Strolling in Sunny San Telmo
Boo-hoo! Last day of holiday! Fortunately, was feeling much better this morning, so after a rather leisurely breakfast and check out (i love it - breakfast here in BA doesnt start til 9.30am - much more civilized than in El Calafate!), we headed out for a wander round San Telmo. Its like a cross between Soho and the East Village, i think - full of a gazillion little shops, most of them with enormous dusty chandeliers for sale, hanging in the windows. Sam managed to find the covered market, full of fascinating antique shops selling all manner of weird and wonderful old stuff - we found one stall which seemd to specialise in old telephones, of the type that had the proper round analogue dials and older, from when all calls used to have to be put through an exchange manually. We were both very very tempted as they were beautiful old pieces of engineering (apparently they were all in working order) but, in the end, the logistics of getting one back to New York won out, so we regretfully walked by. Went and had lunch in this fantastically dusty, atmospheric little cafe - Cafe G, right by a The walls were lined with cobwebby bottles and old coffee machines that looked as if they hadnt been touched for decades, and the wooden tables and floors also had this aged patina from years of use. After a "picata" lunch (mixed meats, cheese and bread) and coffee, we wandered around some more, enjoying the crisp sunshine, before reluctantly heading back to our hostel to collect our bags and catching a taxi to the airport.

Sam and I were on same TAM flight to Sao Paulo, before parting company - me on Delta and him on American, for the final leg back to NYC. From the window of the plane, coming in to land, the vastness of the sprawl of Sao Paulo was absolutely staggering - it looked chaotic even from 10,000 ft up!! It was equally chaotic in the airport too - long queues off the plane, through security before we were allowed to go and queue for our onward flight. Sam had bit of a scare cos he didnt get his boarding pass until moments before the flight was due to leave (not sure why) but he made it on board, as did I, for the long flight back to Manhattan and reality....