So I left the beautiful but somewhat cold city of Ushuaia and flew north to the Paris of the South to get warm.  And warm it is here- maybe 75-80.  Seems odd to be going north to get warmer.  One final picture from Ushuaia with some lazy but well insulated sea lions (the only type I saw).

Buenos Aires is intereting, alternately pretty and disheveled, and kind of a whacky place.  The Argentines- from the various tours I had and people I met- seem to have this fierce pride in their country all the while criticizing it as a complete mess.  Here is a picture of my hotel (which was only $60/night including vat of 21%).  BA is pretty cheap, especially for a big city.  You can get a nice steak dinner with a bottle of wine for $25-30.  Maybe Sam and Bridget should go here for their honeymoon.

In my strolls, I passed through the cambio (exchange) capital of BA- Florida St.  In my original cambio exchange with a BA contact, I had an unanticipated problem.  The highest Argentine bill is only 100 AR$ (pesos), which is worth about $8 at the black market rate.  So as I exchanged $1000, I ended up with huge pile of 100 AR$ of which only about 10% could fit in the hairbrush safe  What to do with the other 50 lbs of bills?  Well, I got a separate backpack just to hold all the bills, as a wheelbarrow seemed impractical.  I got a cheap one with $$ label on the back- I do not think any thief will notice.

Anyway, i expected the cambio guys all to be yelling CAMBIO!! at the top of their lungs as I passed by, liked at some Turkish bazaar, but it was not the case.  They just sort of mutter cambio as you walk by, though you do hear this incessant mutter as you walk down the street.   It is not that they are worried about the police- they are all in on the deal.  I guess there is just a sense of decorum among cambios.  The other thing that surprised me- given that it is an illicit activity- is that a good half of the cambios are not cambios at all, but cambioinas (female cambios).  Who knew?

Another thing perplexed me.  You see all these people lined up at a bus stop- nothing unusual there.  However, when a bus approaches, the lead person or 2 raises their hand as if to hail the bus, like a taxi.  Sometimes the bus stops, and sometimes it roars by leaving diesel smoke it in its wake and the patrons gasping for breath.  Who actually hails a bus at a bus stop?  Is it like a cab so that when you get on, you get to tell the bus driver where to take you?  Or does the bus driver decide where he goes?  I am guessing the bus wins out in this arrangement.  Why then hail it?   And what is the bus driver thinking as he approaches a bus stop?  Gee,  I wonder why all those people are lined up at that bus stop?  Or does he think, I do not like the look of that group, I think I will just keep going to the next stop?