We found that we could watch the All Blacks Ireland game on TV but only with Spanish commentary. Mike managed to get connected to Spark Sport through his iPad and it had good connection but played 5 minutes behind the tv on the screen. I turned down the volume and got to watch in advance (Mike not being able to see the TV well enough) so it was a bit like cheating. A great way to start the day.

While watching I bought a 48hour ticket for the hop on hop off bus tour around BA. We had a continental breakfast next door (nice coffee and lots of bread and toast) the got an Uber to the start of the tour where we had to get physical tickets for our online ticket. That was a bit Mickey Mouse. We had to wait about 25 minutes inside in a queue to show the voucher on my phone and then join the queue outside (in the sun) for over an hour until there was enough seats in a bus for us.

There are 3 routes so we decided to do all and then choose where we wanted to revisit. It was a bit chilly on the upper deck despite the sun but the views were great. The first route stared down town then went to La Boca which is an older and poorer part of the city which is the home of a huge football stadium and club and is very working class. Many of the buildings are painted yellow and blue (the colours of Sweden being the first immigrant ship) and the colours of La Boca Juniors football club.

Not far away is Carmenito which is an area of tenement housing built after a major fire and is an area of the former docks. It fell into serious disrepair and was the area os considerable discontent with many differ cultures forced to live and work together. Since the 1940s it has been revitalised as an area of arts with many of the buildings brightly painted. It is also the area where tango dancing began and this is now part of Argentinian cultural heritage. It’s all very colourful but many of the buildings are pretty rudimentary with a lot of corrugated iron and must be perishingly cold in winter.

From there the route goes to the former port which has been converted into a very modern housing and business area. We hopped off near the Japanese garden and walked across to where we could rejoin the green route that takes us around the coast. By that stage it was after 3 pm so we found a cafe and had some cheese and ham and pickles with a glass of rose + stop. It was very pleasant. Most people have very little English but in cafes you can usually manage to order something sensible and work out the bill.

We rejoined the bus without having to queue and enjoyed the route which took us eventually into Palermo where we were able to get off and navigate back to our hotel. The bus stop was by a park that had a market all around it. I got a couple of custom made belts which I was really pleased with. I’d forgotten to bring any with me. The parks are everywhere and very well patronised by families who are accustomed to high rise living.

I had to phone Vodafone for help about my phone not connecting to the internet despite there being data available. After waiting about 20 minutes I got a helpful man who directed me to reset my network connections and hey presto- it worked. This time we didn’t go home in a circle. Unfortunately the reset networks fix isn’t a permanent fix%!

We called into the cafe next door where we had breakfast and got a glass of wine, some olives and nuts (we ordered chips and he came back with nuts. We thought he’d misunderstood but evidently they were just out of chips so we got nuts instead). Then we navigated around the block to a wine shop where we bought a couple of bottles of red wine to have in our room ( not necessarily that night or even before we leave Argentina!). All wine bottles have corks so we got glasses and a corkscrew from reception.

Even though it was only 9pm we were exhausted so were quickly asleep without trying the wine. A beautiful mild evening after a thoroughly lovely day.