When was the last time that you were standing alone minding your own business and a perfect stranger skipped up to you, linked arms and swung you around in a jubilant do-si-do? If it’s been a while, since grade school perhaps, you need to head over to Fiesta Bubamara: ditch your cool at the door, cut loose, and get your Balkan-tinged rollick on.

It’s called Fiesta Clandestina, but it’s about as clandestine as an elephant on the subte. Publicity posters have been papering the walls of Buenos Aires for a while – recognisable by the man with an afro holding a finger up to his lips. There is also a Facebook group to ensure that if you join or show any sign of “liking” anything, you’ll know about every Fiesta Clandestina to come for the next few months.

The traders line up in front of the screens, money in hand, anxiously waiting to see which way the volatile market is going to swing next. Earlier in the day, margaritas were in freefall and Corona hit rock bottom. Now it looks like the bubble is about to burst for fernet and coke. Le Merval is a Microcentro concept bar based on the workings of a stock market: the prices of all drinks fluctuate according to demand.

Archery and drinking. It might sound like an accident waiting to happen, but it’s exactly what Jobs, a games bar in Recoleta, has to offer. In fact, there’s a great deal more to this pub than alcohol and arrows: located in a converted warehouse, with three floors of pool, table football, board games and beer, it has the atmosphere of a outsized student union.