Don't cry for me Argentina

I`ve been told and have read that Argentina is the place to go, and after one day in Buenos Aires I concur. Buenos Aires is a cross between Brisbane and Melbourne (add 13 million people) with the history of a European city AND is about one quarter the price of Australia - at the most. Very different to Rio. Rio was a very intense city - everyone walking down the streets sizing each other up to either steal from them or kiss them. Buenos Aires is cooler and less humid and far more western, every corner could quite easily be somewhere in Melbourne. I think I prefer Rio, although I need to learn some Portuguese before I go back to Brazil. We watched a film on a our last night in Rio called ´The City of God´ which is based in the slums of Rio - I recommend everyone see it, quite graphic, but an excellent film (has subtitles - is in Portuguese).

We had an early dinner last night (9:30pm - early for Argentineans) at a very fancy grill, the meal consisted of liver, blood sausage, steak, chicken, sausage and some fatty thing that surrounds the heart apparently. Met up with Pablo - Argentinean mate from Canberra - who was a legend and gave a detailed guided tour of Buenos Aires by night and wrote down a detailed itinerary for us for today, which includes a traditional Argentinean BBQ with his family tonight. Although given my current need to be within cartwheeling distance of a bathroom we haven`t done any of it yet, but the BBQ tonight should be fun.

Buenos Aires is also an absolute bargain, when we arrived yesterday I had $4.50 Pesos in my pocket at the airport to get into the hostel, after catching a 2 hour bus ride and the metro to the hostel I had a burger and a beer at one of the monuments and I still had $0.40 pesos in my pocket!!