If you're thinking of backtracking, don't bother. I'll summarise:
1. I buy a ferry ticket.
2. It rains.
3. I get on the ferry.

The fact that I can go on at such length suggests that I need to get out more. Except that's exactly what I was doing when I did all the boring little things I now write about at such length! Anyway, I digress from the plot which is, as I recall, to record what I got up to on my way to and then in Buenos Aires, capital city and the very heart of proud, beautiful, Argentina, a country breaking in two before my very eyes.

I slept briefly on the ferry, moving upstairs from the car deck to a spot on the carpet of an observation deck high above. I remember blurrily the outrageous prices of tacky souvenirs in the onboard boutiques and thinking to myself that the wallet wasn't going to like Argentina.

I slept just long enough to miss the arrival on the north bank of the basin of the Rio Plata and consequently the seaview of BA. I got no more than a fleeting impression of Big Docks as I rushed down to the bike which, even without me hugging it, had survived the crossing upright and intact.

The jaws of the ferry opened. Up the ramp from dockside with early morning sunlight bursting brilliantly behind them came a handful of spindly figures dressed in long grey raincoats and hats. It was surreal, a Close Encounters moment, but far from being aliens they were Argentine customs officials, and I and the bike were waved through before I had a chance to worry if I had all the necessary papers.

The docks were deserted at this early hour as I swung to the right, following signs towards the exit and downtown BA. The amazing electrical storm I witnessed from the south side of the Rio Plata had left great puddles of skanky water across the broken tarmac. At least one puddle I couldn't avoid turned out to be the Black Hole Of Buenos Aires; it was a struggle to keep the bike upright.

There are times when you have to learn things very quickly or die. Your first drive in Argentina is one of them.

For a start - the traffic lights. These have been placed not at the *start* of the junction (where the traffic sits and waits for green - not that there's any road markings) but at the *far* side of the junction, where the lights are clearly visible with the aid of a telescope. The Argentine authorities have hereby come up with a way to make foreign drivers look a) stupid or b) squashed.

Luckily, I learned that lesson the first time I found myself stopping at a red light... in the path of a truck racing straight at me from my left.

Then there is the *speed* of the traffic. Ranging from very high to recklessly high.

Lane discipline? Errrr, no.

Roads or directions that resemble those on my weedy map of the centre of town? Again, no.

I avoided the huge trucks that rumble through the docks area of Buenos Aires. Equally, all the locals managed to avoid me, though the Brazilian number plates on the bike made me an attractive sitting duck for locals full of argentinismo.

Through the chicken-run that is the Avenida del Liberdador (from 14 lanes to two in the space of three sets of (you've guessed it) traffic lights before I found myself dawdling through hushed inner city residential streets, just the kind you want to find in a huge, hot South American capital city. Peeling paint on crumbling walls, six floors of laundry fluttering overhead, shuttered windows hiding a million sorrows, huge black wooden doors guarding unseen courtyards, not a cat nor a schoolchild nor even a black-clad widow walks the streets. Saturday morning.

Cod Spanish gets me to a backpacker's hostel but I shrink from the shared dorms (my god, I'm old enough to be their father!) to luxuriate instead in a high-ceilinged private room with ensuite shower overlooking an ivy-clad courtyard... all for $12-a-night. Maybe I can afford this country? (No, you can just afford this place).

Making tea in a shared kitchen, posters advertising lots of exciting shared activities, polyglot accents but an over-riding Englishness to my fellow residents: it's like being back at University. Aaaarrrgghhh! I retreat to my room and reflect on how little I have in common with these people (then how *much* we share) before sneaking out to see if I can get a ticket to The Game.

Boca vs River: Boca is the team of working-class, immigrant Buenos Aires; River Plate are the aristocrats, the fancy-dans, the team of the middle classes, the 'Millionaires'. The 78 World Cup Final was played at River's stadium: five of the team were playing on their home turf - Fillol, Luque, Ortiz, Passarella and Tarantini - but there were no Boca players in the *squad*! The rivalry is nationwide, with as many Boca or River shirts on display thousands of kilometres away in Ushuaia as there are in Buenos Aires. Who needs Man United?

It turns out I am half-an-hour's walk from the Boca neighbourhood, where La Bombonera sits like some 50's vision of a huge abandoned spacecraft. Not that I got there today, mind.

La Bombonera (The Chocolate Box) is home to Boca Juniors, one of the two great football clubs of Argentina and also very much where Maradona's heart lies. He's a Boca *nut* and can't shut up about it, can't stop crying when he talks about them. Of course the fans love him beyond all knowing, old and young alike. He is their everything - father, son, holy ghost.

And not just the Boca fans: the cult of Maradona far trancends sport in a country that invests endless pride, love and passion in its heroes. Evita is everywhere in Argentina, so is Che Guevara and so is Carlos Gardel (the great tango singer, the great Latin lover - but in the UK, the great unknown).

These three are mighty icons in the hearts of their compatriots. So is Maradona. What makes him different from the others, and this is perhaps his ultimate tragedy, is that he is still alive. He is a living god and he isn't being allowed to be fallable, human, exhausted, ill...

Today, with the 'Homenaje' being played at La Bombonera, the game is the only topic of conversation; it's on all the front pages and the subject of every television programme. I march down to Boca and I'm immediately offered a ticket for $200 by a group of young fans... which swiftly becomes $50 when I blanch at the price.

The price dropped too quickly - I smell a rat and walk off: why would they be prepared to give up a real ticketfor this of all games?

(Answer: because as Supporter's Club members they've been given handfuls of free tickets in order that the ground is filled with noisy fans. But I only worked that out later!)

I walk around the square and up a side road looking for a bar. Nothing. Not a peep. The streets are emptying fast. No cars out. Not even any taxis, and that's what saves me.

Halfway up a hill is a garage with half-a-dozen cabs parked on the forecourt, blocking access to the petrol pumps. The attached shop is off to one side, a small space which sells hot food and beer along with the petrol. The taxi drivers have gathered there to watch the game on an TV mounted over the door, and make space for one more in the crowd.

At first I'm a little put out by the lack of an amazed response at this Englishman turning up in a hack drivers' beer stall in a backwater corner of the Argentine capirtal to watch a football match on TV. Far from being the centre of attention I'm ignored. They don't even begrudge me.

Ego subsides and that mild annoyance is replaced by the happy thought that this world is small enough and these people generous and friendly enough for allsorts to get along. I'm not special, except to my mother. That's how it is and that's how it should be.

The match, almost incidentally, is crap.

Too many old stars going through their paces on the one hand; too many of the current Argentine team on the other simply content to roll the ball to the bloated feet of a dumpy Maradona. It's so slow it makes the infamous Germany-Austria farago look dramatic. The TV sound cannot do justice to the cacophony in the stadium and one by one the drivers roll off their seats and off to catch a fare.

Shortly after half-time - and bear in mind I've travelled halfway round the world to be in Boca today - I follow them out and stroll back through the empty streets.

A quiet and contemplative end to a long day.