Sunday 31 January

Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires, Argentina

Another early start. We are nearing the end of our South American tour, with only Buenos Aires to go (3 nights). This was the strictest with weight control of baggage, resulting in the youngest of us (mid-30s and daughter of one of our couples) having to pay for her excess baggage (thankfully not as much as it could have been!).

view from our hotel window

man selling sarongs outside our hotel

approach to airport

To give an idea of why you need an early start when catching a plane. Airlines use a minimum of staff everywhere, only 4 counters dealing with three international flights – so long queues. Once you book your luggage in, you then go through security, but need to show passport and boarding card before entering the area (so only boarding passengers go through security), then to immigration where passports and boarding passes are again checked.

Plane food so far is nothing to write home about! Ate a bit of the plane sandwiches today – white and brown bread with ham and cheese. Not at all appetising! Later had some food at the hotel.

On our descent to the airport we noticed how green Buenos Aires was, how the roads in the suburbs were well laid out and that properties had back yards and some had swimming pools. – a big difference to Rio, Lima and other South American cities we have visited.

In the evening we all went to a dinner/tango show. Can’t rave about the food but the show was excellent. We were treated to dancers, singers, and musicians, and two dancer/musicians dressed as gauchos who were brilliant on the drums and boleadoras (slings used to bring down cattle, which sound like whips being cracked when twirled and hit against the floor rhythmically), and fancy foot-stomping. The troupe finished off by singing ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ from the musical Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Odd choice, I thought, given that she didn’t ever say that phrase, and that it really isn’t Argentinian, when everything else had been. Anyway, perhaps just for the tourists!

Lesley was feeling dodgy again, so didn’t eat the masses of meat (Argentinians love their meat!). We got back to the hotel after midnight.