Peru

Having now had a few days in Lima with little pressure on time I´ve managed to bring this up to date. So this is a fairly long entry...

Inca Trail:

(Front: Me, Jim, James, Paul, Chris, Donogh, Andea, Alina;
Back: Dan, Pippa, Lisa, Siobhan.)

This is us at the start of the trail, filled with hope and excitement.

The basic composition of the group, apart from us, was thus:

• The Australian contingent: James (bit of a comedian) and the Porter/MacDonald brothers, Paul and Chris (strange facial hair). Pretty easy-going trio.
• The Irish: Donogh (good man), Lisa (good girl though ate nothing for 4 days), Siobhan and Alina (also sweet, didn´t stop talking for 4 days).
• Londoners: Pippa and Andea (not lesbians).
• The Mancunian: Dan (decent guy).

Before starting the trek I was feeling a little jaded and losing some of the passion for new experiences that´s pretty essential if you´re going to keep moving for a year, or however long. It was just after new year though (we started the trek on the 3rd January) and, as well as suffering from a severely disrupted stomach, 3 days of partying had left me feeling erm... emotionally and mentally vulnerable. Whatever the causes, my dystopia was gone after 4 days of hiking in the sun and the rain, pack on back and poles in hands (though my stomach still refused to retain anything for longer than 10 mins).

As to the trek itself, christ I could rabbit on but I won´t. In brief, we climbed up Inca steps and pottered about at ruins along the way. The food was excellent (always good news when you´re going to see it twice) and group spirit was mostly fine. Most sections of the trail turned into a race - Paul (formerly with the Australian Special Forces) commanded the uphill sections and Siobhan (nimble like a mountain goat) was master of the downhill. We piled along for 3 days through the clouds and the rain still somehow getting sunburned. Our group wasn´t alone - at any given time there are up to 500 people walking the trail. For every tourist there is a porter and they are superhuman - it´s quite disconcerting to be halfway up a hill, leaning heavily on poles, panting and sweaty, and then to see some a cluster of 50 year olds wearing flip flops and carrying 25 kilos each come jogging past laughing and chatting. But they do have massive lungs. They have a race every year and the winner of 2005 completed the trail in 3hrs 45mins (pretty good considering it took us 3 and a half days).

Anyway, we all arrived happy at Machu Pichu. It was pretty stunning. Like everyone else, I´ve seen photos so I wasn´t expecting to be overly impressed but once you get there it´s quite dramatic. Probably it´s the location more than anything else as it´s perched on top of a mountain in the middle of the jungle and the trail that you follow is pretty awesome in terms of the scenery and history. Have to wonder what posessed them to build it there - strange place for a holiday home. But according to our guide, Machu Pichu is just one of hundreds of cities on a route that runs all the way from north Columbia to south Peru. Most of these cities remain undiscovered. It makes me want to go and look for them. Anyway, got there and wondered around for a few hours and returned home shattered. That´s about it.

This is the whittled down version excluding more than half the album but still, many many photos of the Inca trail here -
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.aqgavpje&x=1&y=-d373ia

Cusco:

We arrived in Cusco on the 29th December and, apart from 4 days away on the Inca trail, stayed until the 9th Jan. Once the former capital of the Inca civilisation, Cusco is now a gringo hot-spot - the centre of the city is a concentration of travel/tour agencies, shoe-shine boys, pickpockets, beggars, bars, restaurants and night-clubs. With a fair few hostels thrown in for good measure. You can´t walk for 30 yards without being approached by at least one of each of the following:

1. A small boy who insists he can shine your flip flops,
2. A small girl who wants to sell you a finger puppet of Santa or SpongeBobSquarePants,
3. A slightly bigger boy who tries to sell you very old and tatty postcards of naked ladies then giggles and follows you round calling you a motherf****r when you refuse to buy them (admittedly this was usually the same kid),
4. A travel agent with a special offer,
5. A representative of a nearby restaurant with a special offer,
6. A representative of a nearby cinema with a special offer (special offer always related to cocaine rather than Harry Potter or Narnia).

During our time there, while dodging the characters listed above, we enjoyed a diet of Mexican food, Cusqueña beer and whisky. We made new friends late at night in the Irish pub and lost them later in sweaty discos. I don´t remember any names. New year is a blur but we were with the Dutch and Red (from Potosi) for part of the night before drifting off our separate ways.

Charming Cusco can be seen in a few photos here...
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.3g1oo7ii&x=1&y=ylmcg3

Arequipa:

We moved on to Arequipa - Peru´s second city (this is contentious as a city in the north called Trujilla also claims the title), full of lovely old colonial buildings and at lower altitude than Cusco so with a more clement climate. The Irish from the Inca trail had moved on there also and reserved us a room in a hostel. Bording the bus to take us there we found Red two rows back, so upon arrival we all ended up at the same digs. The bus journey was hell - kids crying, adults snoring oblivious to the din, sub-zero temperatures and a 4 hour long Bollywood movie called "The Joker". Maybe this film has some merit but played at full volume through cracking and tinny speakers until 2 in the morning when all you want it do is sleep because you have to get off the bus at 6am...

We spent some time in Arequipa with the Irish, wondering around, visiting museums and dining. All good fun. We spent some time wondering around with Red, or without, doing pretty much the same. Red seemed to suffer a little from over-enthusiastic attempts to live like the locals. He spent much of his time either bed-bound after eating the cheapest food the city had to offer or busy ingratiating himself into the company of a local chica that he´d met. He became disenchanted with the chase after the second date on which she took him for a tour of the city followed by a traditional supper. "There´s nothing like watching a pretty girl tuck into fried guinea pigs head...". I really liked Arequipa.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.cjgxpn62&x=1&y=-7bymj9

Lima:

Then to Lima. We got there on a Thursday all churned up and spat out after another bus journey from hell. I´m beginning to lose faith in the busses here - once they seemed great but we are constantly thwarted by them recently. Again we were let down by the noise levels and the entertainment schedule. Noise levels rose unacceptably high both during the entertainment and later as the two gits next to us talked late into the night and from early in the morning. I shot them a few dirty looks but failed to make my anger fully felt. There´s something intimidating about overly effeminate men who talk loudly and giggle a foreign language at 4.30am. However, I won´t be so reserved in future. The entertainment was a combination of bingo and karaoke. The hostess called the bingo and if you got a line then the reward was the opportunity to sing! Can you imagine? That went on until about half eleven I could have cried.

Lima initially seemed a bit grotty. We´d originally intended to stop at a couple of places on the way to see oases and Nasca lines and dolphins lions tigers and bears oh my and stuff but ended up coming straight here because it´ll work out cheaper and it´s been an expensive month with the Inca trail and buying a flight to Buenos Aires. Also, couldn´t escape the feeling that I was grinding to a bit of a halt and my energy for endless packing and unpacking of bag and checking in and out of hotels, on and off of busses, was waning. So at the expense of potentially life-changing monuments of Peru in dramatic landscapes with exotic people we came to smoggy Lima to chill out in a dark and dirty hostel with similarly discombobulated people.

On the first day we found a vegetarian Indian restaurant run by Hare Krishnas where the menu of the day is a pound and it´s 3 delicious courses. When I say found what I actually mean is that the guide book suggested and we walked to. Then I found a barber who butchered my hair (it´s never been so short - my face feels compromised by the defecit so I have reinstigated a beard). Then in the evening we went to an Irish bar where they were having an Iron Maiden tribute night so it was empty and we drank in there until we were slurring our words, confusing each other, and the band were threatening to make an appearance despite the lack of crowds. Found more beer elsewhere and I remember arm-wrestling an enormous Peruvian man (losing) before heading back to the hostel to sleep it off.

Lima is on the coast and there is much talk of surfing and beachlife. So we walked along the waterfront on Saturday from our safe hostel suburb of Miraflores to the equally pleasant Barranco. There were lots of surfers and on the beach we saw many people flapping around eating, sun-bathing, fighting (until then, for me, the image of a musclebound hardman kicking sand in the face of a puny adversary to impress his girlfriend had just been a myth so it was interesting to see that confirmed). The familiar visual chaos was offset by the stench of sewage, I kid you not it reeks down there. And the water that the kids were delightedly running in and out of, jumping waves and screeching fun was green and viscous. People walked out of the sea with it sliding unnaturally slowly down their skin and trailing behind them in gloopy puddles that refused to disperse into the sand. We concurred that it might be better to head a bit down the coast or just wait until we get to Rio for beach life.

Saturday night also got a bit messy as we declared our party funds depleted and decided to cook at home and have a bottle of wine. The meal was great (pasta, tomato sauce) and the bottle of wine turned into three before we met another English fellow and moved onto beer and Pisco sour (that´s the local poison). Ended up in the same bar where the arm wrestle had previously occurred, discussing Gordon Brown´s lack of social aplomb and predicting the unstopable rise ofthe Conservative party to success at the next election. Before headingback to the hostel to sleep it off.

One day the Dutch arrived from the North. So we hung out with them and went to a couple of museums downtown and for lunch in Chinatown. This was more the kind of 'adventure' that I was expecting from Lima - I hadn´t foreseen myself sitting around in a plush suburb getting drunk and sleeping all day. We piled into a cab and went straight to the cathedral for a guided tour. I understand that doesn´t sound very adventurous but things picked up later. The most famous saint in Peru is Santa Rosa who was revered and later canonized for her unswerving devotion to the Lord (naturally). This she expressed through what she termed "punishments" and what we today would call psychotic, ascetic massochism. Basically, she loved God and she loved pain.

After looking at about 700 freizes, all of which involved Santa Rosa bleeding - Santa Rosa and crowns of thorns, Santa Rosa and self-flagellation etc - we decided to walk to Chinatown to find food. I led the way and we got a bit lost - not in the best area of town. In fact, we´d been told not to walk around there at all and to take a taxi from place to place. But we were thinking, 4 of us, 3 of us big guys, bring it on. I didn´t notice the gang of youths stalking us, I was kind of oblivious as I had my head in the guide book scrutinising the map, which in hindsight probably signalled to them that we´d make fine victims. Jim had seen them earlier but you get a lot of people giving you hostile looks over here so he´d ignored them. Then, as we trudged back towards busier streets, from behind us we heard Anna scream. We swivelled round to see two of them wrestling with her and her bag. As we legged it at them they dispersed. Anna was fine, not really even shaken, they hadn´t molested her and they hadn´t made off with anything. Actually, they hadn´t made off at all and were standing about 10 metres away scowling at us looking ready for pitched battle but I think that´s just the way that they looked because all reports are that violence is a rarity here. We had a bit of a stand-off for a minute or so with them skulking round us pulling faces and us not sure how to deal with the unfamiliar situation then we wondered off feeling a little perplexed to continue the search for a chinese buffet. Spent an hour in the afternoon in the museum of the Spanish inquisition so it was a torturous day all round really.

Since then there have been more museums and I´ve spent a fair bit of time writing this. After 7 days, I quite like Lima and the suburb of Miraflores and if it wasn´t for the climate it would be a pleasant place for hanging around and relaxing. But it´s 30 degrees and muggy right now - there´s little relief from the heat even at night and despite thick banks of fog rolling in from the sea each afternoon. Makes me want to sleep and I´ve been sleeping loads. That could also be related to the food - it´s easy to feast here, we fell into eating a mixture of local and international cuisines, a bit of home cooking, plenty of fish. It´s been good.

A few photos from Lima here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.6qp2nikq&x=1&y=dxz3uw

Lake Titicaca and Isla del Sol, Scams and Muggings, Bolivia

"eee orr"

Lake Titicaca and Isla del Sol:

On Boxing Day the 4 of us (Me, James, Jeroen and Anna) got out of La Paz and headed to Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca. This was a 6 hour bus journey broken up by having to cross the lake half way through. At this point we got off the bus and onto a little boat and watched the bus, loaded onto a wooden raft, chugg across.

Copacabana is a tourist pit. I have no enduring fond memories of the place itself but we had a decent time there. We ate bad trout and tried in vain to visit a Mexican restaurant that was recommended in the quide books but it was always shut. Didn´t have a beer or glass of wine for 5 days. We spent 2 of the days on Isla del Sol (the spiritual/physical birthplace of the Incas) eating better trout, hiking across farmland when we lost the path, and watching old women shepherd donkeys around the island. Actually saw more donkeys than people on Isla del Sol - they bar your path as you try to get by and look at you like they own the place. The old women use sticks on them but we just clambered round.

Here are some photos of the journey and Isla del Sol...
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.6moyx43u&x=1&y=-wlct7p

Scams and muggings:

While travelling you get told horror stories of how you´ll be duped, ripped-off or mugged. Apparently, the lesser elements of Bolivian society have a number of tricks that they pull on unsuspecting tourists... these are also popular in Peru.

1/ Spitting / The heel pinch
Location: Versatile, to be expected just about anywhere.
Deployment: As you walk along the street you feel someone spit on the back of your neck. Alternatively you might feel your heel being pinched. As you turn around you´re in a crowd and someone has a hand in your pocket while someone else is rooting in your bag.
Success: Sounds a bit obvious and easy to foil to me but apparently people get caught out. Saw it attempted on a few people without success.

2/ Everyone trusts a posh lady
Location: Back of a taxi
Deployment: You get in a cab and as you do so a well dressed, English speaking, lady leans in and asks if you´re going "downtown" (substitute appropriate popular backpacker area for X city). She is going the same way and suggests you share a ride. You do so but then get turned over as you make an unscheduled stop down a back street where she picks up some ne'erdowells who threaten you with all sorts and make off with your cash.
Success: Never met anyone who had fallen foul of this and it sounds a bit like a myth. Though we were warned about it in all earnest by someone who knew someone...

3/ Bag snatch
Location: The street
Deployment: This is an international standard that requires no explanation, if you´re fool enough to wonder round a dodgy area looking rich and waving a bag around with reckless abandon then you shouldn´t be surprised when it gets chored. Having said that, we were subject to an attempted bag-snatch today as we bungled around Lima looking for Chinatown. We were hardly giving it up on a plate, Jim had even spotted them earlier scoping us out, but some youths had a go at Anna´s bag before we shouted at them and chased them away. Cheeky little sods didn´t run far mind and just backed off a bit and stood there pulling faces at us.
Success: Imagine this happens a lot.

4/ Passport irregularity
Location: Bus station
Deployment: It´s quite common here to have to show your passport in bus stations, even for national journeys. In this scam you're asked by a member of the uniformed tourist police or a plain clothes police officer for your passport. Usually they speak excellent English and state that it´s solely for survey purposes. You´re off your guard, duped by their suave manner and official airs, so you hand it over. As they review they tell you that there is some irregularity with the entry stamps and that you´ll need to accompany them to the station. They hail a cab and get in with your passport. So you follow them. Then you end up a few kilometres away in a quiet part of town with more 'tourist police' being sold your passport for about US$300.
Success: Should be easy to avoid as there are neither tourist police of plain clothes police in Bolivia or Peru. But silly though it may sound I´m told it´s common enough.

5/ Drug possession
Location: Again, this is a car based nasty.
Deployment: Out on the town you are befriended by some local characters who seem genial and relaxed. At some point, maybe that night, maybe days after the initial meeting, you end up heading to a party with them in a cab or their car. You´re stopped by the police on a routine check and one of your new mates plants something on you or maybe just drops it at your feet. It then costs you about US$500 to make the police go away and forget the affair. Either that or you can take your chances with the local judicial system and penitentiary and await a fair trial approximately a year from the date of your arrest.
Success: Well, an Aussie called James who was on the Inca trail told me that he met a guy who fell victim. This was in Columbia and having handed over 500 bucks this poor guy remained in town to see more sights. A week later when he was in a market he was unfortunate enough to run into the same two police officers who then tapped him for a further US$ telling him that there were a few issues outstanding with his case. He said they were laughing. Have heard other versions of the same stunt. I conclude that it might be rare but probably does happen.

Will update if I hear of any more.

Bolivia

Welcome to Bolivia:

Salar de Uyuni:

We prepared for a tour of the Salt Flats by meeting up with the two others who we would be going with (4 days in a jeep together), eating pizza and getting smashed. There was a blackout in Uyuni following a sand storm so little else to do by candle-light except glug cheap wine and talk crap. Fantastic pizzas though.


The following day we set out with our guide Jimmy (pronounced Himey) and the cook (never got her name). To call Jimmy a guide might be a bit of an exaggeration as he was pretty coy with regard to information. He was quite young and seemed to feel it was a bit uncool to know so much about the regional geography so only tossed us a handful of words over the 4 day period. He loved his jeep though and I saw him clean the engine about 8 times. He was pretty popular with the ladies and wherever we stopped along the route he gravitated towards the local young females - I saw one of the ladies he was chasing leave his room at about 6am on the morning of the third day. He was much more animated in his descriptions that day. While Jimmy was quiet the cook said nothing for 4 days. She communicated principally through differing innotations of an "ah" sound but even with this severe economy of words she managed to express most essential emotions and responses. What she lacked in conversation she made up for in culinary skills.

I´ll let the pictures do the talking for the tour suffice to say that it was an amazing 4 days of bumpy roads and shifting landscapes and we got along really well with Jonny and Flick.

Unfortunately on day 3 I dropped my camera and chipped the lens. Tragedy - is going to require a lot of photoshop action upon return to remove the splodge from the photos. Should be able to get it fixed before then, but still there´s a lot of photos to rehash. Anyway, this is a pretty big album so don´t attempt it on a pc with a slow connection...
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.70xkelp6&x=1&y=-x6n40h


Potosi:

The day after we arrived in Potosi the Bolivian elections were held so the place drifted between deathly quiet and chaos. The winner was some former farmer with the slogan "Death to gringos". Charming.

The primary reason for being in Potosi was for a tour of the local silver / tin / zinc mine. We did this in a group with others that we´d met at the hostel... great bunch of people who we continued to travel with after the tour...

Before entering the mine itself we hit the miners market where our guide explained to us the lives of the miners (brief but well paid relative to the Bolivian average) and we got to try the miners' favourite tipple (a 90% proof liquor - wasn´t too bad actually). We bought gifts of fizzy drinks, bags of coco leaves, cigarettes and dynamite to give to the miners and then headed to the processing plant to see the metals being extracted from the rock. The attention to safety was minimal; we coasted along the slippery production line and were all encouraged to dangle precariously over the massive grinding cogs and peer into the grimy abyss in search of glinting spots below.

We were kitted out with helmets, boots and overalls and then entered the mine - walking along the track that the trolleys run along so frequently having to press ourselves against a wall while a rickety old cart sped past witha couple of miners hanging off the back. Our guide was really informative having himself been a miner for 10 years before somebody made him an offer and he 'escaped'. The other miners didn´t seem to resent his change in status - he said that this was because he now earned half what they did and that they considered him (and mocked him for being) less of a man. Neither did they seem to resent our presence or their being exhibited for someone else´s profit - apparently the gifts that we brought appeased any qualms left over but for the most part they are incredibly proud of their status and job.

Conditions were foul: The heat was intense on most levels; the air was thick with dust and no ventilation system exists there (within miuntes of entering we were coughing and hacking and covering noses and mouths - could see why most miners die of silicosis within 10 years of entering the mine); the tunnels were mostly no more than 5 feet high and in some places we crawled along on elbows, there were no safety measures in place.

After 3 hours we were glad to emerge filthy into the fresh air. Our finale was to creat some bombs using the (feely available and unregulated) dynamite. Then we blew up some rubble.

Photos are here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.38ar7ky2&x=1&y=t6beb0


La Paz:



I´m not recommending La Paz. I guess it´s a good place to party and Jim and I had a massive night out with some Irish guys that we´d met. 8 of us travelled up together from Potosi after the mine tour and a couple of nights of boozing were enough - it wasn´t long before most of us were feeling some form of illness. A special mention should go to Jeroen our Dutch friend for getting so trashed on his birthday that despite being in bed for 11pm he had to cancel a 2 day mountain hike that he´d booked.

In the couple of days before Christmas I managed to do the Death Road cycle and visit some pre-columbian ruins at a place called Tihuanaca.


The cycle was awesome - probably the biggest adrenalin rush of my life. Over 67k you descend 3000m tearing along a dirt track no wider than a bus at most points. Due to the weather we couldn´t see over the edge when we set out - on the right was the rock face and on the left were banks of cloud obscuring a drop of up to 1000m. We raced without inhibition for the first half only growing more cautious as we dropped below the cloud line. Here we got a better idea of the fate that awaited us if we were to make a mistake and by that point most of us had had a close call of one kind or another.

Looking down into the mist and jungle, one hand on the break, the detritus of fallen trucks and busses was easily visible. About 30 go over per year and nobody bothers to collect them as it´s too much hassle. A couple of weeks before we did the road a French girl had gone over on her bike. We all became more cautious after a collision involving Jim and Red. Most of us had backed off a bit but had they continued to tear each other up until they both came flying off. I rounded a corner to see Jim lying about a foot from the ledge, catatonic. We got him up in the end but he didn´t get back on the bike afterwards. Actually, I should probably say "couldn´t" - he was pretty banged up.

Tihuanaca:

Writing this now I can´t remember whose idea it was to go to Tihuanaca. Anna blames me but I think she was pretty keen too. Max was certainly influential and in hindsight it was probably his fault because he was a turd. So the three of us went (Max and Anna were part of the group who had travelled up from Potosi - the rest had either left by this point or were bed-ridden). 72k out of La Paz, 3 hours by local bus to what will possibly be the next big thing in ruined ancient cities of South America. I can´t confirm that yet because excavation hasn´t really started... So we arrived and paid an extortionate fee for entry to look around a mound (albeit a mound that it is projected will one day be a fascinating traveller´s mecca). Relations were strained on the way back as we discovered that Max, who had previously only been mildly irritating, was actually a total arse.

Pictures from the Death Road and Tihuanaca are here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.c0t4wcne&x=1&y=z62foe


Christmas:

For Christmas we checked into the 5* Plaza Hotel for 2 nights for a bit of luxury. Did a lot of sleeping and hung out on Chrismas day with Jeroen and Anna drinking "champagne" (it was only 3 quid per bottle) and eating Quality Street and After Eights - the only foodstuffs that we could find that were reminiscent of a traditional family Christmas in the UK.

Argentina again through to Bolivia

Crossing the Andes from Valparaiso:

The night before we left Valparaiso we ended up going out with a couple of people to a bar and blew our remaining pesos (inc. taxi money) on beer. So we had to get up extra early to walk to the bus station on the other side of town. We´d originally booked our tickets for an overnight journey but rescheduled upon advice that crossing the Andes involved spectacular scenery obviously invisible by night. Unfortunately, effects of lager and the late night meant that I slept through most of the journey.

Mendoza:

The area surrounding Mendoza supplies about 90% of Argentina´s wine. Supposedly there´s some good treking and reasonable rafting too but we had limited time so just opted to do a wine tasting tour and spend the other day shopping.

Plastered:

We were lucky to get a decent group for the tasting and had a great time. After visiting a vineyard and then a bodega (place without vineyard where they process grapes) we went to a small cellar for more tasting and a meal. The Argentinians that we´d met were really proud of their produce and we got to taste some award-winning wines, particularly at the first stop vineyard. I won´t pretend to know much about it - as long as it doesn´t make me retch and it isn´t too warm then I´m generally happy. Instructions on tasting just left me a bit confused as I failed to pick up the red berry marmalade, undertones of oregano, wafts of new leather... Anyway, without wanting to sound too churlish we´d knocked off a fair bit of it by the time we tumbled back into the bus so all were happy. Though I´m not sure if the end of an argument with some Dutch people about responsible toursim was entirely amicable.

Salta:

Lovely place - won´t bore with the details. Here are some photos though of Mendoza and Salta:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.52yoi78i&x=1&y=-lv90tj

Salta to Uyuni:

All in all it hasn´t been the experience I was expecting so far as it´s all been a bit easy. (Again, I´m being careful what I wish for.) Have just crossed from Argentina into Bolivia though where the going should be tougher.

After Salta we travelled to a tiny town called Uyuni, the jumping off point for 4 day tour round the salt flats and lagunas and volcanos and stuff. We booked a tour. When done we´re heading up to a place called Potosi for a night just to spend the day visiting a mine - the medieval style mines where the life expectancy is 45 due to poor conditions and alcoholism. So that should be a laugh. They welcome visitors to broaden awareness of their situation. You´re expected to take gifts of dynamite and coco leaves.

Bolivia immediately felt a lot more basic than Argentina. We´re gonna splurge for Chrismas, hopefully will be in La Paz by then and I´m eying up El Hotel Presidente. Might be in a better position to afford it also as it´s dirt cheap here. People seem really friendly and basic is good I guess as it feels a bit more rough and ready. No hot shower for Jim this morning but that´s only ´cos he couldn´t work out how to work it.
Dirt cheap (in pounds):
Yesterday´s lunch for two = 1
Acom (twin room, shared bath) = 2.50
4 day tour of salt flats etc in 4x4 (inc. food, acom) = 40pp

Had a mixed day travelling through from Agrentina. It´s hard to assimilate the amazing things that you see and do with the sometimes extreme lack of comfort. Occasionally you decide that it isn´t worth it (I´m finding this is usually driven by ill-health like a dodgy gut which fortunately I´ve been able to avoid overall) but mostly it all just contributes to the unusual experience. So while it might seem like my description of the events is negative that´s not how it´s lived.

Anyway, up at 4.30 in the rain to get to the bus station in Salta (Argentina). 8 hours on a standard bus (that means that it´s cheap, and there´s no legroom and because it´s cheap it´s the one that all the locals take and it stops everywhere and is full of kids). Arrived at the border just about (had a flat tire for the last couple of hours of journey) and walked across which was surprisingly easy. Bolivian women wear bowler hats and frilly skirts and withouth exception walk with a stoop - a world away from across the border where Argentinian women wear Gucci and walk with poise and grace.

Then started to walk to the train station. Was about 12.30 by then and the only train up to Uyuni for the next 4 days was leaving at 3.30. Anyway, had to abandon walking (is only 1k) because we started to feel sick - discovered later that we´d ascended to nearly 4000m. Got to train station to find ticket office shut but it reopened later and after much hassle we were able to get tickets to a place called Oruro which is actually several hundred k north of Uyuni but they said that we could get off early. They have a strange ticketing system that works by carriage so when the carriage for Uyuni is full you have to buy a ticket to the next destination and then get off early. Not exactly a massive issue as the tickets were only 7 pounds each for the 9 hour journey. This was standard class though - so again destined to be with the locals. And it was pretty rough. They sell tickets for kids under 8 at 60% price if they sit on parents laps so you get a carriage for 30 that actually contains 50 people and half of them are crying and crapping themselves. I wish I was joking. I had an aisle seat at the back and on my right was an old Bolivian man (very friendly but gave up on the chat after he realised that my Spanish isn´t all that) and on my left were two old women with two kids. The kids were really sweet but obviously about as happy to be on the cramped train as we were. Still they didn´t cry or moan that much and didn´t run about screaming like they would in the UK. And they have less issue with personal space and are friendly so Jimbo is sat in front of them and they´re patting his head and dribbling on him and then they´re leaning all over me and trying to poke me in the ear while giggling. I´ve almost made it sound pleasant. It wasn´t. Dragged ourselves off the train at half midnight and were accosted by lady from the hostel that we´d earmarked to stay at which was pretty lucky. Good beds and I feel much better slept now.

All of that said, the scenery between Salta and here is amazing. On the Argentinian side you ascend through the Andes and enormous mulitcoloured rockfaces that shift from lime green to red to white. Barren landscape is punctuated by the occasional cacti field or huddle of llamas being shepherded by kids to some out-of-sight destination. After the border it´s similar but more desolate. Sitting on the train we passed through the area where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid spent their last few weeks pursued by militia. Landscape combines dustball strewn mountains populated by 3m high cacti with lush valleys where they´re growing god-knows-what in abundance. Throughout the journeys you pass these one horse towns that seem to be made of dust, all of the buildings constructed from local clay/mud, some even built into the hills in that kind of Star Wars way, everything is one colour: the hills, the roads, the buildings. No coca cola signs yet.

Chile - Puerto Montt to Valparaiso

Armpit:

We were advised against staying in Puerto Montt - apparently it´s just a grim, semi-industrial hole. So we ended up heading to Pucon, further north in Chile, where someone had recommended climbing Villaricca Volcano and hiking around the lakes. Reading about the climb while on the bus, it began to sound a bit more serious than we had imagined - guide essential, only possible weather permitting, bring own crampons and ice-axe, that kind of thing.

More photos here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.cp5nwwsy&x=1&y=-j7hikv

Impending doom:

It was a beautiful journey up through Chile´s Lake District, skirting round vast, motionless lakes, through lush farmland and over ragged peaks. It was marred only by repeated screening of Final Destination 2 in the bus. (They showed it 3 times in a row.) For the uninitiated this film revolves around the concept that death has a list and when it´s your time to go it´ll get you but you can cheat it by reading the ´signs´and staying clear of what they predict. It isn´t very good. By the time I got off the bus I was determining prophetic symbols of my demise in every glance from a workman on scaffolding and in every dog´s bark. Lot´s of dogs here. Again, dozily traipsing the streets, nonchalantly stopping traffic and rarely issuing a bark.

Bragger:

We went back to a hostel with with a pleasant chap called Claudio who accosted us in the bus station - he seemed nice and the facilities were ok and it was cheap for Chile. It turned out later that the hostel was full of very odd people, the walls were made of paper and Claudio was a sociopath - it was probably the weirdest place we´ve found so far. As well as running the hostel he was an official tour guide so as soon as we were settled he began his sales patter... "Mine ees not the cheapest climb in the town but ees the best. We have best equipment which ees all new and I am fastest guide so we leave early in the morning and be first to top of volcano. You lucky because ees raining for 2 weeks and there are no tours so you arrive just at the right time but there ees people who are waiting 2 weeks to climb and it will be very busy so ees best to get up fast with me." It might have been this that made the hostel so strange - the people there were going stir-crazy after having waited so long for the climb.

Ignoring Claudio´s guff we went with a cheap and friendly Israeli company who seemed competent enough. Claudio became pretty tetchy when he realised later that we weren´t booking with him. It seemed that everybody else in the hostel had. But we ignored him and got an early night in preparation for the 6am rise to climb. I think that ear plugs are the most useful things that I´ve brought on this trip - while James unfortunately had to listen to the elderly Scandanavian gentlemen in the next room talking at the top of their voices until 1am (one of them also seemed to be marching around the room in boots), I was able to block them out.

Volcanoing:

It was harder than it looked zig-zagging up through the snow and ice, most of the way at a 45-60 degree angle. Started off freezing with no feeling in toes but pretty soon warmed up and shed layers - each tme emitting plumes of steam. It took our group of 8 about 5 hours to reach the summit. We passed Claudio about half way up struggling with a couple of greeting Canadians and we were the first to arrive at the top. Had about 20 mins before others started arriving which allowed us to wonder around in peace and admire the views. The volcano itself wasn´t up to much, just a bit of sulphurous smoking and the occasional burst of lava shooting out of a hole way down below. By the time we´d had lunch there were about 100 people milling around on the top. We headed down through thin clouds gathering about the volcano.

Descending was a bit quicker as our guide, Hernan, handed out rubber trousers and demonstrated how to slide down using the ice axe as a break. This was a lot of fun. The brake was essentially useless and only really served to start you spinning round. Either that or it ended up dug too far into the ice, almost wrenched your arm out or the socket and you lost it as you sped down. He took every run first and half the time just disappeared into mist from where you´d here a "next". So we just rattled down and generally managed to stop before toppling over anything too dangerous so that we could pick ourselves up and walk to the next downhill run. I was soaked through by the time we reached the bottom an hour later but contemplated doing the climb again for the sake of another descent.

Back at the hostel Claudio returned a couple of hours after us looking very red in the face. He´d neglected to use any protection and the sun was fierce all day (added to that there´s not much ozone layer down here). The rest of the hostel dwellers had similarly suffered, it looked pretty painful. I was ok with only a slightly burned left ear and a blistering burn on my right wrist that must have been caused by lava or something. Jim´s sunglasses had failed him and he´d burned his eyeballs. Judging from his description of the sensation it is as sore as it sounds.

Valparaiso:

We got a bus up to Valpariaso which is supposed to be the cultural capital of Chile. It´s a port, about half way up the country, set into the Andean foothills. It used to be thriving and grew rapidly until they opened the Panama canal when it went into decline. We spent a couple of fairly uneventful days there wondering around the suburbs (shanty towns) and eating home cooked meals comprised essentially of tomato, pasta and garlic. The highlight of the stay was probably a visit to Pablo Neruda´s house which was pleasant enough.

View more photos here (though they are a bit dull):
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.96i97fde&x=1&y=-jl6zwi

Cruising

Booze Cruise:

We boarded the Navimag "party boat" in the evening on Thursday 24th and had a night on board before setting off up the coast early the next morning. That first night was pretty tame as people sussed out the surrounds and established sea legs. Jim and I had both opted for bottom bunks in the dorm of 22. We were expecting the worst - one big room with 22 rickety bunk beds and no space for luggage, one open bathroom to 44 people, grimey sheets - not sure why, just pesimists I guess. Actually it wasn't so bad as all the dorms were split into sections and you had 4 beds to a section which was a bit like a room without a door. There were lockers at the end of the beds and super viewing possibilities from the porthole, curtains across the open sides of the spotless beds. All good really if a little cramped but actually I quite like that. I´ve always fancied staying in one of those pod hotels in Japan...

Rabbit warren:

The bags had been taken onto the boat earlier by porters and when we got to our allocated spaces only our bags were sitting in the 4-bed space. So we assumed that we're hit the jackpot and bagged a section to ourselves as no one had wanted to take the upper bunks that we'd left free. After a wonder around the boat and quick drink in the "pub" we headed off to bed and were disappointed to find an old, bearded Spaniard unpacking. James was more put out than I was as the guy seemed to have assumed his lower bunk. I argued with him for a while but he spoke no English and the conversation was tough. He was adamant that Jim's bed was his and also claimed that there was some Australian girl in the bed that I occupied. Chance would be a fine thing, I thought. Have picked up some cuss words and was about to make first use of them or just kick his smug, hairy face when Jim pointed out that we were in the wrong dorm. There was a general spirit of friendship on the boat with everyone getting along but he didn't speak to us again for the whole trip despite the giggling apology that I issued as we shuffled off to try to find the right dorm. I never really got to grips with the layout of the boat - 4 identical dorms in a row with little signposting. Was a great relief to get to our beds and discover nobody else had moved in. Anyway, there was a point to all that - the layout of the boat was confusing.

Routine:

The schedule for the next few days was fairly repetitive. Breakfast 8-9, Lunch 1230-1330, Dinner 1930-2030. A few organised activities in between like documentaries about Chile and movies, plus bingo on the last night. Otherwise we pretty much just read and slept and played cards. Did a fair bit of drinking too but the boat didn't exactly live up to its reputation as party central.

It rained nearly constantly so the opportunities to get out on deck were limited. Felt a bit weird being on deck anyway as there were freights on the back of the boat carrying cattle and horses so while drifting peacefully through the fjords and along past icebergs and glaciers you couldn´t escape the feeling that you were on a farm. Having said that, this was the first time in weeks that we hadn´t been pursued by dogs everywhere we went.

The boat docked once, on the second morning, for us to get off and visit what would appear to be the final resting place of a once thriving indigineous community. They´d shown a documentary about them the previous day. The community currently stands at 12 pure-blood individuals after a century of turmoil prompted by Spanish colonisation, decimation of their way of life and environment, subsequent despair and alcoholism... cheery stuff.

Hello Sailor:

What might have otherwise have been a pretty event-free journey was made more "interesting" by an Aussie couple that we met. Sheila and Bruce (not their real names) joined us just before dinner on the first day and we played cards with them while drinking. It turned out that Sheila was the Australian girl that the bearded Spaniard (apparently a big snorer) had been referring to during the argument. They said that he didn't speak to them either. Anyway, we got pretty trashed and had a fun night. I think there might have been some dancing. I staggered to bed around half one, paralytic.

I was woken up by Sheila climbing into my bed. I was confused at first what with her having a boyfriend somewhere nearby and me having made my situation clear. Plus, it wasn´t like there had been any flirting and I didn´t find her attractive so can´t imagine that I was unwittingly emitting a subconscious vibe or whatever.

I was about to issue a stern rebuke when I remembered the mistake that I'd made previously with the wrong dorm and the fact that her bed was in the same spot. This time I was pretty sure that I had the right bed because I was lying on my book so I figured the error must be hers. Those thoughts crossed my mind quickly and I think I was about to verbally confirm my conclusion and suggest that she reassess her environs when she tried to put her tongue in my mouth. Be careful what you wish for, I thought.

I resisted and she persisted for a while. We had a small wrestle, and then she was gone. A few seconds later I started doubting that it had happened. I dropped off again and awoke to much the same a bit later. This time I was really confused, like maybe she´d mistaken my attempts to push her off and twist away as passion-fuelled fumbling. I half expected her to say "Be gentle with me darling".

The next day it took me a while to remember and even then I wasn´t sure of myself. Later Sheila apologised. But she was quite full-on for the rest of the journey and made everyone feel uncomfortable. Eventually, on the last evening, Bruce had had enough and by the time we got off in the morning he wasn't speaking to her. Shame as he seemed like a really nice guy. I got the impression this was a familiar situation for them both. Still, it made my journey an edgy one as I tried to evade comely glances and conversation. We exchanged email addresses but probably won´t keep in touch.


Wish I´d taken more photos of the boat and stuff but there was nothing too inspirational to prompt me. Here are a few...
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.93ymu00i&x=1&y=-ysx8jg

Patagonia

OK, so I think that I left off with us travelling down to Patagonia. That was a pretty dull journey - 30 hours of planes, trains and automobiles and all that. Highlight was the bus from Iguazu to Buenos Aires which was properly luxurious: enormous lazy-boy style seating with only about 12 of them on the top deck, seats that reclined almost to horizontal, good movies, vermouth...

Hostel life:

We arrived in El Calafate, Argentina to find a small town in the middle of a freezing, barren landscape. Utterly charmless, the place consisted almost entirely of tourist agencies, camping shops and hostels. Monotony punctuated by the occasional extortionate restaurant. Naturally, we stayed a few days to soak it up.

Actually we did stay a few days but only because it´s so easy to be lazy. Plus, discounting treking in the Andes (which was restricted due to weather and budget), the one thing that we wanted to do there was fully booked for a few days. So we spent our time engaging with hostel living. As a first experience of mixed dorms on this trip it was overall positive. I´d imagined it would be a all awkward with hairy Germans emerging from the shower, half-heartedly clutching towels and apologising for shaking the bed as they flashed their nuts while climbing into the upper bunk. On the contrary, in our 4 person dorm Lena stated from the outset that she wasn´t big on clothes and proceeded to indulge us with regular flashes (stop me if I sound like a dirty old man) of her birthday suit. And Chris, sleeping above me, was amiable enough (and smooth as an eel) though he did fight in his sleep. Yeah I know that wasn´t his fault.

Dalek:

As well as sleeping we made extensive use of the kitchen facilities and booked our way out of there. We also went for a long walk round Lake Argentina (biggest lake in South America or something like that) and saw an armadillo. Brilliant - that 10 seconds of fawna was worth the trip to Calafate alone - couldn´t catch it though as they actually skuttle quite fast.

Jeff the nature lover:

The one excursion that we managed from Calafate was out to the Perito Merino glaciar. This is the most popular tourist attraction in the area and there were innumerate different tours running from Calafate. We went with an 'alternative tour' which claimed to take a little-used back road to the National Park (so as to encounter more wildlife en route) and a more adventurous path up to the glaciar. Crammed in a tiny bus with 18 others we set out in the rain at 7am.

It´s amazing how excitable some people get at the prospect of seeing animals. One of the selling points of the tour was that they would stop the bus, if asked, for wildlife so we could take photos / throw stones etc. I have to say that this offer was abused. We stopped for condors - of course we stopped for condors - who wouldn´t want to get out and enjoy close-up the beauty of a massive (1m tall with a 3m wingspan), flying predator gorging itself on carrion and eyeing you lasciviously. We also stopped for hawks, geese, an unusual breed of chicken, rabbits (twice!), suckling lambs, a docile fox, and even, a robin red breast. Now, I admit I took a photo of the robin and the bunnies weren´t your average European sort, they were massive. But lambs! and a fox!

The fox was towards the end and nature fever was at it´s most virulent by that point. So after it was spotted by an old Australian fellow called Jeff it took him a while to actually spit out the word "fox", he just sat there prodding at the window pane and gasping hysterically. Then we had to reverse about 400m along the highway to get back to it so that Jeff could dismount and take an extended video of it slinking, miserably away looking disturbed. Jeff was a 'colourful character'. (Everyone understands when I say that that I mean he was an tosser, right?). From the outset of the trip he was overbearing, boisterous and unwelcome - he gave an almost constant commentary sometimes speaking over the tour guide to get his "point" across...

"G'day, Jeff's the name. Beautiful day for this little trip of ours right? Where are you from darlin'? (not to me) Ah, yeah, this is the life... Condor, there's a condor stop the bus, back up, back up, oh he's gone, what a beauty... We don't mind a little bit of rain do we... Rabbit! Rabbit! Rabbit! Stop the bus, there he goes, big one, watch him run. Bang! Bang! Down he goes, what a beauty, did you see his ears? Bang, there goes another. Rabbit soup... Some good Patagonian sheep over there bet they'll be tasty, and look at the lambs, not long for this world, can we stop the bus? Gahhh, ah, ah. Fox! Fox! Fox! Back up. Stop the bus." And so on and so forth. All day.

Cold as ice:

We got to the national park eventually and spent a couple of hours treking to the glaciar (hence the relentless photos with it getting progressively larger). Was pretty chilly but so impressive that it was worth every moment of frozen fingers and wet trousers (not like that - it was raining). Also got through our sandwiches - in trying to make delicious tuna, sweetcorn mayo on granary we had somehow ended up with sardines, creamed corn on rye. Foul. Last time I let James do the shopping.

I reckon the most impressive thing about the glaciar is its progression. It moves at 2 metres per day in the middle and is more than 200 metres tall (though 3/4 of this is underwater). As it moves and reshapes you constantly hear cracks ripping through the ice. You also see chunks the size of a house toppling off the front into the water with an enormous splash - to bob about briefly, then settle and float away.

Photos from El Calafate and Perito Merino here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.6gy0zv0y&x=1&y=7the87

Gratuitous nudity:

We went across to Puerto Natales, Chile, the next day. Much nicer place - small port with probably just as many tourist agencies and camping shops but a more relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Fewer hardcore trekers strutting around looking ripped and talking about being at the end of the world. Better seafood in Chile too so we treated ourselves to a couple of nice meals out. Average price of a 2 course dinner with wine, per person, is about 6 pounds each. But you get used to spending so little that in the event that feels quite expensive.

Hostel didn't disappoint either with lovely friendly staff, good facilities and a girl called Hannah from Lancashire in our room who almost seemed to be allergic to her clothes. While she did sleep in pyjamas, her efforts to be discrete when changing into and from them were lacadaisical. As a gentleman I naturally avert my eyes but then there's another part of me saying that this is a repressed British response to nudity and if someone is happy to stand virtually naked in front of me, look at me and engage me in conversation, then I should really look back at them. I compromised by lifting my eyes when I knew she was in at least her underwear. Then feeling that this might be too obvious an attempt to overcome repression I waited until she was packing her bag and munching on some toast with jam and gave her the full monty.

Camping:

One of the reasons for heading down to Patagonia was to do some hiking and camping in the Andes. So we rented the gear, put most of our other stuff in storage, made enough food to last for a couple of days and headed off into a the national park Torres del Paine.

You can spend weeks treking in the park round various different routes... 'The circuit', 'The W'... and taking in different valleys and mountains. Most people work some route around views of 'The Horns' which are kind of emblematic of the park (Torres = Horns). Rationalising that a couple of days was probably enough to get the general feel for camping in the snow, eating tuna-rice from a plastic bowl and crapping like bears in the woods we just set ourselves the target of one of the arms of 'The W'. By working it a little we´d be able to check out the rear of the horns on the first day and the front on the second.

Walked for about 9 hours on the first day including two fairly strenuous climbs, one of which turned out to be up the side of one of the Torres though we didn´t know this at the time. We didn´t make the top of it and after a couple of hours climbing the going became too dangerous (I´d started imagining international headlines like "British backpacers killed in landslide" and local versions like "Idiot tourists ruin Torres and kill themselves in the process"). About 50 metres from the summit we beat a hasty retreat with loose rubble and shale skipping past us.

My knee gave up after that and I hobbled back to camp for the tuna mung and bed on the frozen floor of the tent. Awoke shivering and aching as snow fell on our tent and cursed the chap in the camping shop who had laughed at us when we suggested that 4 season sleeping bags might be better than 3. With ongoing knee pain I didn't manage to hike up to the front of the Torres and it was all I could do to make it down to the base where the bus back to Natales departed. Was all very pretty though and worth the effort to get out into nature and the perpetually changing weather and landscape.

Photos from Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.7arv8j9u&x=1&y=-iryjxz

The next day we got on the boat for the cruise up the coast of Chile.

Photos - Uruguay and Iguazu

Managed to get the photos uploaded - here they are for anyone who is interested...

Uruguay:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.9ps89eq2&x=1&y=-9zu4zr

Iguazu Falls:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.affq3kfm&x=1&y=-7w2cac

In other news I´m now in Pucon in Chile. Things are increasingly slipping. It´s now more than 3 weeks since I last washed my hair and I have a 2 week beard (pretty scrappy but I reckon I can get it up to woodcutter standard in another couple of weeks). Some weeks ago I had a mental battle on the issue of personal cleanliness and decided that I´ll probably always be the sort of person who showers daily. Doesn´t feel like the day has started until you´ve freshened up. However, I also concluded that 16 hours is an arbitrary limit for the life of clean underwear and in non-sweaty climates it´s perfectly acceptable to wear socks and pants for longer periods. Am pretty determined, at this stage, that this won´t breach the 3 day mark.

News from Patagonia later.

Uruguay and Iguazu Falls

Hola,

So it looks like the photo plan might have broken down a little as moving away from Buenos Aires and taking more than 3 photos per day has created a problem in that it takes an eternity to upload them on a slow connection. Am beginning to question the wonders of modern technology. Surely I should be able to transmit images straight into the brains of my friends and family from a hand-held device that looks a bit like an iPod but is kind of a pale blue colour with a smaller dial.

So if you´re tuning in for photos (and who the hell wouldn´t be on the back of last time´s magical tour through Buenos Aires) I´m afraid the slide-show will be delayed a couple of weeks. I got 20 up there earlier but it took an hour and a half and then the pc crashed and I lost it all. Besides, the internet caf that I´m sitting in is playing Careless Whisper on repeat and it makes me want to ralph My spanish isn´t yet up to telling the man that if he doesn´t change the track I´ll lose my sanity and he´ll simultaneously lose my custom and maybe one of his monitors through the front window.

It´s now 2 weeks since leaving Buenos Aires. I feel considerably more human but am increasingly missing the place. In hindsight, it would have been good to finish the trip there -probably why Rahul was in such good form.


Uruguay - The Switzerland of South America.

They say that Uruguay is the Switzerland of South America. Well, the people at Lonely Bastard do anyhow. Don´t know why, it´s fairly poor and doesn´t have any mountains. I tried in vain to buy schnapps. Actually, there was quite a bit of Stella Artios knocking about - nothing draught though so I didn´t bother. I prefer Kronenberg anyway.

Colonia:

We went to Colonia del Sacramento and stayed in a lovely hostel for 2 pounds per night. Great showers again, they really do have great showers in South America - as long as you don´t drink the water from them. Colonia is full of Americans on package tours wondering among the cobbled streets and colourful old buildings declaring it all "marvelously quaint" and getting in the way when I wanted to take photos of the old buildings. We originally intended to spend a night there and then head along the coast to the deserted beaches eastwards but the pace of living in Colonia was too fine... so we just hung about for 4 days killing time in the town, researching our next move and wondering along the beaches.

Jimbo picked up (not like that) a Manchunian called Tim who looked about 40 but was actually only 26. He talked enthsiastically about the Hacienda and steak. Was a pretty nice guy - appears in some of the photos of the derelict bullring that we found up the coast when walking one afternoon.

I picked up a few travel injuries. Nothing serious just some blistered feet and bites but enough to make me feel hardy.

Everywhere we went we were followed by stray dogs pattering along behind us or more annoyingly stopping in front or trying to accompany us into shops. Really passive animals, most of which seemed to be missing at least one foot or leg. Maybe most tourists only stay there such a short time that the dogs don´t come to recognise them but because we were there a while they took up with us. I dunno.

Montevideo:

After a while we headed over to Montevideo intending to stay there a night and get the overnight bus up to the Iguazu Falls the following evening in time to be there to meet Rahul, Tom and Dan (visiting Rahul from London) on the Sunday. We´d booked the hostel and all and the travel down to Patagonia from there on the following Tuesday and Rahul had all our tickets for that and other stuff such as the boat cruise, flights in Brazil. Understandably we were disappointed to discover upon arrival in Montevideo that no such bus route existed.

Back in Argentina:

Travel arse:

Some hasty replanning and we were booked on a bus 3 hours later to Santa Fe in Agrentina where it seemed more likely that we´d be able to get on a route to Iguazu. 9 hours after that at 4am we arrived. Found a kiosk in the station where they promised a 6pm service to Iguazu but couldn´t offer us tickets until 7 am so we wondered off, jaded, to find a hostel to bed down in for 12 hours. My feet hurt. We struggled through the red light district trying not to watch the hookers being picked-up or abused by bands of local men, trying not to look at the locals who seemed, through the travel exhaustion, to be drunk and hostile.

After much hassle we found ourselves booked on a bus for 5.45 - not the previously promised services which was full. Sitting on the bus it took us a full half an hour to realise that we were the only passengers. What was more, the driver and the co-driver were playing rock music loud and singing and the co-driver was egging the driver on to go faster and overtake on blind bends. The bus seemed awfully shiny and new. When we finally stopped for food I inquired about the lack of passengers and discovered that it wasn´t actually in service and they were heading to Brazil to start a new route but were going to drop us off on the way. Bit of luck otherwise we´d never have got to Iguazu. So I took the front of the top deck and Jimbo took the back.

Iguazu turd:

Stepping off the bus into the bright day we stood in the bus terminal and I read about transport options to our hostel. Several metres above me a massive pigeon shuffled along a girder and liberally shat down my left shoulder, arm and across my guide book. Not much you can do but laugh - that was what everyone nearby was doing anyhow and it´s supposed to be quite auspicious isn´t it? I thought maybe it was payback for the good fortune of the bus journey. We´d moved out of the way and I looked up just in time to see the fat sod shuffle across, take aim and drop another load across my rucksack. In my haste I´d neglected to shift it. Not sure what that was payback for.

The hostel was lovely with a big pool and ping pong, table tennis, pool, hammocks. We had a dorm to the 5 of us with private bathroom but a broken shower (boo). Rahul and the others showed up a bit later and we spent the late afternoon and evening having some drinks and making best use of all the facilities. Put in an early night to prepare for the big day at the falls.

Incredible:

Monday - probably the best day of the trip so far, I´ve never seen a natural phenomena as awesome. The falls are several hundred metres wide and about fifty metres high, set in the middle of a lush national park that has formed around them. We were kind of lucky as there had been floods earlier in the month which meant that the volume of water pouring over the ledge was much greater than usual, almost forming a complete line where usually it would be about 8 different sets of falls. However, the floods had brought down a couple of bridges so there were parts of the park that we couldn´t access. We wondered round, a little bewildered from the heat and awe, and soaked from standing close to the torrents of water pouring over the ledge. Saw some interesting wildlife, most notably a strange, dancing, half rodent half pig which evaded our attempts at capture. Could have made a packet with him on the southbank.

Wet t-shirt competition:

We left the park in the evening determined to return the next day to do some more walking. It never happened despite having a quiet night time overran us and in the end Jimbo and I had a mad dash to get our bus leaving Rahul, Tom and Dan to head back to the park. I also left behind the small tripod that I bought in Buenos Aires. First casualty of the trip I think.

Two weeks on and Jim and I have also completed the Patagonian leg of the journey. Will write that up when we get further North in Chile. We´re about to jump on a boat up the coast through otherwise inaccessible fjords and glacial lakes / inlets. Perhaps not as plush as it sounds, we just checked in to discover that we´re in a dorm of 22 in the very bowels of the converted car ferry.

Hasta luego (as they say in these parts).

Buenos Aires

OK first entry. Hello hello. Buenos Aires - kapow!

I´ve just spent the last 3 weeks (almost) in Buenos Aires. I guess the beginning was always gonna go one way or the other and I would either escape somewhere quiet to acclimatise or get stuck into the city and enter the travel mindset through familiar city-break style living.

As it turned out the latter was the case and rather than sliding gently into the new culture we nose-dived right to the bottom of a big barrel of red wine and drank our way to the top, or at least drank it to the bottom.
We: Myself, Jimbo, Rahul

The intention on arrival (reading the plans in the rough itinerary that I wrote months ago) was to find somewhere cheap to live and enjoy Argentineann culture while undertaking a language course and meeting new people.

Commendable, I think you´ll agree. And I think that´s kind of what happened. We´ve been to Tango shows, Flamenco, dined out with the locals we´ve met. We lived in an apartment in the centre for two weeks and spent the days ambling round the streets and going to classes in Spanish, eating out and meeting folk for tapas, pool, darts(!), poker, coffee, a beer or two. We´ve been to antiques markets (ok, one antiques market - but several times), many steakhouses, strange clubs, a chess club... However, most of all we´ve spent the last 3 weeks drinking and touring the city´s bars. That and faffing in a sweaty stupor in Internet cafes (there´s one about every 3 yards on every road in Buenos Aires).

It might have been different if Rahul were not there when I arrived but there he was. On the back of 4 months coming down through Central America and South America he seemed pretty settled and intent on really cutting loose. So that´s pretty much what we´ve done - it´s been a relentless and sorry cycle of self-abuse as we pushed ourselves further, harder, later and longer. I´d now have to trawl through the emails that I´ve been sending over the last few weeks to rediscover how I´ve spent the time as I´ve a really fuggled memory of it. All the days blur into about a week and while I can distinguish being in so many curious, different places with random and familiar people, I couldn´t fix the memories to a date or all of the faces with a name. It´s been fun but on some level Rahul must be responsible - his thirst for alcohol and entertainment has been unquenchable.

And another thing - why does everyone think I´m gay? OK so I bought a yellow unbrella. And I didn´t immediately master the art of attracting a waiter´s attention by raising the hand rather than waving it. But I don´t think that´s any reason for such undivided consent on the matter. The only potential pick-up on this holiday so far has been a 41 year old man who isnsited, despite my assertions to the contrary, that my sexuality was dubious. Where are the dusky latino temptresses begging me to salsa with them? I think Rahul and Jimbo have been colluding to secretly tell people I´m gay but not to mention it to me. I´m pretty sure Rahul did that at the language school. Mischevious git.

Anyway, putting that rant aside, I don´t mention all of this boozing as any kind of boast... it´s easy to sit around drinking and getting fat (I´ve gained a chin in the last few weeks and half of the carefully packed clothes no longer fit me - I´m not kidding). Neither is it a cautionary tale because we´ve had a lot of fun. I can´t say that we´ve managed it that well. It´s tough to get into the habit of going out until 4am on week days, being in class for 10 and then sleeping all weekend (in between late nights in clubs).

In hindsight I wish I had applied myself a little more to learning Spanish (they don´t speak too much English here). It would have been good to visit the cemetry in Recoletta where Eva Peron is buried - apparently it´s stunning. Also, we missed out on a Boca game because we were too hung-over. But hey, what can you do when it´s 75p for a decent bottle of red. We reckon we had about 30 each in the 19 days we spent in BA. Yeah. And all in all, I´m not sure that we didn´t actually get the best out of the place. It´s a great city to party in, there are so many different things going on (mostly seeming to revolve around Tango - but that might just have been the people we were hanging around with) but there aren´t exactly hoardes of museums to visit. I think that we landed and started living pretty much as the locals though they seem to handle the late nights a fair bit better - probably because they don´t hit the booze so hard.

Feeling totally ruined we left Buenos Aires, with Rahul in it, on Monday.

Now we´re in Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay which is a pretty little place (UNESCO world heritage site or something similar) and we´re drying up and eating only mixed salads and fruit. I feel a world better. Did some press-ups this morning.

This feels more like the start of the travels proper and we´ve a hell of a lot planned over the next 4 weeks including Iguazu falls, Patagonia, climbing a mountain in the Andes, cruising round the coast of Chile, the Lake District (Chile-Argentine version thereof)...

Thus far it´s not exactly been hardcore, roughing it among jaw-dropping wilderness. And I´m looking forward to that - if you´re not the stereotypical back-packer, braided and tatooed then you´re almost the stereotypical smart-casual tourist with all-seeing camera and frequent expression of "that´s so quaint". I´ll be damned if I´m going to walk some middle ground. So far the closest I´ve come to feeling on the road was in having to get the medical kit out to fix my big toenail after some marauding kid trod on my foot in the main street (Florida) of BA. Toenail split up the middle and needed plastering and antiseptic and all that. Much better now since half of it came off but it struck me as odd that it wasn´t until I had to use a pair of tiny travel scissors, suffer some minor inconvenience, that I realised I wasn´t at home anymore and perhaps should be enjoying further incovenience and hardship and unusual experiences. Having said that, I´m not wishing trials upon myself.

We´re going to Montevideo tomorrow for the first proper adventure of trying to secure onward travel north to the Argentine border with Brazil and Paraguay (maybe more of a challenge than it sounds without much Spanish and as we can´t get any information on busses - not sure there are any). If, in the event, that´s all too easy, well my hair is already becoming shaggy so I´m gonna get a couple of facial piercings then I´ll definitely be like a real traveller (suggestions for tattoos welcome).

Anyway, this blog isn´t supposed to be a place where I write loads, it´s more of an interface through which friends and family can keep broadly in touch with what I´m up to and see the photos. Hmmm.

A couple of notes on the photos:
1/ I still haven´t quite worked out how to use my camera so a few of them are underexposed
2/ I was drunk when I took most of them so a few of them are lopsided and/or blurry
3/ I didn´t take my camera everywhere and have missed some of the more interesting events so most of these photos are dull.
4/ Heading home from a bar one night the light as the sun came up was amazing so I went out and took some photos of the route that I usually took through the city if heading to school or over the Rahul´s apartment. Reviewing them later in the day they had failed to capture the light unfortunately. So I went back out and tried again - hence all of the repetitive photos of Lavalle and Florida. Sorry.

I intend in future to only take interesting photos that Sebastiao Salgado would be proud of. Or maybe Helmut Newton.

If you follow this link then you´ll have to sign in to view the album.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.7e9grah6&x=1&y=-5f3hcx

You can even buy the photos if you want! Don´t hold back. And you can post comments on the photos or on this blog (though do remember if you´re making them public that my mother will be accessing it and she´s terribly reserved and delicate).

I hope all are well. Comments and criticisms on words and photos are welcome - don´t sugarcoat it please.
Seriously, just keep in touch.