We´ve spent the day wandering around Buenos Aires and it´s been great fun. the city itself has more traffic than you can shake a (very large) stick at, and you have to watch your step with cars, lorries, trucks, bikes, motorbikes, pedestrians etc... all going at 100mph. It´s a bnit reminiscent of some of the Asian cities; Phnom Penh, Beijing, Bangkok, but with it´s balconies with little plants, and leafy tree lined streets it looks more akin to the boulevards of Paris. We have taken time out to visit La Recoleta which is one of the worlds largest and most grand cemeteries. It is also where the Duarte family is buried, you may know one of them better as Eva Peron, or Evita. Evita is still ´worshipped´by many people as she transcended the barriers of class within the country, and from a poor family rose to be the wife of the President. She died aged just 33, and a few years later her husband was forced into exile. Not the happiest of endings but there you go...it´s not Hollywood you know!!!

After there we moved on to the Museum de Bella Artes, which had numeroud Degas and Picasso pictures, a section on Argentinian art (some weird stuff there!!), the first ever Rothko I´ve seen in the canvas, and a copy of Rhodin´s ´The Kiss´, or at least I presume it´s a copy, the original must be somewhere in Europe?

Next door is a huge park, sponsored by Tetrapak, which has a massive flower that opens and closes, we only saw it open, and it didn´t close anytime we were there but it does...apparently.

Helen and Rich have upped sticks and moved in at our hotel. It´s about 15 quid a night and it´s got en suits, cable etc...we couldn´t get in at any of the hostels so we´re pretty happy. the plan is to spend a few more days here before heading north.

In other news we had a British Airways experience that wasn´t all bad...we couldn´t get on a flight to Easter Island (all full for the whole of Nov/Dec, ahhhh well next time eh?) so we just re-routed so the plan is now:

12 and 13/11 Rio to Lima (via Santiago)

4/12 Lima to Quito (via Stgo)

This will give us about 2 weeks to go from B.A. through Iguazu to Rio, spend some time there and head over to Lima. We then have about 2 weeks in Peru to get around Nazca, Arequipa, Puno, Puerto Maldonado (rainforest), Cusco, and, of course, Macchu Picchu.

We have also finalised the Galapagos and a big shout to my brother who booked and paid for the whole thing whilst we sorted out a few money issues. The one we went for in the end is here , should be an amazing end to a hell of a year.