Everyone loves Palermo. Its quiet cobbled streets, the pavements marked every few yards by large leafy trees that bend over the road (I should know the species, but no), are packed with gently trendy restaurants, bars, shops. When George and I risked dissolving into puddles of salty water as we ventured out into other nearby barrios in the baking heat, it was always a pleasure returning. For me, the art, sanctioned or otherwise, that creeps up the walls of the buildings is a particular attraction. I found a couple of amazing shops with the same kind of feel, being, as they are, exercises in pointless graphic design. I resisted the impulse to buy useless books of pictures and random bric-a-brac at a particularly good one (the unfortunately named "Trippin´") and limited myself to a sketchbook, with a whimsical cartoon monster on the cover.

I wish I could say the George exercised similar retail restraint in Buenos Aires. But I can´t. What should have been a 30 minute walk along the shopping street Santa Fe, turned into a 2 hour expedition, and we bounced in and out of malls and shops. This was supposedly in the name of finding me some flip-flops and a hat, but the number of dresses tried on (not by me) led me to suspect otherwise. However, it was good to have an air-conditioned break every now again again. It really is unbelievably hot.

The trip down Santa Fe was part of a longer walk to BA´s VIP corpse-city, the walled Recoleta Cemetary. It´s not exactly "labyrinthine" (as the guidebooks would have you believe) but its crammed full of tombs, each one in a different style, all laid along streets and around plazas, and I loved it (although, philistine that I am, the only name I recognised in there was Eva Peron´s).

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The plane was delayed for 4 hours. We sat on it for 16 - 1 of which was spent on the runway at Sao Paulo. Luckily, sleep, "The Other Guys" and "Tamara Drewe" made it more or less bearable. That, and the fact that it was taking me on a 14 week holiday.

As I stepped out of the plane, on the the steps to the runway, I watched the ground advance with excitement. As my foot hit South America for the first time, a bolt of euphoria reverberated through my soul - the beat of the tango, the bloodied legacy of the conquistodors, the freedom of the gauchos, with the warm Patagonian wind on their face - like a space out of time and body, the whole of Argentina, of South America, was there thudding through my veins. No, of course it bloody wasn´t. It just felt like stepping onto hot concerete. But I´m meant to say somethng like that, aren´t I? On my travels? It´s just been so long.

Off the hot concrete, a long wait in immigration, ink staining my new passport for the first time. Cash out of the machine, and a pleasant taxi ride to our hotel in Buenos Aires, a nice little boutiquey thingy on Palmero Hollywood, recommended by Matt.

I´m being rushed out to supper now by George (it´s a couple of days later), but quickly I´d just like to share with you the obsession she´s developed over the last 48 hours (sweatily wandering through BA´s sweltering streets) about the beauty of certain Argentinian women. It´s reached such a level, that I have felt obliged to try and understand what it´s about. So, I have studied their long, olive brown legs, clad only slightly in denin shorts, their tumbling black hair and their plunging necklines, and I´m at a loss. I can´t see it at all, and shall have to try harder. Right, steak.

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