AFP, BUENOS AIRES - The Olympic torch was on its way to the East African nation of Tanzania early Saturday after passing through the Argentine capital under tight security in a relay free of the scuffles that marred earlier similar events in other countries.

A plane carrying the torch took off from Ezeiza International Airport here at 23:15 pm Friday (0215 GMT Saturday), heading for the African continent.

More than 2,500 police and other security personnel lined the 13-kilometer (eight-mile) course in the Argentine capital as the flame was carried through the city Friday to keep at bay the few demonstrators denouncing China's crackdown in Tibet ahead of this summer's Games in Beijing. Few incidents were seen or reported by the police, the most serious being an attempt by two protesters to douse the torch with water bombs.

They were hustled away by police but let go after an identity check. A champion Argentine windsurfer, Carlos Espinola, kicked off the run from the city's port under cloudy skies. He was a last-minute replacement for soccer legend Diego Maradona who failed to return in time from Mexico as tentatively scheduled.

Thousands of people congregated in the central Plaza de Mayo, in front of the government's Rose House, to cheer the torch, which at one point was also briefly put on a boat and rowed along the city's River Plate.

Former tennis champion Gabriela Sabatini closed the three-hour run, carrying the torch into a horse-racing club's grounds, where it was presented to Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee.

There was no major disruption to the symbol's passage, though just before the relay started, rival pro-Tibet and pro-China demonstrators faced off along the route in the center of Buenos Aires. Police separated the opposing groups, each numbering around 50, after the confrontations threatened to degenerate.

Around a dozen Chinese residents sang China's national anthem and waved red Chinese flags. Along the route, placards could be seen decrying Chinese repression, but nothing hindered the torch's procession. Victor Perez, a 47-year-old clothes salesman in the crowd, said "I didn't want to miss this," gesturing at the generally festive atmosphere of the event. Torch relay organizers were breathing a sigh of relief, as the flaming symbol was a magnet for demonstrations against China's crackdown in Tibet on its previous stops in Europe and the United States.

In London protesters came close to grabbing the torch, while in Paris officials were forced to snuff it out five times amid security concerns. On Wednesday in San Francisco a massive phalanx of police and a sudden route change all but obscured the relay from public view.

The scenes prompted International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge on Thursday to call the protests overshadowing the relay "a crisis." He urged China's communist rulers to honor their Olympic commitments to improve their human rights record, but was effectively brushed off by Beijing, which considers the Tibet unrest a domestic security matter. In Beijing, IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said the body had received assurances from the organizing committee that torch security was in hand for its 135-city tour around the world.

The relay in Buenos Aires was the only Latin American stop for the Olympic torch and the first time it had ever been to Argentina. "It was a lovely experience," torchbearer Vanina Oneto, a former women's field hockey player on Argentina's silver-medal-winning side in the Sydney 2000 Games, told AFP.

"One dreams of many things but I never envisioned this in my dreams." A call by Amnesty International Argentina for public figures to condemn Beijing's human rights record went unheeded. Many governments -- and, in private, Olympic sponsors -- have expressed unease with China's repression of protests in Tibet, the Himalayan territory annexed in 1951.

Leaders including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have said they will not attend the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing. UN chief Ban Ki-moon was also unlikely to make it, his office said, while pressure is piling on US President George W. Bush to skip the event.