ventured out from the centre to one of the barrios - Recoleta. We went to a cool cemetery with row upon row of above ground tombs. It was a goth's paradise. Lots of eerie statues and cool twenties font on the tombs. It's all mostly the tombs of generals and doctors from the late 19th century and early 20th century, when Agentina was rich. Lots of people go to the cemetery because that is where the Peron mauseleum is, but that one wasn't very interesting compared to a lot of the others.

All around the cemetery there were craft stalls. Proper caft stals too, which was nice, rather than the craft stalls you get in Peru and Bolivia, which all sell exactly the same stuff. We bought a couple of final souvenirs and then headed across to the National Art Musuem. There was a good display of work by one artist who painted form the 60s until now, but the rest of the art was a bit dreary.

This evening we'll pack our rucksacks for the final time (hooray!), and then we'll catch a flight home tomorrow to arrive back in the UK on Monday morning.