Have you just arrived in Argentina wanting to show how good your castellano is, only to find out that around these parts they speak a whole lot different? Are you suspecting that your Spanish teacher from Andalucía or Cancun deceived you all along, merely inventing a language just so he can laugh at your screams for help in his email inbox?

Daniel Altman, 34, is a Harvard-educated economist, a journalist who has written for The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and La Nación, and the author of two acclaimed books about the global economy. He is also the president of North Yard Economics, a non-profit consulting firm that seeks to offer high quality economic analysis and advising to developing country governments and NGOs at a low price.

Hugh MacDermott enters the saloon bar, commanding attention as his spurred boots clink along the wooden floor. He straddles a barstool, ordering two glasses of bourbon in husky Clint Eastwood tones. The slam of tumbler on bar announces that the first has vanished down his throat.

Walking the streets of Buenos Aires can be a perilous business: there are potholes to dodge, wet pavements to slip on, and cold-hearted sadists or hedonist madmen behind the steering wheels of its automobiles, to name but a few of the potential hazards. But the capital is a city which delivers rewards to those on foot.

Born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Tania Alvarez moved to Buenos Aires to marry her high school sweetheart. A yoga instructor, a cook and an eternal optimist, the 29-year-old has lived for three years with a guru, taught yoga to children in Brazil’s favelas and, in the past year, managed to bring Zen to Argentina’s bustling capital

Yes, Henny Acloque, 29, part-owns a racehorse, went to cookery school and has toured most of the world, but by no means is she your run-of-the-mill aristocrat. Despite being considered one of the most eligible kittens on the London debutante circuit she fled the scene as a teenager with an acute case of ‘the horrors’ in order to pursue her true passion: art.

Before British-born Tom Rixon pioneered the boutique hotel concept by opening BA’s first in Palermo Hollywood, he was a London acid house DJ, a successful record producer and a wallpaper collector. While the move from music to hotel management may seem quite rare, the two careers, as he explains to The Argentina Independent, are not that dissimilar.

Although 27-year-old Swiss author Dorotea Schepens didn’t plan out her latest book, she certainly planned the epic journey that allowed her to finish it. Selling up her flat in Geneva, she boarded a cargo slip in Belgium at the beginning of December 2007 and spent the best part of the next five weeks in complete silence, just writing.

Australian Jacinta McPhillamy’s knowledge of tango could probably rival that of any porteño. The Sydneysider is a member of the 15-member Orquesta Escuela de Tango, a tango school and working orchestra that trains young musicians to play the music of some of the most important orchestral styles of Buenos Aires from the golden age of tango.

Paso Han arrived in Buenos Aires in the beginning of December last year with one aim, to dance tango and learn Spanish. Now seven months later he is becoming a real porteño, dancing tango like Gardel was behind him, whipping him.