Southern Summer, Argentina, Chile and Y Wladfa Gymreig 9th Jan

Buenos Aires is a bit like Stoke on Trent. I am not here making comparison with the football but the fact they are both federations of smaller towns. Much smaller towns in Stoke's case as BA is home to 5 million souls. Today we did the open topped bus tour. The itinerary is ambitious and takes more than three and a half hours. It was packed full of information and, of course sites, complicated by the fact it loops round and doubles back on several occasions. I suspect one could have gone round twice and not really noticed. The organisation was all a little tacky. It was hard to buy tickets, lots of the headsets malfunctioned, we crashed into another car which resulted in a chase and an altercation.  The thing stopped and we were told to get off so we all piled into a bar in Bocas, ordered drinks, only to be told to get on again. Now we had different seats and the headset problem again. Never mind have a look at some pictures instead.

You get the idea 

The National Gallery 

 The front of the Colon Theatre, mainly a venue for opera

Home to Bocas Juniors FC one of the big two in BA

Some of the new development on Puerto Madero

The back of the Parliament building with all the ministry buildings surrounding it. 

Political graffiti is still very much alive . Looks like Che, Eva,and Guy Fawkes but I rather doubt that. 

Looking up one of the huge Boulevards towards the obelisk. 

This is a massive stainless steel sculpture of a flower. It opens with the sun and follows it round 

More striking recent development. Banks and Electronic equipment manufacturers of course. 

Every guide book you read about BA gives a high recommendation for a visit to Recoleta Cemetery. This is somewhat akin to the Glasgow Necropolis. All the great and the good finish up here. One family competes with another for a more flamboyant permanent mark on the world. Some families gave up the race decades ago and their memorials are becoming a crumbling embarrassment of neglect. Others are visited on a regular basis and none more so than Eva Peron. It's not easy to find so Helen asks a security guard who starts rubbing his thumb against his fingers. He's after cash! Is nothing sacred? We don't pay him and he shows us the place anyway. 

A view down one of the many streets of the dead 

A more modern take on the old theme. 

Nineteenth century stone work 

The area outside the cemetery is a wide open space, dominated by a huge tree which fortunately the locals help to support. This rubber tree is almost impossible to do justice with a photograph 

due to its size. It is 20 metres high and a whopping 50 metres wide. It was planted in 1800, probably to create shade, a job it does even better today.

There is also a craft market and the chance for various people to perform for your delectation and their profit. Here's a tango dancer looking for a partner.