Buenos Aires. Monday 20th November 2006.

This morning we head out for the city Zoo, which it is claimed is the second best in the world...not sure how they work these things out? Anyway, it is closed and so we simply head across the road and into the beauty of the Botanical Gardens.

Buenos Aires seems to be a city of cats and I see them lazying here and there in the shade of the big old trees. The Elm trees prove to be particularly popular.

The Jardin Botánico Carlos Thays is not the grandest botanical gardens I have ever seen but still very cute.

We then head from Palermo on the subte and Carlos asks a man for directions. He is Frankenstein's monster...by this I mean that he is obviously recovering from a facelift visible both from his windblown appearance that defies his age and the staples on show.

In the Plaza San Martin there is an open air art exhibit of giant plastic hearts (based on the concept of the Chicago Cow that swept the art world in the 1990´s).

We head off for ice-creams at the Florida Garden Café before having that British staple of Tarde Té at the Plaza Hotel. The Plaza is the work of the architect Alfred Zucker, well-known for his work on St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York and it was inaugurated in 1909.

It is an interesting afternoon tea with that South American staple of the ham and cheese sandwich coming toasted as a course all on its own.

Back at my hotel I decide to try out the Baños Turcos again...after all, it's free.
I discover today that not all the cubicles have names, it is only those of the central aisle and today I am in number 8.

I really love Buenos Aires, it genuinely is the Paris of the south!

A footnote today is that my e-mail is cut off making project work impossible. I anxiously write to yahoo so lets hope things get sorted soon.