15th - 16th April - Buenos Aires

Paul took the whole group on a walking tour of Buenos Aires for the day. We started off taking a trip on the underground to Plaza Italia, from there we walked down a small colourful street, similar to Newtown. We stopped at a cafe for breakfast/coffee and a look around the shops in the area. We saw a few dog walkers with about 10 dogs on leads that were very well behaved. We then walked through the botanical gardens, where there were many stray cats. We also walked past the zoo and through other parks, full of ponds, rose gardens gravel walkways and sculptures. We ended up walking to Recoleta Cemetary which is full of crypts where we could see the coffins and stairs down to the lower levels. An amazing experience. We also found Eva Perons grave which was rather low key compared to many of the others.We finished the day by going to a Tango lesson, 3 course dinner and tango show. It was excellent! We even liked the piano accordian.
16th We went out to lunch with Paul and half the group, in San Telmo. The restaurant was supposed to serve the 2nd best steak in Argentina. It was very good. David and I shared as the meals are so huge. After lunch we caught taxis to La Bocca, which is a part of town with very colourful buildings and the areas surrounding it are poor and dodgey so you have to catch a cab there. It was very touristy and there was a Diego Maradona lookalike who was charging to have a photo taken with him. He had a photo of himself with the real Maradona and it was hard to pick who was who. In the afternoon we walked the main shopping Mall called Florida avenue, it was about a kilometer long. Towards the end of the day it was getting very smokey due to fires surrounding the city and the lack of wind to take it away. We had our first meeting with our new tour leader Zaida and 3 new people on the trip, Sarah, Thomas and Linda. Then went out for our final dinner with Paul at a very ritzy restaurant. David and I shared a meal again, Kid on a spit!