During conversation, an educated English speaking person, of whom there are many, soon realised where I was from and an uncomfortable silence always followed, then mumbles, eye contact gone too, and the chit-chat ended because the 1982 war has soured relations somewhat, and outgoing President Christine Kirchner has renewed calls for the return of the Malvinas/Falklands to Argentinian rule; maybe she's stirring nationalism as a vote winner, just as Thatcher did in starting the whole shebang.
There was a chance encounter with a friendly hippy chick with a dog in a sunny park on a Sunday afternoon in Santa Fe and when my nationality came out the chat fizzled out and off she walked. I also got invited to sit in the hotel lobby with two young women and an older man who thought I was an American, which I didn't correct. The man was far more interested in talking about Maradona - the nation's prodigal son born in the Buenos Aires suburb of Lanus - than war, until I went to the WC and the male receptionist who had taken my passport details must have told them and when I came back the bonhomie was replaced by staring at the TV and a stiff buenos nochas when I went up to bed. Then there was a guy on the roadside outside Campo Grande who had initiated a chat then turned away from me with an embarrassed crest-fallen expression, incommunicado. In fact the conflict was never even mentioned, but the scars were definitely there in the silences.
The Argentinian war veterans are unhappy too, 34 years on, most of them conscripted from poor farming regions to fight with low grade weapons, and after humiliation in surrender they were never given adequete compensation or even pensions for injuries or lost relatives. Regular demonstrations for fairer treatment are still held opposite the nation's Supreme Court.
That war was deliberately waged between two desperate politicians - Thatcher in charge of doddering squiffy toffs and General Galtieri in charge of a military junta - politicians so deeply unpopular at home, that invading peaceful sheep farming islands, or sinking an innocent ship along with the lives of 323 crew, the Belgrano, named after Argentinian founding father Manuel, was seen as a vehicle to reclaim popular support and fix their punctured egomania.
The people of Buenos Aires are famed throughout Latin America for their pride, but that has been badly dented, with the inevitable knock-on effect round the country where everyday life is a struggle, reflected by the homeless families on the pavements of the capital and millions in poverty throughout the nation.
After my final night - a steak, glass of red wine, ramble around and a tango show put on as a finale - I left Argentina unhappy that I hadn't felt relaxed enough to see more, and with a wish in some future time that those empty silences will be filled.
So it goes ... Come to think of it, why don't we just split the Falklands in half? Share them?