The Adventure: Day 2 Part 1

Buenos Aires 9am

The stop at Sao Paulo was only an hour, so no-one was allowed off the plane. Soon another take-off, another flight, this time to Buenos Aires.

Once I had retrieved my luggage and been through customs, I found a kiosk to order a taxi to my hotel. I was joined by a young man, also from England, who asked if he could share the ride with me. It seemed like a good idea, so I agreed. We loaded up and set off.

On our way to the city, we introduced ourselves. James Leboar is a poet, returning to Buenos Aires to continue his project, a series of poems about the developments in Argentina since the financial crises of a few years ago. He still had many friends there, but was planning to buy a house over the river in Uruguay. I was a little sorry to see him go.

Left to myself, I noticed the driver didn't know the way to the hotel. At traffic lights, he asked other taxi drivers the way to Guido, none could help. A man who looking as though he spent his nights dancing the tango leaned in a doorway, a cigarette drooping from a pencil-moustached lip, probably advised us we couldn't get there from here, and spoke without looking in our direction.

To be honest, I didn't care. I was fascinated watching the chaos of Argentinian traffic: buses, straight out of the fifties and ablaze in chrome, including the pipework that lead to the wheel hubs; delivery boys with huge baskets on the front of their bicycles, always empty; battered cars, battered trucks, thickening the atmosphere with their exhausts. Nobody indicating, everyone sounding their horn to warn others 'I'm here and about to pass, so don't move over'.

And trees everywhere.

We stop and the engine is turned off. Is this Guido? Where is Apart Recoleta? I see black iron gates and the number 1948 on the wall. Are we there? It seems so. The driver gets my luggage out of the boot, goes in through the gates, past the security desk and along the corridor to reception, just before the waterfall. I pay him and thank him.

I am checked in and get the lift - manual doors - up to my room on the second floor. It seemed disappointingly gloomy and windowless until I realised the shutters were down. It is always a little odd being in a hotel room, especially in a foreign country. Working out how things work, why is there a kitchen, how to open the shutters and the sliding door. Then I carry a chair out on to the balcony and look out on Buenos Aires, or at least the little bit I can see of it.

The jacaranda is still in bloom

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