We spent the next few days exploring more of the city, we hung out with Adrian, visited my distant cousins, and ate more meat than advisable.
Luis was a perfect host, with many friends, who took it in turns to come to his house to eat Asada with his British guests.We spent the next few days exploring more of the city, we hung out with Adrian, visited my distant cousins, and ate more meat than is generally advisable for human consumption.

The view over the city from my cousin's apartment in Recoletta

Luis was a perfect host, with many friends who took it in turns to come to his house and share an Asado with his British guests.

Luis hard at work at the Asado

The bike went back to the Harley dealer who repaired my rear brake pipe, and then got the bike valeted for free by a friend of Luis who owned a bike valet company.
Over the next few days, we went to tango shows, visited the grave of Eva Peron at the Recoleta cemetery, resting place of some of Argentina's most influential, wealthy and important departed, and strolled through as yet unexplored parts of the city, from the delightfully crumbling San Telmo, to the boutique paradise and bar heaven of Palermo, to the wealthy and exclusive Recoleta. We spent a day running from the mosquitos in the botanical gardens, ate ice cream from a few of the many Italian style Ice cream parlors dotted around the city, and just generally got to the know the city a bit better.

The Recoleta Cometary, and the grave of Eva Peron

We met up with our new biker friends for a ride out of the city to an all you can eat beef buffet, more meat, and we hung out with Diego, also a new friend from the rally in Mar Del Plata. Diego had a business selling action figures over the Internet, and he was using a small flat in Palermo as a showroom. He invited us over to check out his wares. We went up in the lift to the 7th floor and were greeted by a life-sized cut out of a storm trooper guarding the door to the flat.

We were shown around his huge collection of Star Wars figures, masks and spacecraft, and Comic and Cartoon action figures of all shapes and sizes, all in their original box, stacked from floor to ceiling in two of the rooms of the flat. He told me that this was nothing compared to his collection at his home, and I believed him.
We went out that night to sample some of the famous Palermo nightlife, with Diego and his mates leading us through the city.
Having local friends in a big city completely change the view you have of the place.
Tourists in cities are such outsiders, it takes a local to be able to pin point the hot spots of the moment. Guide books are usually three or so years put of date from the time they are researched to the time they are printed, and in a fast moving city, the in-place normally gets replaced by the “New In –Place” every 6 months or so. Plus going out in a city either alone or with a group of fellow “Gringos’ closes as many doors as it opens. We loved having Diego and Luis around to take us out, show us around and generally make our experience so much better than if we were relying on guide books, and even the recommendations of other travellers.
We extended our stay in Buenos Aires and ended up staying with Luis for 10 days after we returned from Mar Del Plata, or “Night-Mar Del Plata” as Jacquie liked to call it.
We made one last trip with Diego and his family to see Tigre, a port surrounded by streams and rivers, that plays host to a variety of markets at the weekend, and is also the starting point for boat trips along the river, and antique mahogany boats ferried tourists up and down on sightseeing excursions.

Tigre

It was a slog for us to pack up and leave Buenos Aires. We had some good friends here, we really liked the city, the food was good, the weather had mostly behaved itself, and there was still plenty for us to see and do. But we decided it was time to move on.
Jacquie was going to fulfil a lifetime dream of riding horses with the Gaucho’s of Argentina, and while she was off doing that, I would stay with another new found friend form the Harley rally, Edgar, in Cordoba.