Martin and Hazel Frost Our Life in Argentina

We have a friend staying with us at the moment from the UK. We went to meet him in Buenos Aires and spent a few days touristing there, before bringing him to Cordoba with us to experience some real life.

If you're ever in Buenos Aires, the obligatory tourist circuit includes; the Plaza de Mayo (the main square), at one end of which is the Casa Rosada (the pink equivalent of the White House), Calle Florida (very busy pedestrianised street in the heart of the CBD), Avenida Corrientes (one of the most important arterial streets, with lots of activity both day and night), Caminita (area on the port with brightly painted houses, used to be one of the poorest neighbourhoods, now attracts plenty of tourist dollars), La Boca stadium (home of Boca Juniors football team) and Tigre (town on the river delta). From Tigre we took a boat through the delta, ending up in the town of Carmelo on the Uruguayan side of the river. The trip through the delta was interesting, and of course the border crossing meant that our friend received his all important Uruguayan passport stamp. I can imagine Carmelo might be quite a sweet little town in sunshine, but as it was cold and drizzling, we ran out of ideas for entertainment quite early, hence we lurched from coffee, to lunch, to ice-cream, before catching the boat back to Tigre.

One day we branched out and went out to see our friends Ramon and Francis in Rafael Castillo. Rafael Castillo is a neighbourhood about an hour and a half away from the city centre, and definitely not on the tourist circuit, which is a shame, because it's a great neighbourhood; Hazel lived and worked there for two years, and some of my favourite people in the world are in Rafael Castillo. When you pluck up the courage to visit, you will find that people are warm and welcoming, there is a strong sense of community, there are virtually no multi-national corporations, the ice-cream is great, as is the meat which is sold from road-side barbecues at lunch time.