Kate Newey was our international tour guide for BA. She gave us a list a mile long, along with tips from Jenny and Bryan and Neil and Manon, we had a lot to discover.

Our check-in at our apartment accommodation was the most memorable of our lives. After multiple annoying and unproductive emails pre-arrival, we were pleased that someone answered the door when we turned up. The chubby, young, near speechless Argentine guy lead us up the lift into our 8th floor apartment and quickly had us signing liability waivers. He then presented us with a check list of every item in the apartment, which we then had to identify and counter sign on two pieces of paper, of which we would both keep a copy. The list was hilarious, Adam and I had to stop making eyes at each other behind his back, we were both so close to losing it as we ticked off 1x rubbish bin, 1x kitchen table, 2x bedside lamps with globes!

Kates recommendation to do a tour with BA bikes was appreciated. We chose the South Circuit which took us on a riding tour of the more historical areas of BA. On our dodgy bikes, we ventured to the affluent, water side town of Puerto Madero, which was a failed shipping port turned into hip urban planning community. Next stop the colourful neighbourhood of Caminito, where tango was said to be born, and a crazy lady had dressed her dogs in jeans, jean shorts, t-shirts and caps to make money from pictures! Adam tried a ‘must have’ traditional Choripan sausage sandwich and around the corner we visited and heard the history of ‘La Bombonera’ Stadium or as our guide referred to it, ‘Church’. Crossing the 140mt, 12 lane wide Avenida 9 de Julio had us staring up at the giant murals of ‘Evita’ on the Ministry of Social Development building. Despite dying at the early age of 33, Evita achieved great things in her position as first lady and is known for her fight against woman’s suffrage and improving working conditions for the poor. She remains an admired and legendary figure in Argentina.

The most interesting stop for us was the Plaza de Mayo which proudly displays the ‘Casa Rosada’, the palatial, pink coloured, Government House. The building has a long history but in brief the exterior was painted baby pink in the 1860’s to defuse political tensions by mixing the red and white colours, the country's two opposing political parties. It was whilst standing at the Plaza de Mayo that we learnt of the horrendous history of the stolen children of Argentina and the creation of the activist group ‘The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo’. In the 1970’s, when the military junta regime was ruling the country, almost 500 children had their identities erased, after their parents were murdered and they were stolen to be adopted and brought up in families with loyal ideology to the regime.

The ‘Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’ were the initial responders to these human rights violations. Their organisation was created while trying to learn what had happened to their stolen children and grandchildren. Together, the women were a dynamic force. They came together, pushed for information, and carried out weekly silent and public protests at the Plaza de Mayo. Through their efforts they raised awareness both locally and on a global scale. Their legacy and subsequent progress has been life changing for some. It was reported in 2014 that the ‘mothers’ had helped to identify 114 young adults, who were stolen from their parents.

Two other day trips included train rides out to the Japanese Garden and the Recoleta Cemetery, both of which would have benefited from a tour guide or some more signs in English! The Japanese Garden was an oasis in the middle of the city, with water features, ponds filled with carp, my least favourite fish, and quirky new years wishes hanging on paper cranes and specialty papers in the trees. The cemetery was a bit creepy in the end, but we did manage to find the famous Evita grave stone.

Aside from these few activities, the rest of our days were spent getting through Newey’s food and drink suggestions. After the cemetery we ducked across the road to the recommended ‘Buller Pub’. We sat outside in the sunshine, ate a charcuterie platter, tried their house ales and received little to no service! When it came time to pay the bill, Adam asked the waitress what the expected tip rate was. Her response, “Whatever your heart desires!” and at that Adam said ok, zero! Hilarious.

I put makeup on for the first time in months before our trip out to Casa Coupage for dinner. The lovely Kate had gifted us an 8-course dinner with matching wines as a wedding present and we were pumped to be leaving our backpacker life style behind for an evening. The owner, Santiago, gave us special attention and conducted our wine match. It was a different style of match where he put two wines in front of us and let us decide which wine was best matched to our food. We were introduced to wine varieties that we had never even heard of and unusually had each of our tasting glasses constantly topped up! We had a fabulous evening of delicious food and even better wine. The only dampener on the evening was when Adam had to walk a 40-minute round trip at 1am to get cash from the nearest ATM as they didn’t take Mastercard.

Saigon restaurant was a Jenny and Bryan recommendation and was a fresh, street food style Vietnamese restaurant. The night we were there they had a Spanish music duo set up and we sat in the window, people watched as we ate our pho’s and listened to their traditional acoustic Latin American tunes!

The Mercado De San Telmo was a kitch, second-hand style market with stalls selling everything from recycled clothes to old-school super hero figurines. There was an abundance of restaurants and food stalls, my highlight the alfajore and dolce de leche shop where we got to taste test the countries 2017 winning Alfajore. Adam decided on a local barbeque for lunch and sat and ate from a grill, figuring out which cut of meat was the one he wanted by pointing to parts of his own body! I chose to eat at the Swiss ‘Je Suis Raclette’ café. The Argentine owner was super friendly and dished up delicious cheesy goodness on three different forms of potato. It was carb heaven served with a glass of chilled white wine. I couldn’t haven chosen more wisely!

Many people had said ‘Don Julio’ was an absolute must in BA. Around the corner from us in Palermo, the earliest reservation we could make was for 10pm. We set up on our balcony that over looked the city lights with a few beers to start and headed there when we would normally be on our way to bed! Our table wasn’t ready when we arrived, so we stood with around twenty others and sipped on complimentary sparkling while we waited. The steaks were so huge we ended up sharing one between us. We had an old man seated next to us who asked if we would mind if he smoked, unfortunately for him, Adam was honest and said yes, we would! Being American, he struck up conversation and told us he had visited BA every year for the past 25 years and not once with his wife!

The Harrison Speakeasy, was by far our favourite drink of BA. Hidden behind a Japanese restaurant, we were given a tour into the bar through a secret entrance, which lead us into a cupboard, via a secret cellar and into the 1920’s style bar complete with vintage cocktail glasses, menus on old newspapers and instructions to leave unseen out the back door! It was an extremely unexpected and memorable experience. We desperately wanted to get to Floreria Atlantico, speakeasy which was through a florist, but the visa issue called trumps.

So that takes us to the visa issue. Rio de Janeiro was a late addition to our travel plans and was only added to save us money in getting to Mexico City. We booked the flights, BA – Puerto Iguazu – Rio – Mexico City when we were in Patagonia with the worlds worst internet. At the time, and on multiple occasions afterwards, we would in passing say to each other ‘we really must check if we need a visa for Brazil’. With our flight to Brazil booked for the coming Monday, it wasn’t until 4pm on the Friday evening that we remembered to check online and to our horror we needed one. We read embassy web pages and online blogs and all signs pointed to the visas taking at least five working days to be processed, leaving us minus 4.5 days up our sleeve before our flight. I went into crazy panic mode and had a minor (or major) melt down attempting to submit the forms. To true form, Adam remained calm and had every faith we were going to Brazil. We were headed to Puerto Iguazu the following day so we crossed our fingers and hoped the travel gods were on our side. We stood to lose close to A$4000 so this was going to be an expensive oversight.