(Getting to) the cool little town in the middle of nowhere

SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, REGION II, CHILE - 27th March 2010

Buses across Argentine/Chilean border from Salta/Jujuy to San Pedro de Atacama ("SPA") only run 3 times a week, through the day, but some sharp timing (and some top class interpretive Spanglish from yours truly in the absence of Anna's fluency) managed to snag us a couple of tickets for the early (8.30am) departure on the morning of Friday 26th.

Hyperbole is not even slightly needed when describing the ensuing bus journey.  6 months of globetrotting have involved all sorts of experiences across all sorts of landscapes on all sorts of buses, but based on visual diversity alone I defy anyone to find a journey that is quite as spectacular, in so many different ways, as the journey across the Paso de Jama mountain pass that represents the northernmost road crossing between Argentina and Chile (and features a delirium-inducing ascent up to about 4.5km above sea level in a few hours).  The constantly changing backdrop began with the artistic colours of the Quebrada de Humahuaca, as previously graced by 'Lads on tour'; rose upward into green hills and mountain pass roads, continued rising upward beyond the tree line as the green gave way to a dusty mix of reds, yellows and greys; then the road stretched dead straight into a white horizon as we drove through a salt flat at about 4000 metres a.s.l. 

The ascent on the Argentine side of the pass

The plateau atop of the Argentine side of the pass; greenery is replaced by all colours of sand

Salt flat on the horizon

Surrounded by salt

Through the salt; more sand and scrub

At 3500-4000m a.s.l., the roads get quite winding...

...and then a few minutes later they'll be dead straight for as far as the eye can see

All this was before we had even left Argentina - the formalities at Paso de Jama were uneventful but for another idiot immigration official stamping my sixth and final Argentine stamp directly on top of another one (exiting Australia, for anyone so interested).  Given they do the same thing thousands of times a day, you'd think they'd get vaguely competent at it.  But all was soon forgotten as Anna and I sampled some coca tea - coca leaves being the same bad boys that, via various steps, end up as cocaine (although apparently about a tonne of coca leaves are needed to make about 1g of the drug).  For what it's worth, its taste was unimpressive. 

The surreal 3000m gradual descent down the Chilean side - San Pedro in the far distance

Veterans of high altitude travel will know all about the effects it can have on the human body, and are probably quite aware of the best ways of mitigating the headaches, dizziness, stomach churning, fever and other symptoms that go hand it hand with going up to high altitude too quickly.   Sadly, I wasn't quite so aware that, if avoiding altitude illness was on your agenda, red meat and alcohol were standard no-no's for the night before.  I'd like to say that up at 4400m I found myself somewhat regretting the previous night's "last night in Argentina" binge on steak and Malbec red wine, but for about 15 minutes I was so delirious that the thought process needed to feel regret was, along with thought process of any kind, not happening.  And, more to the point, 10 minutes of feeling light-headed discomfort is a sacrifice worth making for an evening of great food and drink.

Anyway, SPA sits at about 2400m a.s.l., just off the northeastern tip of the great Atacama Salt Desert, and west of the towering peaks of the Andes that we earlier dissected.  Most imposing is the classically conical-shaped volcano Licancabur (right) which, at nearly 6000m in height, is visible due east from anywhere, for miles.

For a tiny town in literally the middle of nowhere, SPA is pretty damn touristy - a point proven by the veritable multitude of tour operators set up in the town offering this, that, the other, and everything in between.  However, their existence hints at why this Godforsaken no-man's-land in the middle of the desert is a must-visit location for travellers and young Chileans alike.  In a similar manner to our journey over here, the area surrounding San Pedro boasts some of the most surreal, varied, and generally awe-inspiring natural attractions of anywhere in South America - or indeed the world.  And that should we what we get to enjoy over the next few days!

Before I dash though, I'll sign off with a quote from some girl in front of us in the queue to get our passports stamped at San Pedro.

"So we're getting our Chilean passport stamps here... so where were we between here and where we got our Argentina stamps?!?"

A wise man once said, "stupidity is infinite".

Lads on tour(s) - part II

SAN SALVADOR DE JUJUY, ARGENTINA - 25th March 2010

(...continued from Part I...)

The tour up to Humahuaca left, as with the previous day's Cachi trip, at the ungodly hour of 6.15am; it was thus little surprise that both myself and, to a more impressive extent Tom, were both very much asleep for a more than insignificant period as our journey began.

However, the inane chat from our Argentine tour guide soon had us wide awake and in tip top form for some culture and nature (in no small part thanks to her being rather hot), and things came thick and fast as we followed the Río Grande north through the 96-mile Quebrada de Humahuaca valley.  A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2003, Quebrada de Humahuaca is best known its spectacular landscape - erosion and tectonic activity have combined to expose an array of colourful mineral rocks, creating a canyon filled with incredible formations complete with evocative titles - "The Painter's Palette", "The Skirt of the Colla" and, first on our itinerary, the striking "Hill of Seven Colours".

Overlooking the tiny little village of Purmamarca, the Hill boasts the full set of mineral colours across its distinct sedimentary layers: light orange (a blend of clay, mud and sand); white (lime rock); yellow (sulphur); purple (manganese); red (iron); green (copper oxide); brown (lead/general rock) :

While the Hill and its sedimentary layers are undoubtedly the main attraction that pulls in the tourists, locals in this part of the world scarcely miss an opportunity to flog local produce to cash-happy tourists, and Purmamarca's central square features market stalls on every face (one seen above), offering array of local crafts and textiles, with llama wool (right) being the star attraction.  

Half an hour or so is more than enough time to decide you don't have the space or patience to buy anything, but still take plenty of overly arty photographs; soon enough we were back in the minibus and cruising ever closer to Bolivia up Route 9.  Hot tour guide took the opportunity to fill us in on some useful regional history - the valley-come-ravine-come-canyon that is Quebrada de Humahuaca has been inhabited for something to the tune of 10,000 years; acted as the main caravan route for the Incas through the region in the mid twentieth century; and was the scene of several significant battles as Argentina fought for its independence in 1812.  Most famous of these saw cavalier firebrand Manuel Belgrano ignore orders from Buenos Aires to retreat, and instead pulled off a deuced unlikely victory against the Royalist Spaniards despite being outnumbered two-to-one.  200 or so years later, and every town in Argentina has an Av. Belgrano, so it's fair to say his insolence has been largely overlooked.

It was slightly older history that was of greatest interest, however, and particularly given our next stop on the tour.  The Incas, when travelling up through the canyon, would eat the flower/fruit of the cactus that grew wild along the Río Grande valley (see right).  This particular flower, independence of nutritional value, contained a seed that was extremely fibrous and, thus, passed straight through the Incan digestive system and, so to speak, out the other side.

The Incas traversing northward up the river are likely to have halted in the farming village of Tilcara, where a large Incan pucará (ruined fortification) stood and, from existing remains, has been rebuilt.   Occupied by Incan farmers between 500 and as long as 1000 years ago, the Pucará de Tilcara provides a source of mild intrigue today as fully grown cacti grow from what would have been the middle of the settlement's houses.  The conclusion: the farmers who ate the cactus fruit ended up excreting it somewhere in their house, and at the painfully slow initial growth rate of 5mm/year, a young cactus began to develop.  A few hundred years later, the Incas have been ousted, the pucará is deserted, and the cacti have been free to crank up their growth rate as they mature, resulting in a scene such as that below:

With the pucará hilltop successfully conquered, we were back on the road to Humahuaca, although not before making a brief but significant stop to snap the phenomenal colours of the Skirt of the Colla. 

The Skirt, named for its shape and the lively colours worn by the native Colla tribe before they were ousted by the Incas, boasts an array of colours that are almost certainly unparalleled anywhere else in the world - colour upon mineral-induced colour pile up one on top of another on what could be seen as the geological equivalent of a good English trifle. 

So from here it was full steam ahead to the town of Humahuaca itself - briefly interrupted for lunch on the outskirts of the village.  Ever the cavalier when it comes to sampling new food, I naturally opted for the llama steak and llama empanadas, both of which were suitable excellent if a little on the sharp side of the taste spectrum.  From here, we got a tour of the town, with particular emphasis on the colossal Monument of Independence that dominates the central area and gives the village an import sense of history (see below).

Cultured up and having, in my case at least, acquired a cheeky new "Humahuaca" branded vest, we headed back onto Route 9, though now southbound.  To go with "the skirt" and all the rest, we made a brief stop at the village of Maimará to appreciate one final offering from this incredible quebrada: "The Painter's Palette" (see below).  Although maybe not quite as colourfully explosive as the skirt or the seven coloured hill, the palette image offered something visually special - the small ramshackle buildings rolling over the small hills in the foreground of the palette provided a sight that combined nature's beauty and its best with the beauty that is somewhat inherent in the more simple human existence. 

That pretty much concluded things, bar the less visually impressive but equally important stop-off at the notional line that marks the Tropic of Capricorn at 23.5°S.  Naturally we took the opportunity to grab some classic photos - a cheeky Back the Bid snap snuck in there too - before we continued on our way to Jujuy where Tom and I were going to hop out.  How we got there and what happened on the way is anyone's guess - with fatigue catching up on me like a Michael Schumacher on speed, the first thing I knew was the two of us being unceremoniously woken up and dumped out onto the streets of San Salvador de Jujuy, and some dazed and largely aimless walking around as we tried to find somewhere to stay.  Thanks to the trusty LPG, and with no thanks to our combined ability to read a map, we found our way to the excellent Casa de Barro where, after checking out the various demonstrations and parades that were thumping their way around the city and grabbing an excellent spicy pancho (hot dog) where they all culminated in Plaza General Belgrano, we crashed out in quite spectacular fashion.  18 hours later, we remain in a state of innate lethargy, but with Anna on board a 21-hour bus from Buenos Aires to here as I type, her arrival this evening is likely to kick any lethargy off the square.

Lads on tour(s) - part I

SAN SALVADOR DE JUJUY, ARGENTINA - 25th March 2010

After two long days of bus tours, both involving waking up at 6.15am, Tom and I can be forgiven for having a lazy day. Despite going to bed earlier than I have done at any other time in 2 months here in South America (11pm), we still struggled out of our damn comfortable Cassa del Barros beds for a 10am breakfast, and at this stage have achieved little else today.  Tales of travel must be told, however, and we begin this episode bright and early on Tuesday morning as Tom and I stumbled out of Las Rejas in Salta and into our Cachi tour minibus with nothing but a few medias lunas (croissants in everything but name) and a couple of coffees stopping us from collapsing into fatigue-induced slumber.

Cachi is a tiny little town that lies about 100km southwest of Salta as the condor flies, but the fun of the tour is the spectacular 4 hour, 155km drive there via Cuesta del Obispo; combining rising latitude with a route that begins in riverside, jungle-type forest, it progresses up a few thousand metres to offer some stunning mountain-side scenery and continues to flat, cactus-filled desert as far as the eye can see, ultimately leaving you in Valles Calchaquíes, where little Cachi sits on what used to be the main route across the Andes.  I could wax lyrical about each of one of these fantastic landscapes, but will let some photos do the talking instead.

Condors deserve more than a passing mention. These eagle-like birds of prey (right), ubiquitous with this part of the world, grace the skies in and around the huge, towering Andean valleys, where the valley floor disappears under hundreds of metres of depth and cloud cover, and the height of the bordering mountains is more often than not concealed behind the hazy mass of this same cloud. The condor, patrolling these vistas, will never be seen alone - they mate for life (fairly rare among birds) and are totally loyal to their partner, to extent that that when a female dies, the male will, apparently, commit suicide by flying high into the sky before nosediving, kamikaze-style, like an arrow back down to earth.  This "romantic suicide" is just for males, mind you - if it's the female left behind then she'll just float off and find herself a new lad condor and pick up where she left off.

The fact that there is scant scientific evidence for these "romantic suicides" doesn't stop tour guides (like ours) proclaiming them as gospel truth - the reality of knackered, 50+ year old birds just running out of steam and falling to a grim death clearly wasn't so appealing to the ancient Incas, who considered condors a sacred link between the sky and the underworld.  Either way, we had this explained to us at the top of a mountain where Tom, Keith (a Mancunian who was the only other English-speaker on our tour) and I were being entertained and frustrated in equal measure by the audacity, stupidity, or general antisociability of some woman who, it seemed, had set herself the goal of single-handedly ruining as many photos as humanly possible.  Atop of this hill stood a chapel and, adjacent, a solitary cross looking out over the cloud-filled valley.  Clearly, everyone is going to want to take photos of this - the most poignant landmark at a beautiful location.  So where does the stupid woman decide to walk over to and plonk her butt?  Right on the base of the cross - right when all 3 of us have our cameras pointing right at it.  In all seriousness, it could not have been more patently obvious what we were trying to do and, given she proceeded to sit for a good 10 minutes, she'd have been hard pushed to do a better job of pissing on a parade.

Nonetheless, the photos were eventually taken, and for your enjoyment can be found below.

Lunch in a traditional little place outside of Cachi saw some excellent meat consumption (asado - chicken, sausage, beef - proper man food*), and the hour we had to explore the little town itself proved to be more than enough to see some random archaeological bits and pieces in a museum, get ourselves some ½ peso ice cream (8p),watch a dog bite off far more than he could chew and spend half an hour unsuccessfully attempting to dislodge the meat from his big canine tooth, and finally tie Tom to "the death swing" (see right). 

With the hour expired, it was back on the minibus for the ride back to Salta - a ride I can tell you absolutely nothing about save the fact that minibus seats are surprisingly conducive to shut-eye.  But R&R wouldn't last long - once back in Salta I got turfed out of Las Rejas as it was fully booked on the third night, so was forced to wander a few blocks down the road to Hostel Quara which, to be surprise and slight chagrin, turned out to be cleaner, more comfortable, with better (or at least hotter) staff and all for about half the price!  Still, there was minimal time to enjoy the surroundings; 24 hours on from yesterday's failed attempt, tonight we were hitting La Casona del Molino come what may.  What we had learned from yesterday's debacle was that walking was a bad idea, so the three of us (Keith having joined our motley crew) hopped in a cab and enjoyed a couple of rounds of excellent Salta Negra beer accompanied by many an empanada, before some excellent main courses (I went for locro, a local speciality in northern Argentina and Bolivia that is essentially a massive beef stew).  The food was good, but the charm of the place and the source of its reputation is its clientèle.  Every night, loads of locals head over to the place to eat, drink, and be merry, but most importantly bring all their instruments and (once a critical level of alcoholic consumption has been reached) strike up a good old fashioned sing-song.  Great times.

Waking up 6.15am had been anything but fun, but the next day's tour to Humahuaca involved a repeat performance - rendering a savage night out very much off the cards...

(to be continued...)

* Ed Sherrington would certainly approve

The importance of being idle

SALTA, ARGENTINA - 22nd March 2010

Prior to this morning, the last time I had to wake myself up for something, without the backup of having someone else to wake me up anyway, was at 3am in Auckland Airport back on that epically long 1st February. Clearly, I'm out of practice with this whole waking up malarkey - a fact not helped by my mobile phone-cum-alarm getting smashed back in Queenstown.

Having met up the night before for a cheeky bite to eat, Tom and I had decided to get up e.doors and hike our way up to the 1500m summit of Cerro San Bernado - the hill overlooking the city. In order to avoid the savagery of the tropical heat beating down later in the day, we agreed to meet bright and early at 8.45am at the foot of the hill, by the statue of Martín Miguel de Güemes - a hero in this northwestern part of Argentina thanks to his role in defending the north-west against the Spanish in the Argentine War of Independence. However, an 8.45 meet-up was looking pretty grim when I awoke and looked at my watch to find hands pointing towards a quarter to 10!

Feeling like a prize dickhead, I headed pessimistically over to the Güemes monument anyway - I figured at some stage on my way up/his way down we'd have to cross paths and I could apologise for being useless. What a surprise it was then, as I paused to photograph Güemes in all his military glory (see right), that over from my right strolled young Thomas - turns out he, being an equally useless boy, had done very much the same thing and had only been waiting at Güemes' foot for a bit over 10 minutes!

So up we went - step by step ascending to the top of this striking hill in, thanks to our mutual ineptitude, far hotter and more uncomfortable conditions that we'd intended, but the time flew by. Whether from the refreshment of having someone new to talk to, or the liberation of being able to speak totally frankly again, or just the immature amusement that comes only from laddish chat, it barely seemed like we'd set off before we found ourselves sitting pretty, looking down on Salta and - obviously - backing the bid!


The stroll back down was, surprisingly enough, much faster, but having both largely skipped breakfast thanks to our waking up woes, we were both bloody starving by the time we were back at street level. Cue scouting out a speciality empanada restaurant and, being hungry, growing boys, ordering a solid round of 6 (or 8?) special local-style empanadas (potatoes, chillies, and beef), followed by a proper main course involving plenty of meat, followed by fruit salads - all washed down with the delicious Salta Negra malt beer. Then it was definitely time to chill out back at Las Rejas.

Some quality kotching included time for Tom to get an email from his Mum with details of a Salta restaurant that had featured in The Observer's travel supplement - one of only 3 South American restaurants to be featured. As the same place had been recommended by Taylor back in Mendoza, there was no questioning La Casona del Molino as our choice of dinner destination. Unfortunately, the place was a mission and a half from the city centre where we were and, after making the ill advised decision to walk, we discovered that we'd inadvertently and wholly unnecessarily walked a good 6 blocks further north than we needed to, so proceeded to cover the same ground again back south. All in all, we walked the best part of 35 blocks before finally arriving, and very quickly realised that it was very much closed. Monday. Closed Day. Not cool.

Now knowing not to make the same error of heading north/south, our walk back home in a straight eastward direction was hella shorter (probably still 25 blocks though), and with hunger and time nipping at our heels we found ourselves in Plaza 9 de Julio (Iglesia Catedral looking stunning in its lit-up state, below) and were sold by the classic, simple option of superpanchos (foot-long hot dogs) - which came complete with all ends of sauces and toppings. I got one topped with sweetcorn and one topped with something else; both were fantastic.


Well aware that last night's decision to book of 2 consecutive days of tours to cool places around the area obligated us to two consecutive morning departures of 6.30am, and conscious of our collective waking performance this morning, it is hardly a shock that tonight is an early night!

Going solo

SALTA, ARGENTINA - 21st March 2010

"It's weird isn't it - when you go to other countries you always see locals wearing English football shirts, but you'd never see English guys back home wearing Argentine shirts, would you?"

Proudly sporting my "Moscow 08" Manchester United shirt (following this morning's brush past a Liverpool side that really, really aren't very good), I've just finished a good value pizza here at "New Time Cafe" in the south-west corner of Salta's impressive Plaza 9 de Julio. The quite stunningly dense quote above came courtesy of one of two English girls sitting at the table opposite me, presumably after a cursory glance in my direction (and the relatively standard if woefully inaccurate assumption that my dark skin makes me Latin). I'm not sure if it's good that Anna isn't here right now or not - these two are prize specimens of almost everything she dislikes (in English people): unable to speak a word of Spanish (less than me, even); content to order vegetarian salads in a place specialising in meat dishes, and still not finishing them; not particularly attractive (admittedly not their fault); and patently lacking a couple of notches of basic common sense. Shame - she missed out.

I rocked up to Las Rejas Hostel here in Salta this morning after a long 20 hour bus from Mendoza and, first things first, settled down to watch the football. Actually, it wasn't first things first at all - an hour earlier I'd decided to help myself breakfast and some coffee, but had the unfortunate experience of picking up a jug of milk, pouring it in and tasting it, only to discover that the "milk jug" was in fact yoghurt. Not ideal.

Equally far from ideal was sitting on a computer in the hostel attempting in vain to find an online stream of the match. Finally, via Facebook and a useful post from a certain Robin Hill, I managed to get a stream... and discovered that in the 10 minutes I'd been looking for a stream I'd missed Liverpool scoring, a penalty, United equalising, and generally the best 10 minutes of the match. Again, not ideal.

At some stage after a post-match shower I sauntered out the hostel and over to here. The square is certainly one of Argentina's most impressive, and is dominated at its northern end by the beautiful 19th century Iglesia Catedral, resplendent in pink and white paintwork (right). Sadly, like so many churches on this continent during the day, it was closed - but then again with hunger calling me it was probably for the best.

* * * * *

The near-on 1000km journey up here covers the best part of 10° of latitude - Salta is just shy of the Tropic of Capricorn, and you damn well feel it walking around in the early afternoon sun. So do the locals, apparently; the place was as dead as Liverpool's Champions' League chances - nothing open, barely a soul on the streets - siestas are the big business here. Iglesia San Francisco doesn't need to be open to be appreciated, however - its blood red exterior tapered with cream edging is so visually overwhelming you almost feel bad staring at it.

Anyway, Tom - one of the crew from our Mendoza vineyard and thermal pool adventures - will be getting into town around about now, so the next few days of South America are likely to involve more beer, less Spanish, and a lot more football than the previous 2 months. Happy days!

Hot pools and colossal scrambled eggs

MENDOZA, ARGENTINA - 20th March 2010

After the wine, bike and and steak festivities of Thursday, we awoke yesterday to the greeting of grey skies and rain - prompting not-so-nostalgic references to England from all sides. There was the possibility of me joining Taylor, Tom and Nick early morning on a trip up to do a 45 metre abseil; a possibility that was suitably thrown out the window at the prospect of having to go outside and, God-forbid, get wet. Instead, Anna and I headed off at around lunchtime to the thermal pools located an hour or so out of town, armed with the bottle of Malbec we'd picked up at Bodega di Tomasso the previous day.


The bus ride took us about an hour out of town and up into the hills, with the hot spring located in a valley carved by centuries of river-driven erosion between two giant ridges. It was a good setup though - the site comprised of a series of pools of various sizes and shapes, gradually moving further and further down the hill and ultimately down to the river level at the bottom, where a large pool with a fountain in the middle (see above) is bordered by an artificial river and cold, cold water. The hot spring water arrived at the top-most pool, and arrived at a temperature so damn hot you simply could not touch it (if you did, you're first instinct is that it is cold - that was how hot it was). From there, however, it was allowed to cascade downward from pool to pool, gradually cooling all the way and thus giving us punters a selection of water temperatures to suit our preference at the time.

Punters were indeed there in abundance, both of the local Latin variety and in the form of Taylor, Tom and Nick (middle, bottom-right and bottom-left respectively in photo below), whose abseiling trip included a trip to the hot pools to chill out afterward. The 5 of us entertained ourselves for many an hour, finally parting on departure as their minibus left an hour before our local bus was scheduled to head off. Thanks to a beer and a plate full of empanadas though, the interim period was passed more than happily.


We were all reunited later back in Hostel Lao, and began putting into action what we'd been discussing earlier in the day with regards to dinner time. In particular, the need to spend less money (after the splurge on the best steak ever), the desire to do some cooking, and the general consensus on a massive omelette. A stroll to a supermarket and back enabled the acquisition of a cool dozen and a half eggs, several hundred grams of cheese, a good 10 rashers of bacon, a load of chorizo and an even bigger load of tomatoes, and fuelled with free-flowing vino (provided by the hostel!) set about a top drawer team effort of chopping, slicing, frying and generally operating like a well oiled machine and, ultimately, producing the most whopping great big concoction of omelette mix you'll ever see (as illustrated in my right hand in the photo to the right), alongside an equally impressive vessel of fresh salad.

It quickly became apparent that the sheer volume of omelette mix we were dealing with meant making an omelette was impossible, but a smooth-as-silk switch to scrambled egg in no way diminished the quite ridiculous amount of food we'd prepared for ourselves. However, while it would be fair to say that there was a lot more food than was necessarily needed to feed 5 people, it has to be borne in mind that some of us eat a lot more than others... so it goes without saying that half an hour later, everything was gone (save a nasty amount of dish washing).

Today though, we find ourselves in an interesting moment in our trip as - for the next few days - Anna and I are going are separate ways. As I continue the blast up north and head to Salta (to be accompanied a few hours later by Tom), Anna is taking advantage of geographical proximity to make a return trip to good old Buenos Aires. In theory, we'll meet again mid-week...

Wine country - done the professional way

MENDOZA, ARGENTINA - 18th March 2010

Visitors to Chez Rodrigues back in the Garden of England usually can't help but notice our fridge-freezer unit - not so much because of its no-doubt fascinating heat-exchange properties as because of the hundreds of magnets that, one by one, are removing any evidence of said fridge ever having been white. Although the oldest of them dates back to the same Canada trip mentioned back in Iguazú, in took another 7 years for another to join it - specifically, in the form of an inanely grinning Dartmoor sheep. Anyway, through some strange twist of fate, our 2004 family holiday to Denver and Colorado saw us return to Sevenoaks with a barrage of magnets from all over the state, and thus began what has subsequently become something of a family addiction. The last count of the magnets (and indeed the only one to have ever taken place) was by that young firebrand Adam Dowson* back in September 2009 and put the total at some 180... so it's fair to say the effort has been taken to heart. It is equally fair to assume - correctly - that the number above will be significantly burgeoned by the last five and a half months of my globetrotting.

Then, of course, there's my epic keyring collection - somewhat retired nowadays (on cost grounds) but still made up of over 400 keyrings representing anything and everything from all over the world, all on a single 6kg bunch. And there's my coin collection, with a monetary value probably close to £250; my 20-strong collection of Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts... the list (of general crap) goes on...

Basically, I've always liked to collect things (or, as my Mum would say, I'm a chronic hoarder), and this feature is extended in all its glory to passport stamps. I love all aspects of travelling, but one that is always guaranteed to register a thump of satisfaction is the thud of another travellers' badge of honour. And thanks to our excellent travel route that presently involves diving back into Argentina, our last bus journey added a couple of new additons to that collection... well worth the 3am wake up/get out/wait around for an hour and a half before going anywhere routine at the border (or not).

One way or another, I was totally zonked as we found ourselves taxiing around from one hostel - fully occupied - to another at 7am on a fresh Mendoza morning. The second, Hostel Lao, had said it was fully booked on Hostelworld (online booking website), but with luck for once on our side we managed to snag ourselves a couple of dorm beds that had become available overnight. I don't think either of us appreciated quite how lucky we were, until a few hours later when we found ourselves part of an 11-person crew heading over to the Maipú district on the edge of the city to tour Mendoza's famous wineries by bicycle. Several of said gang had attempted to book in Hostel Lao in advance, but because of insane demand (no doubt thanks to its 95% approval rating on Hostelworld) had been forced to spend a few nights in other places before they could move in... leaving us feeling pretty damn smg about just rocking up and getting beds!

Long delays arrested our departure, but armed with 9 of "Coco Bike Rentals'" finest frames and one 2-man tandem bike, our convoy finally took to the road at about 1.30pm and we made our first stop at an excellent artesenal beer garden - the sort of place the word "kotching" was invented for (see right - HT: Taylor Gill for the photos while mine remain stuck on memory cards). Surrounded by countryside and vineyards, we lounged on sofas and chairs and took our pick of their local brews; after excellent experiences with the stuff in Bariloche and Valpy, I went for the malty cerveza negra ("black beer"), and myself and the 2 others who opted for it were rewarded with what is without doubt one of the best beers I've ever drunk.

Our Anglo-Australo-Yankee crew ended up spending the best part of an hour kotching, but disaster struck when we eventually left - Nick (who we would later discover had spent 3 years of uni in Oxford over the road from us at Christ Church) snagged a puncture on his front tyre. With the boys from Coco rentals happy to drive over with a replacement bike at any stage, discovering the puncture earlier would have been perfect - our waiting around for the swap to take place would have perfectly co-incided with chilling with our brewskis. Instead, we had a timing nightmare - not enough time left to hang around waiting, but stuck with a slow mover when trying to gas our way over to the main business of tasting (/generally drinking) el vino.

Desperate times call for desperate measures (how many times has The Daily Rod featured those very words), and 5 minutes later we found ourselves ploughing down the main road in a motley bike crew the likes of which have (probably) never graced a road before. Much to the amusement of all the schoolkids we passed, leading the pack was the tandem bike; Luke the Aussie leading with Nick, holding his stricken bike, comically sat at the rear (see below). Following behind came yours truly, more than a shade knackered from the added weight I was propelling - sat on the mesh above my rear whell was Kim (Aussie) - Luke's girlfriend who had been turfed off hear rear tandem seat to make way for the Nick/bicycle combo. This was further followed by a train of gringo cyclists in various levels of undress, and truly must have been a sight to behold.


Various interchanges of bikes were made as we progressed - ultimately Nick and I took turns to cycle the thing in its flat-tyred state - and we eventually rocked up at Mendoza's newest winery where we were supposed to be able to get a good bit. Hot, sweaty, and above all touristy, we traipsed into a restaurant full of suits and shirts and fairly soon afterward sauntered straight back out. A good bite may have been on offer, but its price sure as hell wasn't aimed at your humble backpacker!

We'd passed Bodega Familia di Tomasso - an older, generally better looking winery on our way and were heading back there, but first took the opportunity of a quick tasting at this new place before we left with our collective tails between our legs.

Conoisseur of wine I may not be, but even I can fairly distinguish the fact that a red wine tends to be red, and that a white wine that you can't see any light through is probably not going to be the best one to drink. So what with samples of three pretty mediocre wines coupled with a tasting note explanation straight out of Graeme Le Saux's textbook of stating the bleeding obvious, all in a setting that looked like a pre-fab warehouse had been unceremoniously dumped in a countryside otherwise tastefully dotted with century-old wineries, and you had some pretty unimpressed, hungry people leaving the place at what was by now about 3.30pm.

Thankfully, Bodega di Tomasso - one of the oldest of the Maipú wineries - was excellent and the "daily special" lasagne went down a treat, all the better washed down with the house Malbec; more of which was sampled on the tour and tasting that followed our collective meal. Details of the workings of wineries are best heard about should you bother to visit one rather than here; suffice to say I was duly impressed and Anna and I purchased ourselves a nice bottle of Malbec to enjoy at a later stage.

A long ride back to Coco Rentals was extended further when we realised we had time to visit an artesenal chocolate/jam/sauce/absinthe producing place on the other side of Coco. We got to try a bit of everything, but while I can't speak for everyone, I'm fairly certain the boys paid their money purely for the absinthe at the end. It was suitably disgusting - as anything of 75% alcoholic volume is obviously going to be - but there was no questioning that it had to be done (and also helped, in terms of Dutch courage, in securing a photo of a local Argentine copper Backing the Bid).

Fast forward a few hours, and I was hungry enough to eat a horse, so joined Nick and fellow wine tour cyclists Tom (19-year-old West Country lad on a pre-uni gap year) and Taylor (American girl) who were heading off to a highly recommended steak house. Anna didn't join us as she wasn't feeling hungry enough to justify the cost, which was a shame as Don Mario served up the best bit of meat I've had in Argentina (which is seriously saying something after El Desnivel in BA). It always entertains me eating with new people - I tend to order fairly outrageously large dishes as I need them to fill the bottomless pit of a stomach I seem to possess, but given my relatively diminutive size these orders are often met with great scepticism. Tonight was no different - I went for the 600g Chateaubriand while the others went with 450g options, and when the monster fist of meat you see on your right turned up a little later, either Nick or Tom were on the verge agreeing a bet on me to finish all my plate. Shame, because it was absolutely destroyed, but with steak that good I don't really know where my limit would be.

Back in Hostel Lao, a fun evening has passed by with various drinking games and general banter with the cyclists (many of whom don't actually have beds here), wrapping up an absolutely first rate day back to Argentine territory.

* congratulations are in order on the new job!

A hippy market and a mega waffle

EL BOLSÓN / SAN CARLOS DE BARILOCHE, LAKE DISTRICT, ARGENTINA - 12th March 2010

At last check, we weren't sure if we were going to be staying in Bariloche or leaving. Well as the top line of this blog suggests, we ended up staying... although arriving at that decision did take the whole morning.

However, fresh and boisterous for some sights and sounds, we returned our rental car and hopped on a 2 hour bus to El Bolson - a small Lake District town about 90km south of Bariloche, renouned as Argentina's hippy hotspot. In particular, Thursdays marked the town's artesenal market - drawn to our attention (as usual) by the LPG and given an endorsement of sorts ("erm, well it is nice... you can walk around for a while... it's nice") by the cool reception lady in the Marcopolloinn Hostel in Bariloche.

The prospect of some hippy-based banter excited us, however, and the spectacular Lake District scenery on the drive south provided an excellent backdrop for some more Dean-Anna quality time (which, among other insights of varying depth, featured my damning analysis of us males as a gender). El Bolson is as scenic as its descriptions depict - surrounded in every direction by mountains, small buildings fan away from a central area with a classic mountain village church and an artificial lake. Google Images threw up this photo to give a bit of a visual jist*:



The market was surprisingly big, arcing all the way around the artificial lake and full of stalls selling the usual mix of souvenirs, local arts and crafts, speciality foods, jams and sweets and some excellent local artesenal beer. The stuff was all pretty cool, and the stalls were indeed run by hippies, but given we were about half way though our South American travels we were always unlikely to be buying in bulk. Anna - her unique "way with words" a never-ending source of entertainment - summed up the issue nicely - "I wish I had a house - then I'd be able to buy things. I'd buy jam and a drum".

However, being bigger than expected didn't hide from the fact that it was still covered head to toe in about 20 minutes, leaving us 3 hours to kill before our bus back to Bariloche.

Ever the explorers, we went for a random walk away from the town centre and down a few residential streets a few blocks away, but ultimately ended up lying on the grass by the lake, recounting our adventures since we joined forces so that Anna could retrospectively write her diary. It was while we were here that we decided to invest in waffles.



El Bolson Waffles may or may not be a local institution - their proudly displayed website address on their logo (see above) certainly adds some credence to the suggestion. Whether or not they are is, for our purposes at least, totally beside the point - of relevance to us is the fact that they made one hell of a waffle. A good 5 inches by 5 inches in size, half was covered in chocolate, half in dulce de leche, and the whole lot then covered in raspberries with a load of whipped cream on top. Your imagination probably won't do it justice - although an excellent photo of Anna's first bite probably does!

The bus back to Bariloche got us home in time for another free dinner, and our mutual failure to wake up at 7am this morning has meant we shall not be catching the 8am trans-Andean bus to Chile - instead we are settling for the 1pm version. We'll be back, but for now it's goodbye Argentina!

* Apparently my memory card has a virus on it that, while leaving the photos intact, prevents me being able to get them onto a computer without doing a long-winded job with USB cables. So all those *amazing* photos I keep talking about are going to have to remain figments of your collective imagination for a while longer.

Switzerland on tour

SAN CARLOS DE BARILOCHE, ARGENTINA - 10th March 2010

A week in the big city came and went and, after exploring various possibilities as to where to head next (and ruling out El Calafate and Tierra del Fuego in the deep south on the basis of obscene cost), ended up settling on the 20 hour bus ride to the scenic town of (San Carlos de) Bariloche, seated in the heart of the Patagonian Lake District. After, in chronological order, beachy seaside, tropical wetland, jungly inland waterfall and, most recently, urban cityscape, I guess we can now check mountainous lakeside off our list of South American environmental conditions to be experienced.

I instantly loved this place - and had an inkling I was going to from the moment it first came into view in the distance from the other side of the massive Lagoa Nahuel Huapi. Peacefully sat on the southern shore of the lake, the reflected midday sun glistening in the windows of its white buildings, the appearance of this plot of civilisation in the distance, after hours of the desolate, wind-swept, arid Patagonian landscape that seems to continue in infinitum on the eastern side of the Andes, was like an oasis in the desert, or a beacon out at sea. Closer inspection upon arrival, however, revealed that Bariloche is in fact a little piece of Alpine Europe transplanted into the Argentine Andes. If you were blindfolded and dumped into the middle of Bariloche with no idea where you were, the wooden buildings and their sloping roofs, every car bearing a European marque, and the distinctly Franco-Swiss feel of a tourist-underwritten mountain town where every second shop sells chocolates, would leave you more than convinced that you were in somewhere like Interlaken - more than once I found myself somewhat surprised to hear Spanish spoken when walking into a shop. To give you some idea, an old Britannica image I just found on Google looks a little something like this:


In a way, Bariloche is like Argentina's version of Queenstown, New Zealand. There are a wild array of activities to occupy your time (and burn holes in your wallet), and while there aren't bungy jumps and skydives to totally blow your senses, rafting, mountain biking, horse riding and all sorts of treks up mountains are on offer through the summer (as opposed to winter, when skiing is all that matters). On the recommendation of a girl we met the day we left BA (and slightly thanks to a desire to do some exercise after several weeks of impressive food consumption), Anna and I took on the bike ride, which runs through the Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. 26 kilometres of massive hill climbs later, and my thighs were feeling more than a little tight - although Anna probably seemed to be feeling a tad worse; the memorable line "Oh my butt is gonna hurt sooo much in the morning" almost convincing me to restart my old "Favourite Quotes" page on Facebook.

To be fair (although I am now purely speaking for myself), the loop of "Circuito Chico" ("small circuit" - haha) was definitely worth the effort. The views around the lake were absolutely stunning, and an off-road excursion to the tiny hillside village of Colonia Suisse ("the Swiss Colony") for lunch was excellent both for its fresh, tasty food and its idyllic location. Many a photo was taken, but as tends to be the case with these things here in South America, they remain locked up on my camera memory card until I can find somewhere with a card reader that actually works. However, you can take it from me that a couple of hours kotching by the edge of the lake at Bahia Lopez, throwing a few skimming rocks while some old geezers excited themselves with a game of pétanque (seriously, it is that much like the Alps), and generally being shutter-happy with our cameras - idyllic is a fairly apt description.

There are some cool things in the Lake District around Bariloche, and being the intrepid adventurers that we undoubtedly are, we naturally found ourselves renting a car. After trying and failing at a fair few establishments, we ended up scoring a little 3-door mk3 Corsa (branded Chevrolet in these parts but obviously a Vauxhall to any of the 80% of English kids who learned to drive in one) at "A-Open Car Rentals" for 160 pesos (a bit over £25). The only issues were having to walk all the way back to our hilltop hostel (the "Marcopolloinn" - recommendable largely thanks to its free dinners) and back again to get our passports, and the fact that we were limited to 200km. The latter wasn't a massive issue, however, as our afternoon of driving was unlikely to need much more.

I was in the driving seat (Anna having passed her test, but not brought her driving license) and we were soon burning down Route 40 past a whole load more lakes (this is the Lake District, after all), and eventually pulling over at a random point alongside Lago Mascardi where a derelict pier traipsed out into the ice cold water, still and tranquil against a backdrop of mountains and summer greenery that genuinely felt like a slightly smaller scale version of Lake Geneva, sitting on the Swiss side and looking across to the Evian mountains. More photos, including some *seriously arty* stuff with my MUFC shirt, before we continued down the road towards the Ventisquero Negro (literally "Black Snowdrift") - the famous Black Glacier that makes up part of Cerro Tronador - the highest mountain in the area.

Unfortunately, we were enjoying our drive too much and missed the right turning our map told us we were supposed to take... although after turning around closer inspection revealed the so-called road to be a gravel track - "gravel" being a generous term of rocky dirt crap. Things got doubly bad round the corner, as we first found ourselves having to pay 30 pesos (£5) entry to get into the park, and secondly discovered that we couldn't actually drive the 20km to the Black Glacier as the road operated on a one-way system: towards the glacier in the morning, away from it in the afternoon. Having already invested about 60 of our 200 kilometres driving to this point, we sure as hell weren't gonna leave empty-handed, so instead opted to take the alternative route through the park to a waterfall - very much a second best option but at that stage the only option.

A couple of hitch-hikers from Buenos Aires were lurking around the park entrance looking for a ride to the waterfall, and we duly obliged - and damn lucky we did too. The "gravel track" through the park had about as much in common with a road as it did with a rockfield, so driving conditions were a shade tricky. Or at least they would have been if we were in a 4x4. In our little Corsa, it was a rollercoaster and a half! It was ironic, therefore, that the only issue with the car came when we came to a stop - I slightly underestimated the depth (and compactness) of the pebble shore between the track and a lake, and ploughed the Corsa straight in - a decision I immediately regretted as the front right wedged itself into the stones. Reversing just made the hole deeper, so desperate measures needed to be enacted. Cue putting Anna in the driving seat, and getting her to engage reverse, drop the handbrake, balance the clutch on the bite, and apply just enough (but not too much) throttle to lift the front-right wheel onto the lip of the hole it had made for itself - at which stage I could use old school man power to push it back to harder ground. Simple? Well it took a couple of stalls but Anna did a first class job and, with a bit of effort from the Argentine girls as well, we were back on the *road* smashing up rocks and the Corsa's increasingly off-white paintwork.

After Iguazú, you find yourself somewhat desensitised to the otherwise exciting sight of a big waterfall in full flow, but this one was not without its charms - surrounded upstream by dense forest, while downstream the river opened out into a broad, sunny vally as it tailed away towards mountains on the horizon. More photos, and a relaxing half an hour of Anna and Dean quality time discussing the usual blend of emotiono-philosophical questions, the paradoxes of dreams and realities, and complexities of life in general. Or something along those lines.

Back in town, it was free dinner in the hostel - tonight a particularly good bit of chorizo with mash and some blend of vegetables that was better than last night's meat and veg concoction with spaghetti, and far far better than the first night's offering of vegetable stew with rice. Yes, vegetables. Just vegetables. And we're in Argentina. I would have been outraged, if I hadn't already eaten one dinner (a rather good bit of Veal Napolitana making up for my inability to find somewhere selling jabalí (wild boar), supposedly a local speciality), had a couple of pints of excellent local brew (Volcanes del Sur), as well as accidentally ending up with by far the biggest dessert I've had at any stage on my travels. Passing chocolate shops left right and centre, it would have been rude not to stop by in one, and with Anna ordering a cake or tart of some kind I contended myself with a coffee... only to turn the carta (menu) to see "tiramisu". I have anything but a sweet tooth, but tiramisu on a dessert menu has some strange stranglehold on me - so it had to be ordered. Turns out it was a tiramisu sundae - a whopping great glass full of not just tiramisu, but tiramisu flavour ice cream, God knows how much cream, and 3 chocolate flakes in the top for good measure. Anyone who knows me (and as Anna has recently discovered), I eat a quite stupendous amount of food for someone of my relatively small size - but on this occasion I knew I was beaten. It made The Harvester's infamous Rocky Horror look decidedly tame.

Tomorrow, we could be leaving. But where... who knows. We don't (/can't) make these sorts of decisions unless we have less than 12 hours till a deadline...!

A Wild Week in Buenos Aires... by night

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - 7th March 2010

Going into far too much detail seems to be my style, but I've already discussed the weirdness of Buenos Aires once so need not do it again. However, one facet of the city that, while weird in some respects, is undoubtedly a factor in giving BA its awesome reputation as a destination for young people is its "working hours". In BA, body clocks run between 3 and 5 hours off what we would consider "normal" back in England - lunch is around 4pm, dinner is not before midnight, and if you're hitting a nightclub you don't bother leaving home till about 2.30am. And you get back home once the sun has risen.

Coming down to BA from Iguazú, this manic lifestyle takes a couple of days getting used to. However, we got into the swing of things fairly well right for Day 1, thanks to a few rounds of Happy Hour 2-beers-for-10-pesos followed by a fantastic couple of rounds of Beer Pong. Having eaten next to nothing all day, Anna was feeling the beers before we'd begun the beer pong festivities, so being a gentleman I obliged to drink whatever her share of pong-related beer she didn't want... which had the predictable enough consequence of sending me down the same path she'd trailblazed. Both happily merry and damn hungry, we sauntered off into the night at about midnight and (somehow) found our way to El Desnivel. Recommended by the LPG and, in no uncertain terms, by Oli and Becca from their time in BA, it would be our first of four visits to enjoy absolutely fantastic steaks and equally fantastic prices. Washed down with a bottle of Malbec, every visit was a gastronomic delight... though the wine was probably ill advised on that first night considering pre-existing beer consumption. Still, the staff there probably loved us - a morning-after post mortem examination of our wallets suggested that we'd settled the 115 peso bill with two 100 peso notes... and then presumably got up and left before getting change. The place was damn good, but a 75% tip was probably a shade over-generous.

Back in my early days in South America when I was still "living the dream" going solo, I'd been part of a motley crew in Montevideo made up of a bunch of Australians and a girl from Buenos Aires. I got in touch with the latter, Bárbara, before we got to BA and we organised meeting up and sampling La Cigale - one of the bar-restaurants around BA's commerical business district frequented by office workers looking to kick back after hours. A cool place with a bit of a French feel and live music on weekends, I had an excellent pizza that was made doubly excellent with the addition of Anna's anchovies (which, as it turns out, she really doesn't like). Few bars bother opening on weeknights like Tuesday, but Bárbara introduced us to the pedestrianised area of Avenieda Reconquista which, as she predicted, was crowded in all its bars regardless of the day of the week.

Being in Buenos Aires, it was compulsory for us to check out a Tango show; we duly obliged on Thursday night at a place on Av. de Mayo. Impressive as the dancing was - particularly the speed of their movements - I'd be lying if I said I was really a "dancing kinda guy". It was definitely worth seeing, but not something I'd prioritise going back for.

More run of the mill were the last two nights - the first of which saw me befriend the bunch of newbies previously mentioned in the "day edition" over a 14-person game of "Ring of Fire" in the hostel garden. As Ring of Fire games go, it was pretty tame - playing with newbies often is as they don't know the rules and don't like to drink. Entertainment came in the form of a gay Brazilian by the name of "Rafa" - whether related to levels of inebriation or just stupidity (or indeed a language barrier), he was unable to fathom what was going on at any stage, and thus was the target for any and all nominated punishment "fingers". It later transpired that he was a bit of a nutcase... but we weren't to know that at the time. Anyway, one drinking game invariably lead to another and in true BA style the night dragged onto the early hours. I don't really know when I went to bed, but facebook-based evidence suggests it was after 4.30am...

Then, as if to mark a grand crescendo on the week in Buenos Aires, there came last night (or, more accurately, this morning). As always, the night began in the Che Lagarto bar - some sort of party was going down and the place was filled with locals, but a crew of us backpackers (including Jamie and the newbies) managed to find ourselves a table around which many a beer was drunk - a precursor to Saturday night in BA's must do night out - Crobar. Located a taxi ride away up in the swanky Recoleta district, I'd be surprised if there's a better club in the city. We rocked up at about 2.30am - fairly fashionable by BA standards but probably still a touch on the early side - and once inside promptly had an absolute mare trying to get drinks as the idiot barman refused to accept 100 peso notes, and the idiot woman at the ticket counter refused to change them. Various attempts at borrowing money failed miserably, before someone pointed out that a different bar was accepting 100 notes without issue. A few quickfire rounds later, and I found myself wandering around the huge expanse of the club with Duncan - one of our Che Lagarto crew who incidentally had a PhD in quantum physics - and someone else, and in the process discovering another room and a whole 'nother world of music and *attactive* Argentine girls. Hours continued to pass, but at some stage we all decided to leave and - like manna from heaven - found ourselves stumble straight into a burger shack that offered a "completo" burger with fried egg and all the works for the bargain price of 7 pesos ($2). Needless to say it was destroyed.

At approximately 7.30am we got home, and at approximately 10.30am I had to get up to check out. And that, in another nutshell, was Buenos Aires.

A Wild Week in Buenos Aires... by day

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - 7th March 2010

The purpose of The Daily Rod, back in September at least, was purely to allow people to know where I was and what I was up to without their inboxes being clogged with annoying and impersonal bulk emails that they'd probably ignore or forget to read anyway, and equally to stop me having to write the same thing 25 times to different people. Its remit may, arguably, have subsequently expanded into various other realms - not least as a platform for my various inane musings about the world - but with this blog in danger of losing any sort of semblance with real time, it has become increasingly obvious how useless it becomes in serving its primary purpose when it's hopelessly out of date. The earthquake in Chile put this in real perspective - I had a load of messages from people who read the blog, but had no idea where I was because the last thing posted on there was from Rio de Janeiro almost 3 weeks earlier.

So, after spending a whole week in one place for the first time since being in Mangalore, Buenos Aires seemed like the perfect opportunity to fast forward this blog to a vaguely more sensible time lapse. Whether or not that goal comes close to being achieved, we shall have to wait and see.

Most people you talk to who've been to South America usually come up with the same answer when asked "what was you're favourite city?" BA has managed to build itself a status among backpackers that seems to edge closer and closer to legendary the more you ask people. But what nobody ever mentions, or at least failed to mention to us, is that BA is damn weird.

There's no denying it's a cool city, indeed one of the coolest. However, and Anna and I agree on this (an event so rare that when it occurs it should be duly noted), the place has an undercurrent to it - both in the demeanour of its inhabitants and the general atmosphere of its streets - that is just a little bit uncomfortable. It's not that you feel unsafe or threatened - the discomfort isn't of that kind. Rather, it seems like something that is embedded in the psyche of the city - a lack of thrill, of optimism, of get-up-and-go enthusiasm seems all too prevalent - a feeling that seems totally at odds with the very essence of the reputation Buenos Aires holds among travellers. The reason for why we both felt this is not something either of us could really pin down - to a certain degree the economic collapse in the early part of the decade could provide adequate reasons for a lack of optimism, but BA's weirdness seems to go beyond reasons economic. Drawing comparison with Rio de Janeiro - one of South America's other "heavyweight" drawcard cities - Anna was bang on the money when she noted how both cities have a blend of all kinds of people - ethnically, socially and financially, but in Rio they all seem to blend harmoniously together into one big happy Rio family. In BA, there doesn't seem to be any harmony.

Notwithstanding that somewhat dire analysis of Buenos Aires' social makeup, BA is still a fantastic city - but it lives upside down. You live by night and sleep, if at all, during the morning. Dinner comes after midnight - eating any earlier is the preserve of weirdos, or tourist gringos who have yet to adapt to (or can't handle) the BA-way. You go to sleep at sunrise, and have lunch at around 4pm. This is not just students or young people on holiday - parents are walking around with 3 year-olds in tether at 11.30pm; dinner in a family home is likely to be past midnight. This is Buenos Aires life.


One week is a fairly long time anywhere - my travels are certainly testimony to that - but the week in BA has been somewhat disjointed resulting in a strange blurring of days and events. Of immediate concern upon arrival was that Anna had various other things to attend to and had vanished off into the Subte (subway metro) less than an hour after we'd arrived at Che Legarto's BA hostel. However, Ellen was still with us from Iguazú and, accompanied by Jamie (who'd also just rocked up at our hostel), the 3 of us went exploring the city by foot. Plaza de Mayo was the first destination (see photo above) - a central square of sorts that is home to various civic buildings ranging from the colonial Cabildo to the Casa Rosada ("Pink House") - as the seat of the executive branch of Government it roughly represents BA's equivalent of the Élysée Palace. The central park and pathways of the central section of the Square give more of a hint to its special political significance for both Buenos Aires and Argentina - the scene of the May Revolution of 1810 that set Argentina on its path to independence from the Spanish, Plaza de Mayo today features several mounts of Argentine flags dawbed in slogans protesting about veterans' rights and various other issues, while every Thursday the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo continue their three-decade-long protests demanding information about their children who "disappeared" during Argentina's military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983.

The 3 of us continued random walking around the city, heading up Diagonal Norte to Avenieda 9 de Julio - the world's biggest avenue - and the Obelisk monument in the middle of it. A stroll up Av. Florida and a glance into Gallerias Pacifico brought me back to the same streets I'd walked exactly one month earlier, but we continued a bit further north up to the tree-lined greenery of Plaza San Martín before doing a U-ey and heading home. Interestingly, at some stage around then we were almost certainly within about 20 metres of Anna... but were totally oblivious to the fact until several days later.

We had the pleasure of Anna's company on Tuesday as we headed down to the famous barrio (neighbourhood/district) of La Boca - about half an hour to 45 minutes walk south-west from our hostel, heading through the artesanal shops, streets and buildings of San Telmo en route. You know when you've entered La Boca - it involves walking past the colossal gold and blue mass of La Bombonera ("the Chocolate Box"), the home of Boca Juniors FC (one of BA's two arch-rival football clubs, the other being River Plate). It's a fairly surreal experience - one minute you're walking through a fairly quiet, nondescript, residential neighbourhood with barely a person in sight, the next minute you round a corner and find yourself sharing the road with hundreds of tourists with cameras streaming out of coaches, tour buses and seemingly out of the walls - all posing in front of the multitude of blue and gold memorabilia that is dominated by a single name and face - Diego Maradona. A pretty good footballer, he's generally known round the world these days as an overweight abusive alcoholic whose cheating right arm robbed England of their rightful place in the 1986 World Cup semi-final. In Argentina, however, he's on a par with Jesus - a national hero who can do no wrong (despite the fact that his managerial ineptitude almost cost them their place in this summer's World Cup). Shame for them, really.

The intense colours of La Bombonera are mirrored across La Boca - the buildings are brightly painted and artwork ranging from grafitti to random "sculptures" to beautiful images are visible in every direction - a visage that comes to a head when you reach the street of Caminito. Although the droves of tourists somewhat tarnish its charm, the succession of pastel shaded buildings of every colour combined with simplistic architecture that hints of an Italian heritage give the place a genuine sense of identity and character that is intertwined with the area's proud history of tango. Indeed, it exudes the very feeling that seemed lacking elsewhere in BA.

With Jamie and Ellen, it was the same 3 of us that headed up to Recoleta on Wednesday that had scouted the city centre on Monday. The principle aim of the trip was to check out the famous Recoleta Cemetery - a massive necropolis of marble mausoleums that house the remains of Buenos Aires' rich and famous (most notably Eva "Evita" Perón) in a pretentiousness grandeur that is matched only by whichever tomb lies next door. The most poignant sight is the statue of Jesus Christ in the middle of the cemetery (right) - a simple statue of not great height, that is totally dwarfed in size and opulence by the tombs of those who supposedly died as his followers. If you ever wanted an example of Jesus' words, "the last shall be first, and the first last", being spectacularly ignored by the very people to which they word directed, come visit Recoleta.

The Cemetery wasn't the entirity of what Recoleta had to offer though, and a wander around vaguely to the tune of the LPG-recommended "Walking Tour" saw us check out the impressive architecture of the Buenos Aires School of Engineering, me acquire another Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt to add to the collection, a saunter across 10 lanes of traffic on a cool graffiti-strewn pedestrian bridge, and plenty of photos of the impressive Floralis Genérica sculpture in the United Nations Park. The latter, seen right, is a giant metallic flower, but is cooler than your average sculpture on the basis that its giant metallic petals open and close "based on the incidence of solar rays" - i.e. open by day and close by night. A good place for Jamie to join the illustrious group of England 2018 Bid-Backers...


A couple of journies were made to the leafy upper class Palermo neighbourhood over the week - Thursday's trip with Anna involved a walk through the parks and a couple of hours lying on the grass, while Friday afternoon saw me return minus Anna with a bunch of young'ns (18-year-old pre-university Gap Yearers) and check out the artesanal market and the general surrounding area. A fairly cool market, but the highlight on the afternoon was almost certainly a sign for "feria de la ropa" (clothes fair) on a random back street that got a few people excited; an excitement that burst like a harpooned balloon upon discovery that the "fair" consisted of a guy manning a small table and a single clothing rack - a total of maybe 20 articles of clothing. Whether it was false advertising or good marketing, you've gotta admire the guy's audacity.


Markets were also the order of the day this morning; the San Telmo area is dominated every Sunday by the weekly street market (see above) that runs the whole length of Avenieda Défensa - we covered about a kilometre of it but it could well have gone on for four. Between paintings, clothing, jewellry and the usual blend of souvenirs, there were also some unusual bits and pieces including a whole load of Homer Simpson doing the "Hand of God" t-shirts, coins with their interiors carved out around whatever design they have on the front, and - much to my excitement - a copy of Flashman in Spanish! Given that I'd just about finished my 9th book in the series I was tempted to purchase it... but common sense suggested by Spanish probably wouldn't do the book justice.

In a slightly overgrown nutshell, that largely recounts my various comings and goings of Buenos Aires during daylight hours. It is only by night, however, that BA really comes alive - but those tales will have to wait for another blog.