We got the the Plaza de Mayo, which is where the Casa Rosada (or the pink house) is located and took many pictures. The most interesting thing we saw at the Plaza, was not the house, but the protestors camped out in the Plaza. No, Occupy hasn't been exported to Argentina, but the protestors were protesting the British occupation of the Malvinas, also known as the Falkland Islands. It is getting close to the anniversary of the war and the UK sending one of their newest and best ships and Prince William to the islands has stoked the emotions of the Argentines. It is all over the news here, even on the sports channels, and in the papers.

After the Plaza de Mayo we headed back to the hotel where we relaxed until our late check-out at 4pm (another *wood Plat benefit which was granted without question - again unlike at many US *woods).

The young lady who checked us out was the same who had checked us in the day before and she remembered us (well, at least my wife) and asked about handbags, which brings me to an aside.

Yesterday, February 3, my wife purchased a red handbag. She was having issues deciding between a red handbag and a beige one and went with the red. After the Plaza de mayo but before checking out I told her that I wanted to go to McDonald's (oddly enough...very believable) and went back to Prune and bought her the beige bag and surprised her with it as a early Valentine's day present. She was very happy!

any who, my wife showed the staffer her new bags and the staffer and my wife had a conversation only interesting to women who are gushing over each other's accessories. We sat in the lobby for a little while before catching a cab over to the bus station, which was only across the Plaza, but it's a huge plaza and at 90+ degrees we weren't walking it with 4 cases.

Before heading to the bus though, we left our bags at the bell stand in order to take a cab back to San Juanino ($12AR, $2.77US). We had heard that the food offered on the buses was...well...crap...so we decided to go back to a place we had enjoyed. I had 4 empanadas (cheese and onion, ham and cheese and 2 steak), my wife had two cheese and onion and we had two bottles of ague mineral, sin gas...$78AR, $18US. Another 12 pesos later and we were back at the Sheraton where we collected our bags and got the cab to the bus station.

We got to the bus station and the fare was about 9 pesos. I think the cabbie was annoyed at taking us on such a short ride as he told me I had to pay him an additional 3 pesos per suitcase. I thought this odd as if B.A. had started allowing the cabs to charge for luggage (which the driver did not handle and I had not been charged for luggage on other trip), you'd think the cab from Aeroparque Newberry would have charged me (and he did handle the bags). I wasn't really willing to fight though as 15 pesos difference is about $3US, so it would still be a sub-$6US cab ride but I did not give the driver a tip in addition to the $24 pesos "fare."

We weltered the bus station and the sheer magnitude of this bus station puts the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC to shame! Almost 200 ticket windows for tons of different companies on the 2nd floor, and almost 100 bus parking spots on the ground floor. Departure parking spots were posted between 5 and 15 minutes before departure resulting in a rush to get to the appropriate parking spot where the buses load very very quickly before departing on time. We watched this process take place over 100 times (literally...for instance there were 13 buses leaving at 7pm, many at 7:15, and 31 buses leaving at 7:30pm) in the hour before we were called to board the Andesmar 1st Class Suite service to Mendoza, departing at 7:45pm.

To be continued.