February 17, Tuesday. Buenos Aires Argentina. What a beautiful day it is here this morning with the exception that the ocean is brown and very muddy here and ugly. Usually the sea and the sky blend together—not here because this water is ugly. We gathered to meet the others in the area outside the casino on Deck 5. We didn’t dock until 8:30 so the ship was not cleared by Argentina immigration until close to 10. We were among the first to get off and headed on a bus to the terminal where we met our guide for today. We boarded a nice Mercedes van and headed to the Tigre River. This was a really neat cruise through the Tigre Delta. Similar to Lousiana Bayou except these places were not accessible by anything but a boat—they even have a grocery store boat! It comes down the fingers of the Delta and if the people want something, the put their shopping bag on the dock over a post. In Louisiana these would be slums but here they are vacation homes and some were awesome! After the gave us coffee (more like expresso) and an Argentina cookie, we headed back to the city and did some sightseeing of the main areas of Buenos Aires. We visited the cemetary where Evita Perone is buried which is a huge attraction here. We were told it was 91 degrees yesterday but OMG did it seem worse. We stopped around 2:30 for lunch and had Impanatas and they were wonderful and a Coke Zero—Diet Coke is very hard to find here. Then we went to La Boca which is the Tango area and walked around and took pictures of the dancers that would pose with tourists for a price then headed back to the ship. Debbie and I changed cabins and we had to unpack—again. We went to dinner and then showered and went to bed exhausted from the heat. We slept good until about 7:30 AM when someone was chipping paint from the deck above—oh well it was time to get up. They were painting everywhere on the ship today. We had breakfast with the girls and decided to all go into town to “Florida Street” which is the main tourist area in downtown to shop. There is a jeweler here “H. Stern” that has shoppes all over the country that provides free shuttles into town to their stores so we did that and listened to their sales pitch and left and went shopping. Found a leather factory where I bought lots and then we found a souvenier shop where we all bought some things. Debbie and I had enough and again it was getting hot so we got the shuttle back to the ship and the other girls stayed for more shopping. The terminal was a madhouse. Yesterday the Holland America Amsterdam was here and left this morning and now the Costa Romantica and MSC ? are here disembarking and embarking and it was crazy out there. We decided not to try to look at any of the shops in the terminal and get out of the madness and come back to the ship. We will be leaving at 5PM – 2 PM your time and tomorrow is Montevideo, Uraguay. Buenos Aires is much nicer than I had expected it to be. We had fun here but once is definitely enough. More tomorrow.