Its a couple of days since my last posting, and a lot has happened since then. At the moment, I´m getting ready to brave my mammoth bus journey to Puerto Madryn. Over the past couple of days, I´ve visited the famous cemetery of Recoleta, hit a local nightclub, toured the stadium of Boca Juniors, inspected some rival youth hostels and eaten heartily in between.

I´ve really started to enjoy life at the youth hostel. You meet loads of people from all around the world (particularly English people, Australians, Brasilians and Germans) and its definitely forced me to be more outgoing and sociable than I would have been otherwise. By contrast, we met some girls from New York in a bar a couple of nights ago, and they just reminded me why a certain type of Americans are internationally loathed. After listening to them for a couple of minutes, my head ached from the reverberations of their screeches and they had absoutely no sense of British modesty and self restraint; they were on spring break and "fluent in spanish". Two guys from London, John and Richard, have become quite good mates although Richard is in to his head banging music and says "man" and "right on" quite a lot.

Nearly every night, we end up drinking beer and playing pool for free on the table in the bar. Its a challenge, especially when the balls start to curve to one side because of the tilt of the floor. I´ve been amazed at how much you get for your money in a hostel like "Tango City Inn"; free pool, free internet, laundry, activities etc. Yesterday, we visited another famous hostel in Buenos Aires, Milhouse. Its amazingly new and plush. People were drinking, playing pool and table tennis and pissing in urinals that looked as if they had been stolen from the set of star trek. The only weak point of the hostel is the bunk beds that creak at the slightest movement and threaten to collapse under my weight. It seems that the days of cold dorms, no hot water and cooking for yourself are largely over, in these urban areas anyway. It will be interesting to find out if that rule holds further south. I secretly hope it doesn´t.

On Wednesday, I went to bed at about three and awoke to the sound of a South American man snoring in the bed opposite me. Then strolled down to San Telmo after first groping around in the half light of the room to find my towel (By the way, Alice, the towel has been a godsend. Its amazingly absorbant, even if it does feel as if you´re drying yourself with Dave´s suede coat). The light is incredible early in the morning, before it starts to press down on you with waves of heat. I thought this quote from Jose Maria Gironella was apposite: "Arboles altos, prados fondosos, cielo de luz pura y diafana, suficientemente matizada para no matar el color". The Mercado Municipal in San Telmo is dark and cool. Old women bustled about displaying trinkets and postcards of Che and Carlos Gardel. A breakfast of huevos revueltos, cafe con leche y jugo de naranja set me back only eighteen pesos (just over three pounds). It was great, fresh food prepared in a kitchen that would definitely not pass health and safety rules in GB. So different from the quiet, stayed, wood pannelled cafe where I ate breakfast today. In Spain, it would be full of the tiny, coiffeured Franco supporters who can still be seen in Madrid, but here most of the women that you see are much younger. Its the sort of place a member of the nobility would eat. Rows of starched collared, prissy women sat nibbling at their sandwiches and the waiters were no better. When I asked him the meaning of a word on the menu, he sighed as if it inconvenienced him. The place was called Richmond and reminded me of a snooty golf club in England. While I sat there in t-shirt and flip-flops, a man next to me had donned a full suit and horned rimmed glasses, eating a cheese sandwich whose crusts had been diligently removed by the camareros. Outside, a woman and her child were begging for change. You can see why the anarchist movement is so present in Buenos Aires.

Yesterday, I took a tour around Boca Juniors´ stadium, in the working class and reputedly dangerous neighbourhood of the same name. Against the advice of the book, I walked there and didn´t see anyone who looked even vaguely dodgy. Maradonna, Batistuta, Tevez and Riquelme have all played for Boca in the Bombonera stadium (the chocolate box) whose steeply rising teers give it a unique atmosphere. The guide was slightly boring; he focused more on the minutiae of the stadium´s architecture and the state of the washing facilities than on the football and the club´s history.

Tonight, I´ve booked to see a tango show close to the hostel and am getting a lesson as well. Probably be the last thing I do in BA before leaving tomorrow.