And so it comes to an end.... October 30/31.

Right now I am sitting in the Air Canada lounge at Toronto - yes I have joined the self indulgent status of the frequent flyer. Free lattes are my reward.

So I left Buenos Aires at 9:30pm last night for Houston, then another run to Toronto and now on to home in about an hour. Of course I won't have to ever pay for a cup of coffee or some nibbles and booze now I have access to the lounge, but it has still been a long day. By the time I get home it will be Halloween night, which is somewhat amusing as I imagine some of you will be at doors asking for candy and other out on your broomsticks looking for mischief and getting IN THE WAY OF MY PLANE. Watch where you fly please...

Yesterday was a pleasant day, the rain storms had eased up overnight, no more thunder or showers, but one moment it was blue sky, the next getting cloudy... nothing like New York had, but a couple of downtown parks had flooded.

The side of Buenos Aires I stayed at on my return, Recoleta & Palermo, is the posh end, you would not believe the city is ringed with slums while being here, and you would not believe that a few KM away, where I stayed before, the cobbled streets and older homes where in the same town either. Recoleta has shops selling trinkets and thousands of dollars for Italian leather sofas. San Telmo, from my first pass through here sells, meat, booze, it does have antique shops, but everything else is what's needed for life. Recoleta is all the stuff you don't need for life.

That said, the contrast blends well, although the residents are obviously doing very well for themselves, BMW's, multi million condos, there is some old stuff here like the cemetery. Famous because all the old BsAs families are here, but also because Evita Peron is buried in one tomb. Yes, 'don't cry for me Argentina' (a line she never actually said but she could have easily)  has new meaning, because the Peronist movement, a fascist party, still lives on today. Politics is core to Argentina, they are always struggling, fighting something - and part of it is a game, the Falklands/Malvinas thing a prime example. The preseident says she wants to win the islands over for Argentina, so she blocks their ships and makes demands of the UK she knows full well they can never agree to. The fact is, she hopes the UK will hold onto those islands, because then she has the enemy everyone will support her against. And that detracts from the crumbling value of the Peso, infrastructure, security issues... If the islands were suddenly handed over, she might have to explain more why the economy is rocky and the IMF and global banks won't loan her any money.

Las Malvinas oddly enough is also the name of a chain of stores selling washing machines and kitchen appliances... kind of cheapens "the cause."

That said, here's some lovely pictures of my last little while in Buenos Aires, stuffing my face with tasty food, making the locals suffer with my awful few words in Spanish, and still wondering how Italians came to be talking Espanol and living in French buildings.

In the cemetery most of the names on the lavish tombs are Italian. There's some English and some Spanish, but most are definitely Italiano.

 The Recoleta Cemetery gates

 It draws a lot of visitors

 As it is somewhat stuck in time. There's one in Havana that looks very similar.

 And some of the occupants have been here so long they are trying to break out..

It's Halloween so this is creepy!

 The Duarte family gave rise to Evita

Nut job gold digger or skilful manipulator, she was a character.

 All these monuments to the passed are a sort of guilty pleasure if you ask me, everyone misses those they love..

 But spending so much on the dead seems very wasteful

It's a mini city of tombs.

 Some of the tombs are very well kept, this one has a ring, flowers and jewellery changed every day.

 KISS are coming to town.

 Public art is disturbing in BsAs, half people filled with numbers.. is it a cry against capitalism? DNA encoding? I can only guess.

 The UN tulip flower used to open during day and close at night, but now it's fixed open.

 Glorious buildings..

 Below is the embassy of Haiti. Should they come around with the begging bowl asking for charity, tell them to move to less posh digs first. This is Palermo, the most expensive place they could find. Some of their own people living back home are in tents.

 Below is the Spanish Monument

 Very European parks

 And the famous Teatro Colon.

 it truly is the Paris of the South.

It has been a great trip, hope you liked the pictures, I don't have time to share absolutely everything, this one turned into a lot of flying and a little stressful for a few hours because of the storm Sandy.

Oh well, in less than a month ever longer flying legs await, to go mushroom picking in SHANGHAI!

Chairman Mao's legacy meets Dave - who forgot to buy himself a new wallet. Will do in China.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

Saturday, Sunday and Monday...

 This isn't the view from a hotel, this is from a Favela, or, a Rio slum. It looks down on the nicer places... usually in the world of real estate, the poor live down the hill and the rich live up, in Rio, it's inverted. Above is the road in Rocinha, Brazil's biggest slum. Lovely view and the rainforest clouds are lifting nice and early...

 Villa Canoas slum, above, was a bullet firing drug lord empire, now the slum owners have deeds to their homes and look down on San Cristobal, one of the poshest beaches. The Fiat motor co. pays 60% of the cost of the kid's school here, ING bank gives old computers and the Favela tour I am on, run by the Favela residents, pays for the other 40% of the school. It was 35 bucks well spent for 3 hours, very informative. You really cannot do favelas without an approved tour...

 The blue water tanks were gifts from the gov't for sanitation.

 In Rocinha they still rip off the power, cable and phone. In the other slum it's all nicely metered.

 They are not as poor as say India, as they have shops, most have toilets, freshwater and free healthcare.

 Traffic is a nightmare on these hills.

 So is the chiecken stall and rip off snackbar below.

 They build on top of each other, or used to, now it is regulated and they pay tax in return for the deeds to property - they used to be illegal - which meant no rights, it could be bulldozed anytime. No longer.

 Rocinha built quite close.

 This is the famous Oscar Niemeyer bridge from Favela to posh bit of town.

 Coconut drink stop.

 In Villa Canoas they built them so much closer... as below. One day a window, next, it's gone!

 Bizarre how they make space.

 Rio has an aggressive deadly spider, so I stay away from what's in here... not sure, but taking no chances... I don't know about you, but spiders are not so fun with me...

 Lovely trees! It was over 40 with the humidex today and the clearest day yet - but I am due to fly out tonight :( They wouldn't let me change my ticket. If I stayed one more night I would have gone to a Carnival practice. The Samba, the Carnival, it all comes from the favelas. The Samba schools that compete at the Sambadrome in March spend all year working and practising in the Favelas for their big night. When it is hotter than now! The trees blow were very nice, I want one of those.

 This bus below is a fruit and vgetable shop that goes through the hills.

 Looking along Leblon and ipanema beaches.

 Looking back to Barra and the low rated Sheraton. It dates from the 60s and apparently has had no updates since <--- travel tip, lol.

 Ipanema is more expensive the Copacabana. Looks much the same - the road is narrower though.

 Next stop was Jardim Botanico, where I have wanted to go for ages...

 The bird is stalking dinner.

Or is it me...

 Cristo looks over the park too.

 Figs anyone?

 Protea flower below.

Ginger below...

 I am not sure what these fruits are, breadfruit I think.

Shrimp plants too.

 A lovely toucan in the trees. Out of focus I know.

 It is distinctly tropical. I love it!

Jesus has no cloud right now about 2 in the afternoon, sun blazing down - it's the clearest day here yet.

 And that was most of Rio - I had tried very hard to pluck up the courage to go for a heli ride, cabbed it over but they need a minimum of 3 to go, so not wanting to wait too long I promptly left... and off I toodled to the boring for food and shopping Rio International (GIG) - and things got messy...emails started arriving saying my flights going home were cancelled, so we flew through a  thunderstorm (!) on the way to Santiago again over the Pantanal, 4.5 hours, then slept at the Holiday Inn at the terminal. Since I had spent 2 hours trying to get new flights home, It was 2am. I asked for a wake up call at 5am as the plane left for Buenos Aires at 8...no wake up call came and I woke up at by myself at 8. So off we went to the airport to beg to get on another flight...

 The pictures are out of sequence here, stupid blogger app..... always drives me nuts, this is the posh end of Buenos Aires again, as I got there around 4:30 in the afternoon instead of 10am.

 Guido has friends naming streets for him.

 This is the chapel at the Recoleta cemetery - Evita's tomb is here.

And a tango outside the church... market stalls too...

And tony cafes of course!

Out of sequence once more, the view below is from my hotel room in Rio, it's a 4 star hotel on the beach!

And out of sequence even more, this is Santiago with the Andes behind, having crossed last night, it was back over them today.

Except we were barely scraping the tops! They make you fasten seatbelts over the Andes as there can be big thermals up from either side, they are narrower here than in Peru or Bolivia.

And back to BsAs - the little theatre below is my venue for a tango show.

Waiting...waiting... it included dinner which was eaten across the road. There is an opera singer here, Rodrigues something...never heard of her, she is in the audience waiting like me..

And it was a pretty good show, the sultry, sensual Tango - full of drama and despair...

A thunderstorm raged outside, but the show was pretty good.

This lot were pretty jolly for a tango team.

A crooner came out for 2 songs, old guy, the Spanish speakers all sang along, Julio Inglesias for the Depends generation perhaps, that was the only bad bit!

The lead vocalist looks like the President of Argentina.

It's not "Don't Cry for Me Argntina" more like "you cheated on me and treat me like dirt but I still love you for ever and ever..."

And that was Tango night. Very good. A Swiss couple next to liked it lots too. A Russian up front threw a glass on stage, not sure if that is a compliment or not.

Oh this is out of whack again, what the hell Blogger, everything else went wrong now this? Ha! This tango pic was supposed to be up by the church...

Well today is Monday the day I was due to come home, and I spent from 7am to 3:30pm or most of it, having to find a new hotel for the night - as I am staying 1 more now, and to argue/plead/beg for United to re-route the trip home. So while thunder rumbles outside, I am confirmed to come back through Houston, leaving here at 9:30pm tomorrow. It has rained all day... ever since I asked Jesus for clear skies for pictures it has gone to heck.  :(

So one more blog entry to come, as sun is forecast for tomorrow and I have a chunk of the day to play!

Good night cold northern people, I am going out for empanadas now :)