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.

Pass go, don’t collect two hundred dollars – instead, pay the IMF the escalating interest on your nation’s debt and pray for a restructuring in the near future. Wait, that doesn’t sound like the proper rule from ‘Monopoly’, the beloved capitalism-promoting game that we all played as impressionable youngsters. In fact, the rule change comes from an Argentine board game loosely based on ‘Monopoly’ called ‘Deuda Eterna’ (Eternal Debt).

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.

Six nights a week, a heaving group of youths trawls from bar to bar in Palermo or San Telmo, toasting each bar with a raucous ‘Salud’ before landing in a nearby club for a heavy bump n’ grind session. This is the Buenos Aires Pub Crawl, bringing together the travelling twenty-somethings and students of Buenos Aires for a night of alcohol-fuelled debauchery.

Biros, bypasses, blood transfusions. What do these three wonderful exhibitions of innovation have in common? For one, they are all Argentine inventions. But inevitably, as we continue to hurtle towards the future of cutting-edge design, technology and enterprise, the words ‘invention’ and ‘innovation’ conjure ever-changing images.

It’s Saturday night and you don’t know what you want to do. You haven’t had enough drinks to go for a big cheesy night on the tiles, you’re not feeling the heaving reggaeton and Palermo is starting to blur into a haze of early morning bar encounters. If you find yourself in this little pickle, hop in a cab to Abasto for ‘Clásica Y Bailable’.

A stroll down the Rosedal in the Bosques de Palermo on a Sunday afternoon will almost certainly include an encounter with a group of freestyle slalom skaters practising their latest moves. Ultra-cool and strangely mesmerising, the slalom skater is hard to miss. With a row of miniature cones lined up on the pavement, he dances his way around them, snaking in and out with incredible ease and true skill.

Enter a world of gracious movements, adrenaline rushes and endless camaraderie. If you’re a fan of living (literally) on the edge while leading a healthy lifestyle, then this is your ideal sport. Welcome to the world of Parkour, where movement is an art.

Each weekend, I am left staggered by Buenos Aires’ magnificent nightlife. The city swells with its plethora of restaurants, bars, clubs, galleries, theatres and live music spots. They pulsate, emitting beats which synthesise, composing the rhythm of the noche porteña.

“One cannot understand the essence of a country or society without understanding the web of sexual relations of those that built it. Responsible for the birth, the splendour, the decadence, and the fall of the greatest civilizations, nobody can ignore the profound impact of sexuality on the visual art and stories of nations.” This is the creed which prompted Argentine author, Federico Andahazi, to write ‘Pecar Como Dios Manda’, the sexual history of Argentina.