Important stuff first, and another trip to the music store, just to make sure that I was fully stocked up for the trip to the Chubut. I went with the intention of buying just the one album, but then the Super Furry Animals album winked at me, and for twenty pesos, I just couldn�t leave it standing on the shelf.

After the music store, I visited the Tourist Centre for Chubut which I had stumbled upon a few days earlier. This time it was open and thinking that it might be useful for my work I posed as a �normal� tourist asking for information.

Personally, I would have thought that the halting Spanish would have been enough of a giveaway, but the assistant whizzed through her material, explaining that August, of course, would be the best time for a short break in the Andes to go ski-ing or that if skiing wasn�t my bag then I could wait a few months and go the Atlantic coast and watch the ickle penguins. Awww.

She did look a bit bemused when I asked about the Welsh, and seemed positively confused when I lost the plot for a moment and asked her something in English, but I think that�s understandable under the circumstances.

They don�t have HSBC in Holland. I discovered that when I lived in Utrecht for a year. �Hello, sir�, they would ring me up, and say �you haven�t collected your card yet, we can send it to your nearest branch. For some reason, it kept coming up as Harwich.

No such problems in Buenos Aires, where I�ve spotted three branches already, including one big giant fortress style castle on the main shopping street.

The security is certainly necessary as it does seem to be in an area which is Civil Disturbance Central. When I walked past the first time today, there was a well-dressed middle aged woman painting �Ladrones� (�Thieves�) on the building opposite which belonged to an insurance company. Her accomplice�s marking pen wasn�t working, though, so she had to go the shop next door for another one.

Anyway, I popped into HSBC, explained to the doorman that scraggy overlong jeans were the business suit for the new generation and managed to decipher the cash machine enough to get some money out.

By this time in the day, I�d been conned into buying a Boca Juniors away shirt (it was yellow &blue, I couldn�t help myself) which I�d got at the knock-down price of a tenner after I started to pay but realised that I didn�t have sufficient cash. Seeing as I�d been forcibly dragged in off the street to buy it (no, really, the effect of four salespeople hassling you is quite worrying), they�d given me a �special price� (yeh, right) of 65 pesos to which I�d reluctantly agreed. Even with ten off, I still felt a bit knocked, until I saw the same shirt in a different high street store for 80. Bargin�!

Oh, and I�d given in to temptation and had a �Veggie Delite� from Subway with lashings of ketchup and a bag of crisps with a platinum Tazo. Joy, oh joy!

With the shopping all done, it was time to hit the tourist trail for a few hours, not really to look at the stuff today, but to get the hang of the place for when I come back in October.

For the first time, I ventured onto the Subte, the Buenos Aires underground. Walked down stairs, bought ticket from women in kiosk, went through barrier, walked on train. How easy was that!

I went to Plaza Italia in Palermo where I jumped off to see the �wide green spaces of relaxing urban parkland� as some guide book somewhere surely describes it. I had a quick look at the zoo, but didn�t go in � although the adverts for the new kangaroos is pretty impressive imo, and then ambled down one of those long, straight roads that they love in BsAs towards a huge statue celebrating Liberty or some other French Revolution concept and then did a 360 degree tour of the Japonese garden, but again didn�t go in.

I continued my walk back towards town, past more grandiose buildings before reaching the dead busy area of Recoleta. Yes, I used the phrase �dead� because it�s that part of town best known for its cemetery, but my god what a cemetery.

I bet some of the inhabitants must wish they could be on the outside and see the mausoleum in which they�d been buried.

An awesome sight, which could only be bettered by the resident cat population coming to see hello to the tourists.

Further down the hill is the �Buenos Aires Design� centre, an arcade of exclusive shops and a wonderful caf� style terrace, while in the other direction are the shops of Avenida Santa Fe, miles of credit card paradise which roll down towards San Martin and Florida.

A quick stop for coffee on the way down Florida and then back to the hostel to get ready for the flight in the morning, interrupted by the Truman Show appearing on the tv, followed by the Guns of Navarone (which I�d never seen before and always thought was set in France!).