Pommie Bastard On Tour IV

The fish aren't biting

2009-04-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

No ridiculously early start today, so we could enjoy our final breakfast at the lodge before heading off to some of the smaller side-streams to try fishing for piranhas. Once again, this sounded more impressive in theory than it was in practice, as what fish there were were bloody tiny and seemed content to nibble at the edges of our bait without actually taking it properly. Still, wasn't too unpleasant sitting in the sun occasionally stringing the line out. Until the sun did a sudden vanishing act and we looked up to see a mass of dark clouds gathered across half the sky. Even Roberto looked faintly perturbed by this, so we packed up in short order and headed back at full speed for the lodge. And not a minute too soon - the rain started just before we got back, and was pelting down quite impressively by the time we had finished getting our bags ready for our departure that afternoon.

We had a bit of time to just chill out in the hammocks before a relatively early last lunch and the order to saddle up - Roberto was determined to take advantage of a break in the weather and get us back to the embarcation point at Santa Rosa as soon as possible. Once there we had a certain amount of "hurry up and wait" to go through until another Indígena vehicle (a Toyota Land Cruiser troop carrier this time) turned up to collect us. We pitched in to get the bags stowed under the tarp on the roof ASAP and then piled into the vehicle, where Jen and I found ourselves amongst those on the bench seats at the back of the troopie - this was ok to start with, but the effort to not slide off the bloody seats as we bounced back into town and the general uncomfortableness meant I was either sore or numb in several important places by the time we eventually got back to Rurre. On the bright side, there was way less mud than before, but the dried track meant more and harder bumps.

Once back in town, we paid a quick first stop at Amaszonas' offices - despite my fears from the day's rain, they were still expecting flights to be running the next day, so I paid a small admin fee and got my flight brought forward to the Wednesday afternoon, and started to dare to hope that I would be spared the bus back. After that, we dumped our bags back at El Curichal, cleaned up a little and then headed out to the bus station, to get the ticket back for Jen, who was, for reasons of budget and , in my opinion, masochism, going back at ground level. With this done, we found an internet cafe with a CD burner so I could make Jen a copy of the photos from the trip (and some from the salt flats) to replace those she had lost with her various departed cameras. Finally it was time for dinner and some drinks, the former courtesy of a little place called La Perla de Rurre, which Roberto had recommended, and the latter at the Moskkito bar, which proudly proclaims itself the "original travellers' bar in Rurre", and turned out to produce some quite pleasant cocktails. And then it was time for bed.

(No) Snakes on the plain

2009-04-13T12:00:00.000+01:00

The early night was necessary as we were up at 5:30am to pile back into the boat and head out through the waterways in search of any early risers amongst the wildlife and then to catch the sunrise. In aid of the former, Roberto was poling us along the river so that wildlife wouldn't be scared by the motor noise. Unfortunately, not all groups shared his view, so we were soon overtaken by noisily buzzing boats as other groups headed out from their respective lodges. And it turned out that our caution and attempt at being more ecologically sound cost us slightly, as when we got to the best vantage point for seeing the sunrise unobstructed by trees and the like, it was to find it instead obstructed by a boatload of travellers standing to get the best pictures. Pesky tourists....

After the sun was deemed to have risen sufficiently high that it was no longer worth trying to sneak photos past people's hats, we headed back to the lodge for breakfast, then geared ourselves up for one of the "feature activities" of the trip, going looking for anacondas. Now, those of you familar with said snake might have some of the same reservations I did, to whit, how wise is it to be wading hip-deep through what is effectively a swamp looking for one of the world's biggest snakes, one which is quite capable of consuming a human? My reservations were brushed aside, however, principally by the scorn with which my worries were met by Jen - another occasion on which more backbone might have been handy.

The first step was to pop into one of the other lodges and load up with wellies - like me, the rest of our group were not overly enamoured of destroying some of their only footwear this side of the Atlantic. I didn't hold out too much hope for this, given that I am generally larger than your average Bolivian and that it seemed unlikely that there would be any boots sized for my feet. Imagine my glee and surprise to find that they did indeed have some boots large enough for my oversized paws, and thus that I wouldn't be subjecting my poor Tevas to yet more abuse. Unfortunately, that was the high point in terms of both glee and comfort for the day, as it turned out finding a snake that isn't in the mood to be found in a swamp of high grasses, sucking mud and thigh-deep water is an exercise in futility. One, moreover, punctuated by the attentions of seemingly millions of bloody mosquitoes. Was not a happy bunny by the time we gave it up for a bad idea, not even after seeing a couple of rather large owls.

After we offloaded our boots, went back to the lodge and had lunch, I was finally getting back to my usual affable self and no longer swearing repeatedly as to my opinion of swamps, mosquitoes and snakes. This was good as the afternoon's activity promised to be somewhat more enjoyable, that being to go swimming with pink river dolphins. Now, I'd been a little nervous at the prospect of swimming in a river that I knew also contained caimans (and supposedly anacondas...) but Roberto reassured us that their teritories did not overlap, so we were safe to swim around the dolphins. Not sure I was 100% convinced, but it did enough to get me in the water.

This is where the joys of interacting with wild animal come into play once again, as although we could see them broaching around the lagoon we were in, they almost never felt brave enough or inquisitive enough to actually come up close to us - one of the other guys, Miguel, got splashed a few times by one frisky individual, but otherwise they kept their distance. The water itself was relatively deep, so given my utter lack of talent at swimming I stayed fairly close to the boat anyway, or found a submerged tree whose branch I could use as support. So, no up-close encounter with dolphins, but much more enjoyable than hunting mosquitoes in a swamp!

On the way back, we actually spotted more dolphins, so some of the group piled in for another attempt at getting close, and what with this and making a stop to have a look at a sloth that Roberto had spotted high up in a tree, we once again weren't back in time for sunset, though we were much closer this time. I headed over to the bar at the lodge's mirador, the Pink Dolphin, to get some post-sunset piccies and was surprised to discover that Tash, our Kiwi friend from Rurre, was there having booked herself on a tour the day after us. We had another chance to chat after dinner, when Jen and I joined some of Tash's group in teaching the German couple in their boat the rules of Shithead - that was an amusing test of my German skills, trying to come up with the words for the rules of the backpacker's favourite card game. However, we were interrupted in this by Miguel telling Jen and I that our group was about to head out looking for caimans in the dark. We had either forgotten this or just never been told, so there were several frantic minutes in which we attempted to at least partially insect-proof ourselves and put on some longer clothing before heading out. Again, for one of the feature activities, this was a bit of a damp squib, as Jen and I couldn't see a single caiman during our little cruise (though the others claimed to have seen one at one point). Once we got back, the dining area was closed so Jen and I finished drinking the last of our "babies" in our own enclosure before getting some sleep.

Off to the Pampas

2009-04-12T12:00:00.000+01:00

Luckily, the pampas trip was not of the "up and off at crack of dawn" variety, so we had time to get breakfast before we go. This was particularly useful as Jen is actually more attached to her breakfast than I am to mine, so they would have had two very ratty individuals in the jeep had we not been able to feed. We ended up just across the road from where we had eaten the previous day, in a plac called Narguila which turned out to be Israeli Central for Rurre. The food was still good, though.

When we turned up at the office, though, it was to find that we had been merged with another couple of groups - the people who were supposed to be on ours had not made it due to problems with flights from La Paz (déja vu anyone?), and so the two of us from Inca Land were in with people from Indígena and Shayna in a combined group. Thus, all our mucking about and agonising about which company to go with was utterly useless, as we ended up back with a guide from the company (Shayna) we had looked at first, although travelling in a vehicle from Indígena. This latter turned out to be very useful, as the road was in a shocking state but Hugo, our slightly mad driver, ploughed our Nissan Patrol through pretty much anything, also stopping a couple of times to fix another vehicle that was having troubles.

Having watched trucks, pickups and the odd land cruiser getting bogged or otherwise messed up along the way, we weren't all that upset to arrive late at the embarcation point for the boats, on the principle that at least we'd got there. At this juncture, the loss of Jen's hat prior to boarding the bus from Yolosita became slightly more urgent, as the sun was beating down and the boats had a grand total of zero cover. So I succumbed to my occasional chivalrous instincts and lent her my much-abused bush hat, deciding that my bandana would have to suffice for the trip.

And the boat trips, it has to be said, were the best bit of the pampas tour overall - the weather was generally fine, the breeze from our passage kept things comfortable and we saw plenty of wildlife. Jabiru storks gliding majestically over the waters, caiman hiding from the day's heat under bushes, eagles perched on the highest trunks, cormorants diving for fish, ninga-ningas looking frankly ridiculous with their faux-punk feather arrangements on their heads, flapping from bus to bush, and monkeys charging through the greenery to look at our boat and jump on the bow when we got in close and fiddle with the flag-staff from which fluttered the obligatory Bolivian flag. Really, a great way to spend an afternoon.

The only slight downside was that, because we had started so late and seen so much, we didn't make it to the ecolodge in time for sunset, and instead observed it from the river. Not necessarily a bad thing, though slightly less convenient for my attempts to get my usual dozens of photos of the sun's disappearance. Once we finally did make it to the lodge, it was after dark and the mosquitoes were rising in force. Roberto, our guide, pointed out the dorm that the group would be staying in and then pointed me and Jen to a separate "room". "But we're not..." we started, before deciding that actually having out own little enclosure (it's hard to call something of which half the "walls" are mosquito nets a room) would be a good thing in terms of being able to spread out and keep our stuff more secure. Obviously the lady at Inca Land tours had decided we made a nice couple as well. Though in fact, the setup was a twin with mossie nets over each bunk, so quite how much use it would have been to an actual couple is debatable, especially as the aforementioned nets had all the sound-blocking properties of a piece of paper!

It was soon time for dinner, which we took in the dining "room" with the other group who'd arrived the previous night, which turned out to include Terry and Fran, the Irish couple I had met in Coroico. Small world, and all that. After feeding time, Jen and I put paid to another of our "babies" whilst chatting with Roberto about the next day on the trip, and then everyone retired for an early night.

The Imaginary Couple

2009-04-11T12:00:00.000+01:00

You probably don't need me to tell you that I failed badly to get much sleep, despite Jen nabbing some space in the row in front so I could spread out across the back seats - the unfortunate spacing of the seats, the gaps in between them and the associated pointy bits to dig into my back, ribs etc meant that I had had maybe an hour or so of sleep by the time dawn came and I could see the landscape through which we now bumped and juddered. Jen, meanwhile, slumbered on regardless. The aftermath of this led to my christening her the Dormouse.

We eventually bounced into Rurre around 10:15am, 18 hours or so after leaving Yolosita - this for a journey described in many guidebooks as taking around 13-15 hours, when we didn't even have any major hold-ups. I was by this point doing my familiar post-bus impression of a zombie, and was thus overjoyed when the guesthouse Jen and I had singled out as our preferred choice for the stay turned out to have a lady at the bus waiting to meet people. So we shouldered our packs and headed off across town in the once-more-unfamiliar tropical climate, headed for El Curichal. Here we were to have the first of various experiences of people assuming that the two of us were a couple - once we'd assured the staff that no, we didn't need a cama matrimonial (the wonderful term for a double bed) and a multi-bedded room would in fact be perfect, we dumped our bgs and headed into town to try and sort out our tour for the next day.

I should explain at this point that the principal reason for visiting Rurre is to go on these tours, which are generally classed as either selva (jungle) or pampas (grasslands). The former go into the Parque Nacional Madidi, the latter into the Reserva Municipal Pampas de Yacuma. The former are intended principally for experiencing being in the jungle itself, seeing the plantlife, the latter are far more focused on seeing wildlife, which has rather less places to hide in the savannah grasslands that make up the "pampas". Given that both Jen and I had decided we were more interested in animals than plants as such, the decision to do a pampas tour was a fairly easy one. Somewhat more vexing was working out which of the many operating companies in town to use.

The lady who took us to our guesthouse had recommended one company, Shayna Tours. The guy working around there had recommended another, Donato Tours. Some friends had ben with Indígena Tours and recommended them. Another friend who'd travelled there had suggested looking at Bala Tours. And then, once we finally managed to sort out getting Jen's traveller's cheques (surely these days the most useless thing you can take travelling) cashed, at a hardware store for some unexplained reason, a British ex-pat married to a local lady suggested we try Inca Land Tours. All too confusing, as most of them offer almost the same thing for almost the same price. In the end, we went with Inca Land Tours, after an hour or so trying to work out what the hell to do.

With the essentials for the day done, I retired to our (twin) room and crashed out. Four hours or so of kip later, I felt mostly back to human, and shambled out of bed to find Jen chatting away with one of our fellow guests, a Kiwi lass named Natasha, or Tash to her mates. We sat around, chatted for a bit, exchanged tales of how wonderful the trip down on the bus had been and commiserated about how weird it sometimes feels as an older backpacker surrounded by some of the pubescent wonders who are on the road these days. Then my stomach's rumbling reminded us it was dinner time, so Jen and I headed into town for dinner.

Our eventual choice for food was the Luna Lounge, a funky place with big, wood-beam and thatch roofs and an open-ir dance floor in the middle, but one which, like most of the town, was dead as a dodo on Easter Saturday. However, we were made to feel warmly welcome by a garrulous fellow who marched up to us with the menus, insisted we sit down and then introduced himself as "Johnnie 5". Yes, 80s movie fans, that is as in the robot in the Short Circuit films. Turns out he was the manager. And that it had been his birthday yesterday. And that he was still apparently a wee bit pissed. And that he ordered the waiter, who was having a fit of religion and didn't want to serve alcohol over Easter Weekend, to give us a couple of cocktails at Happy Hour prices. And that he thought we made a very nice couple. "But we're not..." we started to explain, but he was having none of it. Very nice food, though, even if there was some confusion whereby "Johnnie" had taken my order for fish and I got served up with chicken - when I queried this with the waiter, I was told that there was no fish. Hmmm.

After our slightly surreal dinner experience, we stocked up on some supplies for the jungle, notably including a few bottles of vino, and headed back to the guesthouse. Carrying said supplies, notably the bottles, involved cradling the overworked carrier bag to my chest, which Jen decided made me look like I was holding a baby, so our bottles of wine were christened "the babies" for the remainder of our trip. And back at the guesthouse, we promptly set about re-packing our bags so we could fit everything needed into the daypacks, and drank the first baby, chatting with Tash whilst doing so. Nice and chilled.

The road to hell

2009-04-10T12:00:00.000+01:00

Having had my dreams of a lie-in once again dashed by what I can only refer to as "that bird", I got my bags cleared out of my room and went for some breakfast at the Back-Stube, the German-owned cafe across from my guesthouse, which proved both tasty and timely, a pleasant exception from the normal rule in Coroico whereby it takes the best part of an hour to produce a plate of pasta. After this, I took final advantage of the internet to write up a spot more of my journal before I headed over to the tour agency who had organised my ticket. There I was greeted by the twin news that they had not, as they announced previously, been able to definitively reserve me the aisle seat that I had requested, and that I was not in fact the only crazed gringo taking the bus journey to end all bus journeys. Or rather, I was the only gringo, but there was a gringa. When she turned up shortly thereafter, I met Jenny for the first time.

As it turned out, what with waiting 20 minutes or so in the back of a minibus whilst they did the usual trick of bellowing the destination at anyone passing in the hope that they would suddenly realise "Oh yes, I really wanted to go to Yolosita and just didn't realise it yet..." and buy a ticket (even weirder than this is that nobody ever turns up until about 30 seconds before the vehicle is due to leave, when suddenly you get swarmed!), and then another 3 hours or so at Yolosita waiting for our bus to make an appearance, we had plenty of chance to get to know each other even before the wonders of the bus trip. In fact, we didn't spend the whole time at Yolosita chatting, as I was nervously hanging around near the police checkpoint, trying to make sure the bus didn't go without us and goggling at the sheer chaos that is Bolivian driving practice. The checkpoint itself consisted of the Bolivian equivalent of PC Plod sat in his little brick hut, operating what Jen and I came to term the "hi-tech Bolivian gate" which blocked the road - said gate consisted of a section of string/rope running across the road; if one loop in it was hooked over the nail on the front of his box, the road was blocked, if the other was hooked on, it hung loose across the road and vehicles could pass. A work of genius. Drivers queueing up behind the rope had to go and show him their papers and once satisfied, he would let them through. However, they were not above charging for the open road whenever the string was down, via the wrong lane of the road if necessary. In fact, as per usual unwritten Bolivian rules of the road, there are always at least 3 lanes of traffic on a 2-lane road anyway, and you'd sometimes see a vehicle coming up the road, waiting for the string to be released and then waiting further whilst all the vehicles in the wrong lane on the other side pulled out into the traffic. Barking. When the bus did finally turn up, it turned out that the details of make, license plate etc we had been given were totally wrong, and we were rushed on as the bus was already an hour and half or so late. In fact, we were so rushed that Jen forgot her flowery hat and the bag of coca leaves that had been kept in it. D'Oh!

Jen works on a very simple principle: she does not want to spend winter in the UK again if she can help it at all, so works for 6 months or so saving whatever she can then runs away for several months over the winter. Nice plan, thinks I (don't worry Mum and Dad, I'm not seriously planning this, honest...). She's also very much of the "wing it" school of travelling, whereas I subscribe to the "practically swallow the guidebook and plan like crazy" school. She's a Londoner and loves the place, I was glad to be out of the Big Smoke. Annoyingly, as I was to find out, she can sleep just about anywhere, including crazily bucking Bolivian buses; as those of you who read regularly will be tired of hearing, I have trouble sleeping on any kind of a bus whatsoever. Still, we got past these difficulties, and actually got along quite well.

Some of that, mind you, may have been due to the "shared peril" scenario of actually surviving the road down to Caranavi. As I mentioned when discussing my trip down the "World's Most Dangerous Road", since the new road got finished, there's little or none of the traffic that got that road its name present any more. What I hadn't realised until about 10 minutes into the journey was that that road very much still exists, in the form of the section from Yolosita to Caranavi. Crazed lorry-drivers, narrow passing points into which the bus must reverse (I was quite glad to only realise afterwards that because we were in the rearmost seats, we were probably hanging out over 400-odd metre vertical drops a few times!), iffy visibility as it got rainy, a delightful surface mix of mud and gravel - all par for the course on this road. And this went on for around 4 hours, as we crawled the 75km into Caranavi. What relief we felt on arrival was tempered slightly by the realisation that Caranavi was a one-horse town missing its horse, that we would not (as we had hoped) be able to buy ourselves some wine to self-anaesthetise, and that the options for food in the vicinity of the bus station consisted of chicken'n'chips, chicken'n'chips, chicken'n'chips or chicken'n'chips. Surprisingly we had chicken'n'chips. I chivalrously left the last beer in the fridge of the restaurant for Jen, but she responded by asking the waiter nicely and he disappeared off to fetch me one, it turns out actually popping into a next-door place to buy it!

Filled up with our spectacularly unhealthy dinner, we gathered our courage and clambered back onto the bus, ready for the onward leg to Rurre. By this time, the light had gone so we could no longer see what potential perils awaited us, but this actually made it a bit more relaxing. Or rather, it would have been relaxing, had the bus not been nouncing and jolting every 10 seconds or so as it growled its way over the ridges towards its destination. Deprived by this less-than-restful motion and the lack of onboard lighting (apart from the seating lights which strobed intermittently in green and red, giving the unwlecome impression of a runaway mobile disco) of the ability to read or anything, Jen and I continued exchanging tales, jokes, philosophies and occasional mild epithets until the next stop, at Yunguyo, by which time it was around 11pm. After this, Jen curled up and miraculously dozed off, whilst I began my regular battle for any kind of rest on the omnibuses of this world.

The calm before the storm

2009-04-09T12:00:00.000+01:00

I decided to make full use of having a room to myself and sleep in as late as possible. The rooster in the yard across the alley from my room, unfortunately, decided that the dawn needed to be greeted very enthusiastically, and then embarked on an "anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-

better" crowing contest with a competitor a few houses over that continued, on and off, for the rest of the morning. So I got plenty of time in bed, but rather less sleep than I'd hoped, and the waking hours were spent working out various different recipes for chicken to which I'd like to subject the pesky beast.

Once I emerged from my cocoon, I decided to aid my economy drive by having the set almuerzo at the little local joint down the alley behind the hotel, which resulted in massive bowl of soup plus chicken and rice for about a quid. Result. Although I was subjected to the telenovelas (melodramatic Spanish-language soaps) that the family was watching. Feeling suitably stuffed, I caught up on the internet for a bit, read for a bit, and then decided to make some use of the pool while I had access. Though as it was late afternoon, the weather was cooling and the pool was unheated, I didn't stay in that long. Back in a normally-clothed state and heading out for dinner, I got chatting with a Dutch girl staying at the hotel called Kerrin, and we ended up deciding that if the service was as slow as usual, it'd be better to have someone to talk to whilst waiting, so we might as well go for food together.

After looking around a couple of places, we ended up back at my dinner spot of the night before, where the service was, if anything, even slower, and my food was decidedly uninspiring. Not somewhere I'd recommend. Still, having refuelled, we popped into one of the little corner stores so I could get some supplies for the dreaded bus ride the next day, and some wine for the evening - thus fortified we headed back to the hotel and stayed out chatting on the terrace until the weather closed in and we retired to a little table under cover. Once I'd exhausted the wine, though, and the weather just seemed determined to get worse, we headed back to our rooms and crashed out.

Into the Yungas

2009-04-08T12:00:00.000+01:00

One of my other reasons for choosing to stay at the Adventure Brew is the free pancake breakfast. Oh yes, no cold, halfways-stale toast and dulce de fricking leche here, we got pancakes. Thus fortified, I took yet another taxi over to Villa Fatima, where I dumped my main pack with the minibus company and popped over to the road to indulge in more cheap, fresh Bolivian fruit juice. Yum. Eventually, only about 15 minutes late, the company had stopped trying to sell yet more additional tickets and departed, heading via the new road down to Coroico. This would have given me a chance to better enjoy some of the scenery from the early bits of the bike ride, were it not for the truly dismal weather. Ah well, you can't have everything. The final approach to Coroico, from Yolosita (one of the towns down in the valley where the bike rides actually finsh), was dead steep, switch-backing up the side of the ridge on which Coroico perches - as with a fair number of towns in Bolivia, the setting is nothing short of spectacular.

After staggering up the ridge from the bus station to the plaza with my packs on (an activity that would have had me wheezing and on the point of death in La Paz but here just left me a bit hot and bothered), I grabbed some lunch at a little restaurant called Back-Stube (yes, it's co-owned by a German) and then checked myself into the Hostal Kory, a place just over the plaza with a terrace making full use of the amazing views and a decent-sized swimming pool. Luxury indeed, and a single room still only cost me a fiver a night. Bolivia's great! (except some of the buses and roads...)

That afternoon I had a leisurely look around town (it doesn't take long, Coroico's pretty small and the centre is all perched precariously near the ridgeline), sorted my onward ticket to Rurre for Friday through an agent in town, caught up a bit more on my journals, and then went to grab some food at one of the pair of restaurants on the square both called Pizzeria Italia. Utterly unoriginal name, and to be honest the slowest service I've had in Bolivia, which is a reasonable claim to fame. After this I went back to the hotel, where I ended up chatting on the terrace with an Irish couple, Terry and Fran, and a German guy whose name completely escapes me, drinking the odd glass of wine and then heading back to the plaza to play pool above one of the restaurants and then at the Moskkito Bar (their spelling, not mine), which we had to ourselves - normally, that'd be cause to up and leave, but when it means you get to monopolise the pool table, kinda handy. In the end, I left the others there about midnight and headed back, as I was feeling tired again. I must be getting old.

Groundhog Day

2009-04-07T12:00:00.000+01:00

An unfortunate case of Groundhog Day. I decided to try and pre-empt the "call back in 15 minutes" syndrome from Amaszonas by actually going to the airport and sitting in front of their desk so that I could not be ignored. So I got up, checked out of Wild Rover (for the 2nd time in 24 hours) and got a radio taxi up to the airport, during which I got yet more Spanish practice in, courtesy of Willy, my affable driver. I have decided that taxis are definitely good for my Spanish. Having arrived at the airport, I was informed by the lass at check-in that, surprise surprise, there were no flights for the morning and I needed to get back to them by 1pm. I informed her that I would be staying in the airport, went to get myself some breakfast from the cafe, and then set up my perch opposite the desk, reading my guidebook. Unfortunately, by around 11am, said lass was coming over and explaining that I had better go back to town, as there were going to be absolutely no flights that day. Bugger.

At this point, I slightly lost my cool and asked the young lady if there were, in fact, going to be any flights to Rurrenabaque that week - unsurprisingly, she replied that she really didn't know what the weather was going to do, and I'd just have to wait or cancel. So I decided to cancel. In a fit of pique, I decided Rurre could go hang, and I'd go to Amazonia in Peru or Ecuador instead, and I hailed another (expensive for Bolivia) taxi back into town, though I changed hostels, reasoning that the Wild Rover would not be the best place for me to make a sensible examination of what needed doing. So instead of a hostel with an Irish pub, I moved to one with a microbrewery, the Adventure Brew. Well, I reckoned it was a step towards good sense, anyway.

A bit of research online revealed the worrying fact that the companies doing equivalent kind of trips to the Amazon region in Peru or Ecuador cost about 3 times as much. Hmmm, thinks I, maybe I have to start thinking the unthinkable and considering the bus ride to Rurre. So I went to chat with the lady at the in-house travel agency at Adventure Brew, who commiserated for my suffering but advised me that at this time of year, maybe 80% of Amszonas' flights get cancelled or moved about for one reason or another. She also advised that the bus to Rurre could be just a bit uncomfortable, or it could be hellish, but realistically it was about the only option I had. So, order of business for the afternoon became (1) go and see the pesky airline and get my refund done and (2) sort myself a bus ticket.

The first item on the list immediately ran foul of siesta, as the office was closed for lunch when I got there. Grumbling about what else could go wrong, I headed off in search of refeshment myself and, disdaining the multitude of offerings of fried chicken, ended up in a little Chinese place called El Dragon Dorado, which was very helpfully showing the Arsenal - Villareal game from the Champions League, so I got a cheap and tasty meal and to watch some football. Clearly things were getting better. They got better yet at Amaszonas, where they helpfully offered to refund just the outbound half of my ticket, and keep the return valid, with a free change of date, meaning I could still hope upon hope that I would only have to take the bus one way.

Now, those of you who read these pages regularly will no doubt be wandering, after all the bus journeys I have done this trip, what had me so spooked about doing another one - after all, a 20-hour bus journey is a 20-hour bus journey, right? Erm, wrong. The road to Rurrenabaque makes use of the parts of the World's Most Dangerous Road which are still in the condition that led to that name being awarded, and then on bumpy, rutted, unsealed roads across the wilds of northern lowland Bolivia. And the buses are pretty poor. Not horrific, not actual chicken-bus poor, but nothing like the attempts at comfort and luxury to be found on mainstream routes. Certainly not something I would want to subject myself to overnight. But it was that, pay through the nose later, or give up on seeing anything of Amazonia. So I resolved to bite the bullet and do it.

However, to try and soften the blow a wee bit, I decided to split the journey a little bit in Coroico, a town near the foot of the mountain bike ride, so my next stop was across town in the suburb of Villa Fatima, from whence said buses depart. Or, to be more precise, minibuses, as the Coroico service actually uses my old friend, the Toyota minivan. Luckily, by booking the night before I managed to get the spot in the front next to the driver, drastically increasing the possibility that I would arrive in Coroico still able to make use of my legs. Having spent much of the afternoon organising this, I hopped in another cab back to the hostel, and this is where I had the "reverse bump start into oncoming traffic" incident that I mentioned before, which resulted in me walking back the last part, a task that took longer than expected due to Plaza Murillo (the square by Parliament and the Presidential Palace) being closed off by riot police due to some of the frequent demonstrations here.

Back at the hostel, I got chatting with a Peruvian guy who had studied in the US called Edi, and a Yank named Pete, a conversation which continued later in the hostel bar, where I got my complimentary nightly glass of their microbrew beer. The company is called Saya, and they brew a handful of beers, of which I tried three that night, the Colonial (they call it a Kolsch, I call it a light summer ale), the Negra (they call it a Bock, I call it mmmm...Malty) and the Stout. I also partook in the night's bar activity, which was Movie Charades - they split us punters into two groups and we had to take it in turns to act out movies picked from a hat. There were supposed to be "punishment shots" when we got things wrong, but everyone got them right for about the first 5 rounds, so they decided to give us the shots anyway! In the end, our team sealed a narrow victory, helped by some truly inspiring mummery (I was quite proud that it only took them about 15 seconds to get me doing "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"!). Some of the guys headed on after this, inspired by Pete's claim that he knew "a really good seedy bar" nearby, whilst I had one of my occasional moments of good sense and headed for the sack.

Cancelled departure

2009-04-06T12:00:00.001+01:00

A frustrating day. I got up, packed, checked out and was ready to go to the airport to get my flight to Rurrenabaque. However, on checking with reception, I found that, as happens quite often, the flights were not operating as normal that day. This is principally because Rurre airfield is, in fact, a field. So when it gets soggy, it's not safe to operate a plane from it. Obviously. The airline informed reception that we should check back around 1pm, when they would have the forecast for the afternoon in and have a better idea if any flights would be going. So I headed off to get in some internet time and Skype home. Back at the hostel, I ended up liaising with their travel desk rather than reception, who seemed to get the response, every time they rung Amaszonas, of "not sure yet, call us back in 15 minutes". This went on, on and off, until around 4pm, by which time it was obvious I would not be flying that day, but the airline tried to put me on the 0615 flight the next morning - I refused this and, after some haggling (during which I threatened to cancel the ticket and rebook through the hostel, who showed seats available), they agreed to put me on the 1105 flight the next day. Deja vu. Luckily for me, the laundry service at the hostel was running late, so I just managed to chuck the entire contents of my bag in the wash. I then headed over to the market area to the Vertigo shop, where I picked up my CD of pictures from the trip, then had a look around before grabbing some food at a little Chinese place called Jackie Chan's (yes, really!) and heading back to the hostel.

Turns out Monday night at Wild Rover is Quiz Night. I caught up in the bar with Trif and Cec, two fellow Brits whom I'd originally encountered in Sucre, and when Trif headed off to play pool (after a disagreement with Cec and I over the nature of addictions - don't ask, you don't want to know) we were joined by two other English girls, Amy and Rosie. Stuck for inspiration for a team name, we had a stroke of genius and acronymised or names - Cecily, Rosie, Amy, Pat. CRAP. Had a nice ring to it. Such a nice ring, in fact, that we won the prize for best team name and got given a round of shots for it. Sadly, we didn't win the actual quiz, our academic skills unfortunately being slightly surprisingly let down by a sub-par limbo display by Rosie. At any rate, a fun night was had, and I once again gave in to my less-sober instincts and went on for a post-hostel-closing drink, although this time I was a wee bit more sensible and made it home safe and sound in time to get a reasonable amount of sleep before another attempt at getting my flight.

The World's Most Dangerous Road

2009-04-05T12:00:00.000+01:00

Once again reminded of the things I make myself do for fun whilst travelling that I'd never do normally, I was out of the hostel by 6:30am on a Sunday, headed for the rendez-vous of my cycling group at a little cafe called Snack Cordillera. Having been ultra-organised, turns out I was slightly early and had in fact arrived at the same time as the owner, who was just opening up. I got sat down at a table whilst he carried on setting up, and thus experienced a slight sigh of resignation when three loud, very obviously Israeli (this will make sense if you have ever encountered them whilst backpacking) lads came in and sat down at my table. Oh dear. Nothing against individual Israelis, but put them in packs and they can be utter horrors: rude, pushy, obviously insensitive to locals and quite happy to jabber loudly at each other in Hebrew the entire time, freezing out anyone else in the vicinity. And then, salvation - turns out they are with the other company that the proprietor does breakfast for, Radical Rides. This becomes even more of a relief when another 4 of them turn up. Meanwhile, I am joined at the Vertigo table by a Brasilian couple, Paolo and Mariana, and two Germans, Johanna and Alex. I also somehow manage, despite being the first there, to be the last to get my food, but such is life.

By around 8am, our guide, Cello, had turned up (his name is actually Marcelo, but since that is also our other guide for the day's name, his name is, as he puts it, "like the big violin") and we loaded into the company's minibus and headed back, ironically, to the Wild Rover, to pick up the remaining 3 cyclists - 3 more Brits, Mark, Dan and Meghan. Meghan almost wasn't going to go because of stomach upsets she'd been having, but as it was their last day in La Paz so she wouldn't have another chance, decided to give it a go. We trundled up through the upper suburbs of La Paz and out towards the pass at La Cumbre, where, at 4,700m altitude under a slate-grey sky, we got kitted out, being equipped with elbow- and knee-pads, full helmets, balaclavas, semi-water-proof over-trousers and flourescent orange safety jackets. Beautiful. Combined effect of this over the top of my own gear was somewhat akin to crossing the Michelin Man with Darth Vader and painting part of the result orange, but such is life - it still wasn't as unflattering as rafting gear usually is. After a relatively short safety briefing, we were off onto the tarmac of the main road that forms the upper part of the ride. The grey overhead soon turned into drizzle, and this, after we had passed the narcotics checkpoint, into something between a light rain and hail which stung anything exposed - I ended up pulling my goggles up from around my neck, reasoning that even though they tended to fog up, this was better than squinting so hard that my eyes were almost closed! Right from the off, I had been within a couple of riders of Marcelo, who was leading the group, a position I was to stay in for the rest of the ride, surprising myself as much as anyone else with the pace I was keeping. It was also lucky, as it meant I was safely ahead of Mark when his bike took a slide out from under him around one bend in the wet - he was fine, got up and kept going, but that was a wake-up call to stay alert and not take anything for granted given the conditions!

Once we reached the Unduluavi tunnel and the place where we had to get our tickets for the road (the local government assesses this fee to help cover repairs to the road and future provision of toilets and the like given that it is now used almost exclusively by cyclists), we loaded the bikes back up onto the roof of the minibus and piled on in for another 10 minutes or so as we negotiated the only slight uphill section of the road. By the time we were ready to offload and suit up again, we were off the pavement and onto the gravel, and we were given a few more safety pointers before heading out again. And this, to be honest, is the more spectacular part of the trip, as the road, sometimes easily two lanes wide, sometimes scarcely one, always rough gravel, and at times with 400-500m vertical drops off to the side, snakes and twists down the side of the mountain. It is generally acknowledged that there are only two ways to go down: pretty slow, or pretty fast. The former has the obvious advantage of more reaction time, the latter means that you are close behind the guide and hence can see which line he is taking, and also catch any of the hand-signals he gives out for information and warning. I went firmly for the latter approach and loved every minute of it, despite one or two moments when I hit loose rocks with my rear wheel or slid slightly on the gravel - the sensation of speed was amazing, and it also meant that I got a chance to admire the scenery somewhat whenever we occasionally stopped to allow the group to bunch back together after getting strung out. We had snacks at one point, and sandwiches for a kind of light brunch just across from some of the waterfalls that fall across the road, one of the more interesting hazards to navigate! I also had one of my periodic nosebleeds then, which slightly alarmed the guides, but I explained somehow in broken Spanish that I get them a lot and they clear up quickly, and when it did, that was all alright.

After that break, we had a few sections on the flat, where I discovered that downhill bikes aren't really that well set up for such exertions, being designed principally to cushion the bumps as you let gravity do its work. Still, we made it through those, and the sun, which had been teasing us for much of the morning, had now finally broken through properly, so I was glad to have divested myself of most of the less-necessary outer layers of clothing that had served their purpose of stopping me freezing on the upper road. The dust was also picking up as we got to drier parts of the road, and we had the added joy of crossing a couple of streams. I was slightly put out when, on the last one of these and only five minutes from the end, my chain broke but they popped me onto Marcelo's bike (it wasn't really worth bringing the spare down off the roof at this point) so I could finish the ride, down at the depths of 1,100m. At the end, we handed back our bikes and all of our kit, and then took advantage of the little local stand selling cold beer, a most welcome offering. Once all the kit was stowed, we were driven to a little local hotel where we could have showers and make use of the (slightly green-looking) pool to refresh ourselves, and also take advantage of the late buffet lunch on offer. Unfortunately, I found out later that I had also served as lunch, for the local sandfly population, but such is life. Somewhat bushed after a long day, I actually managed to doze for some of the trip back up to La Paz (taking the new, paved road, not the one we had come down), before waking and catching some of Cello's tales of events and accidents on the road over the years (he's been guiding there for 7 years now, working for 3 of the companies). I continued my over-consumption of food for the day by having the barbecue back at the Rover, and then ended up discussing the Troubles in Northern Ireland with an American lass from Boston called Hayley, which was interesting, but reinforced my policy from back at Uni that one should never discuss politics, religion, football or Northern Ireland with strangers....

Sick as a dawg

2009-04-04T12:00:00.000+01:00

Ow. The logical corollary of my over-enthusiastic revels was that when I finally woke up on the Saturday, I felt in no fit state to do anything even remotely requiring physical exertion - my wondrous immunity to alcohol-related headaches continues, but when your stomach is doing somersaults and you have all the energy and willpower of a day-old puppy, this isn't the biggest of compensations. I finally dragged myself out and wandered around town for a bit, giving in to my cravings by having lunch in Oliver's Travels, the self-proclaimed "5th best bar in La Paz" and "proudly 100% fake English pub", where I had fish and chips. After that I wandered around part of the markets, before deciding arbitrarily that since I was still feeling pretty awful later afternoon, and would thus almost certainly not be drinking later, Sunday would be the obvious day to do "The World's Most Dangerous Road", the mountain bike trip down the slopes east of La Paz. So I went around checking out a few of the companies offering the trip before finally deciding on Vertigo (www.vertigobiking.com), where I gave in to temptation and signed up. Then went in search of an ATM to find the money to pay for the trip, and for my excesses the previous night. This done, I had one of the most unhealthy meals of my time in South America, giving in again to the grease cravings of the morning after and getting food from Pollo Copacabana, one of the numerous Bolivian equivalents of KFC which crowd the streets of La Paz (and which, bizarrely, gives you fried banana as well as the deep-fried chicken and chips). Back at the hostel, I had a quick chat with Scott and Jesse, who were engaged in the latest round of what was apparently a long-running chess competition in the bar, had a beer in an attempt to get the benefits of hair of the dog (it failed) and then went to bed early. It is a measure of how knackered I still was that I managed to get off to sleep before 11pm, in spite of the noise from the regular Saturday night party at the bar.

Benders - a bad idea

2009-04-03T12:00:00.000+01:00

So, after another hardly-sleep-filled night, we pulled into El Alto, the upper part of La Paz, just after dawn. I shall divert at this point into another of my occasional geography lessons, as La Paz only makes sense when you understand where it is. The city sits in a high-altitude canyon, where the ground drops away 500m or so in a steep incline from the surrounding altiplano, which is at a dizzying 4,000m above sea level. It was built there after the Spanish discovered gold in the stream running down the canyon, and they chose to build on the slopes rather than the flat for the protection it afforded them from the winds of the altiplano. Nowadays, the main city of La Paz itself, with around three-quarters of a million inhabitants, crowds the walls and floor of the canyon in a dizzying blanket of brick and light, whilst El Alto holds around another 800,000, and is the fastest-growing city in the country (and one of the fastest in the whole of South America). The main link between El Alto and La Paz proper is a toll highway which carves down the side of the cliffs, and it was down this route that we rolled with the sun newly up, and I decided that La Paz has to be one of the most stunningly-situated cities I've ever visited.

After taking a cab from the bus terminal to my hostel, I also started on my steadily increasing respect for La Paz cabbies. We in the UK tend to be quite proud of the competence of black cab drivers in London and their need to pass "the knowledge" test, but La Paz's bizarre topography and pervasive one-way system demands a similar level of knowledge. They're also generally quite garrulous and chatty, especially if they find out you can speak a bit of Spanish - given that I was staying in a very Anglophone hostel, the majority of my Spanish-language interaction in La Paz was probably with cabbies (waiters don't count, ordering a meal doesn't actually use much conversational skills). However, it is quite important to be discerning - the official radio cabs are generally well-looked-after and have a very good chance of getting you where you want to go; the "unofficial" ones (basically just private cars with "taxi" stickers on the side!) can be utter pirates. Or can break down whilst halfway up a seriously steep hill, as one I took did, leading to the driver freewheeling backwards into oncoming traffic whilst trying to bump-start the vehicle. Needless to say, after this I have exclusively taken radio taxis.

So, on to my hostel: the Wild Rover. Yes, it's Irish-owned. Big surprise there. It's dorm-only, not private rooms, and it's famous as one of the "party hostels" of La Paz, so basically full of backpackers who are usually either getting drunk, drunk, hungover, or just arrived from a long bus ride or day trip and in need of a drink. Its bar is "unofficially the highest Irish pub in the world", and does fry-ups, shepherd's pie and the like, with a TV showing all football, rugby etc. It's the kind of place that backpacking snobs who can't stand being around too many other gringos and fantasise lovingly about getting off the gringo trail can't stand, and that gap-year or career-break party animals in search of those with similar instincts love. It's bad for your wallet and your liver, and doesn't help your Spanish very much. But it can be very good fun, especially if you're wanting to run loose for a few days. Needless to say, I spent rather more time and money in there than was really good for me, but I had a pretty good time whilst doing so.

Unfortunately, though, one aspect of its being very popular is that if you arrive early morning off a bus there's a fairly strong chance that your bed won't yet be available, so you end up, as I did, hanging around the hostel's common areas in a state rapidly approaching that of an extra in Shaun of the Dead, in limbo. After fighting with some ridiculously slow e-mail at a place around the corner, eating some of the usual backpacker breakfast in Bolivia of bread and jam, I was comforted by the appearance around lunchtime of Ben and Dee, my friends from travelling in northern Argentina, who had got back from the jungle the previous day. And who, on finding the bar in my hostel, decided that they would have a drink. And would I join them? Oh dear, there goes what little is left of my willpower. I had a beer. Finally my bed became available, and I could put my bags in there, but instead of following my original plan and getting some kip, I decided to carry on drinking with my mates, and the two Yanks, Jesse and Scott, from my bus, who had also miraculously appeared at the Rover (along with an Aussie lass, Nicole, who it turned out was on my glacier trip in Calafate, and Sarah, the English girl who was in my dorm in Salta the night after Ben and Dee left - the Wild Rover is also a worryingly big nexus on the "it's a small world" side of travelling). So Ben, Dee, Scott, Jesse and I took a break from drinking mid-afternoon to go up to one of the miradors (lookouts) over town by taxi, then wandered back down and agreed to meet up for a drink later that evening - I was joining Scott, Jesse, Sarah, Nicole and two other girls they had been travelling with (Karolin, a German, and Kate, an English lass on her gap year) and going for a curry (there is a British-Indian curry house in La Paz, the Star of India...), a trip which Ben and Dee would have joined had they not already been there the previous night!

The curry was a welcome attempt at a flavour of home, although the Naan bread was sadly disappointing, and I was distressed that I found the Madras really quite hot, possibly reflecting a fall in my spice tolerances whist away - Argentina in particular just does not do spicy food. As might be expected, we had a few more beers with the food, I was less-than-surprised to see half my salt flats tour turn up for a meal as well, Ben and Dee popped in after their food to say an emotional farewell (although as Dee is planning on moving to Bristol, there's a fair chance I'll see them again before too long!) and then it was back to the Rover. Where we drank a bit more, and then got into the spirit of the "Fools" fancy dress party. Unfortunately, the better attempts at jester costumes and the like had already gone from the dress-up cupboard, so I ended up wearing a green dress and a santa hat over my other gear. It is a probably a measure of quite how drunk I was getting that I apparently gleefully described myself to one lass as "Maid Marian's Ugly Transvestite Cousin". By 1:30am, I was suitably drunk that I was persuaded (I don't think it took too much effort) to go on to a late bar called Traffic. A place from which I eventually staggered home, in possibly one of the dumber acts of my time travelling, around 4 in the morning. Eeeurgh.

¡Libertad!

2009-04-02T23:51:00.000+01:00

Hostelling International Sucre are to be commended for being one of the relatively rare breed of hostel that takes into account its guest's likely behaviours when setting its rules on check-out. Noon is a much more sensible check-out time than 9:30am or some of the other things I have been quoted by hostels down the years. Means you can lie in until 10:30 or 11 if you've been out, and still get out of the room in time. So I was feeling in a remarkably cheery mood as I popped my bags into storage at the hostel for the afternoon and went into the city for a last bit of exploring before my bus out of town. First stop was the Mercado Central (Central Market) where I again sampled the remarkably cheap and filling local food, and then I raided the fresh juice bars, where I got a very nice freshly-squeezed orange and pineapple juice for about 60p. That's one thing I will really miss about Bolivia - the wide availability of cheap, fresh fruit juices! The absolute antithesis of Chile, where anything that looks like juice in a supermarket is more like very sugary squash...

Having refuelled myself for the day, and banished any lingering demons from the previous night's beer intake, I headed over to the main Plaza, intending to go to the Casa de la Libertad (Liberty House museum), only to find that it was closed over lunch, so I popped back to my favourite internet cafe, where I was surprised to meet Jenny and Nadia, the two Irish girls from my unintended Karaoke-fuelled evening a couple of nights previously - I'd thought they had left town, but no, they were still there, held by the gravitational pull of large quantities of alcohol. At any rate, having caught up quickly with them, I headed back to my intended destination and had a look around the site of the signing of Bolivia's Declaration of Independence in 1825. The building itself was originally part of the Jesuit University, parts of it having been built over 400 years ago. It's beautifully whitewashed, like almost all public buildings in Sucre, such that on a sunny day the reflected light within the courtyards is quite dazzling. It's all signed in Spanish with nothing in English, but I was gratified to find that I could understand the majority of what was happening anyway. One stereotype that held up to a large extent was quite how many of the numerous Presidential portraits in the Hall of the Senate had captions beginning "General...". Quite a difference from the current incumbent, Evo, references to whom appear in graffiti all over Bolivia, the majority positive but a sizeable smattering of negative stuff as well. There was also an interesting temporary exhibit on the War of the Pacific, the struggle in the late 19th Century which saw Bolivia lose its only coastal territories to Chile, and about which the Bolivians are, not terribly surprisingly, really rather bitter. It still gets mentions in newspaper comments on relations between the countries, and pretty much every Bolivian Presidential candidate vows to work towards the return of El Litoral. Bolivia even still maintains the staff of a navy, despite not having a coastline (if you don't include the shores of Lake Titicaca)!

Fortified by a revised knowledge of Bolivian history, I finished the afternoon by finally getting the required padded envelope, finding the post office and sending hom the backups of my photo DVDs from the trip thus far. I then headed back to the hostel, walking in the end because I couldn't find where the bloody micro-buses were supposed to go from, and thus getting to really appreciate how much it had been worth the 5 Bs it cost me each time I got a cab back in the middle of the night! There was a fair bit of steepness involved. I then reclaimed my bags and waddled back down to the bus station, where I checked my main pack in and went in search of some snackage - I had a premonition that food on even a cama service in Bolivia would be either poor or non-existent (I was right). Waiting around by the bus, I got chatting briefly with a couple of Americans, Scott and Jesse, but once on the bus they were a fair bit farther back so we weren't able to talk any more. We were "treated" to a series of very loud (dubbed in Spanish) films, neither of which I can actually remember, and I struggled as ever for sleep. This wasn't helped much by the "rest stop" we made at 2am, to survive which I ended up getting a freshly-made fried-egg-and-chip sandwich from a little old lady running a stand in the middle of the night at the point various of the buses crossed paths between Sucre and La Paz. What a job...

Justifiable Schadenfreude (take that, Diego!)

2009-04-01T12:00:00.000+01:00

I awoke at 1pm, praising whatever Gods keep an eye on errant, alcoholic backpackers for leaving me still the sole occupant of my dorm. After making myself feel slightly more human, I headed into town and once more to Florin, where I had a late brunch (ok, it was lunch - you can't have brunch at 3pm really...) watching the game in the company of a sizeable portion of the British nationals currently in the city. Not the best game of football England will ever play, but we won. The crowning joy, though, was that we caught the end of the Bolivia vs Argentina game. We'd seen quarter of an hour or so of it at half-time, in which we caught the equalizer that brought the Argentines back to 1-1. At that point, many of us thought that they were bound to go on and win from there. So we were very pleasantly surprised to see the scoreline standing at 4-1 to Bolivia when we switched over after the England game. When the fifth and sixth Bolivian goals went in, with Diego Maradona looking ever more like a toad that has swallowed something deeply unpleasant, there was much rejoicing.

In order to avoid the evening turning into quite such a messy one as the previous night, I took a break from the beers to go and climb up the hill to the mirador by the La Recoleta monastery, which gives fantastic views back over the city - the whole "white city" name is due to the majority of buildings across the centre of the city being painted white, with red tile roofs, making for quite a striking vista. After that I ambled back into town, went back to my internet cafe from the previous day and finished uploading my photos from northern Argentina onto Facebook. I then headed over to Florin again, around 10pm, to meet up with Stephen and Mike, two of the lads I'd been watching the footie with, and have a cheeky Happy Hour drink or two. They had been joined by Megan, a Canadian girl who'd done her salt flats tour at the same time as me, and who had been travelling with a group of three other English lads. I have to admit they were not quite as much to my liking, reminding me a bit too much of some of the sloaney types who colonise Bristol Uni to an unhealthy degree. We then joined an American couple, Kevin and Erin, and a couple of Peruvians, Jesus and Marcelo. Erin and I ended up chatting with Jesus, who was a really nice guy, and it was quite nice to realise I'd now got to the point where I could have a conversation all in Spanish with someone, however halting my words might sometimes be.

Once everybody had fed and we'd run out of happy hour, we moved along to another of the Dutch-owned bars (the fact it's called Amsterdam is a clue...), where there were some local musicians playing folclore - so flutes, pipes,miniature ukelele-like guitars, etc etc. In the end, it came down to Kevin, Erin and I hanging around the longest, after the set had finished and the bar had technically closed, drumming along on the tables while the flautist spun up another tune, and drinking with the band and the owner. And then it was 4am. Weird how that happens. So I went back to my hostel and my bed.

Karaoke en Español? Hmmm...

2009-03-31T12:00:00.000+01:00

Having been blissfully undisturbed by my non-existent room-mates, I had my first real proper lie-in for a while, before heading back into town. Like many of the micro drivers, this one had customised his vehicle somewhat, in this case by having 13 different stuffed-toy birds (mostly parrots) across the top of his windscreen! I had lunch at one of the rough-and-ready food stalls in the central market, which was as noisy and disorientating at times as you might expect, before heading on towards the plaza again. My initial plan had been to look around some of the colonial centre of town, maybe going to the Casa de la Libertad (Liberty House), the museum in the building where the declaration of independence was signed, but the onset of a crazy thunder- and hail-storm drove me into the shelter of an internet cafe, which I was delighted to discover possessed a DVD drive, allowing me to upload some of my second disc of backed-up photos to Facebook. The storm kept going for a while, but it turned out I needed most of the afternoon to upload those photos I managed anyway, as the stupid site decided to hang twice whilst uploading large numbers of pictures, forcing me to start those from scratch again.

Since it was now too late to go see the museum, I checked around some of the agencies in town about possible tours for the next day. I had been thinking of maybe going horse-riding or something, but as there were no other riders lined up, this turned out to be going to cost a lot more than I had thought, and so I gave up the idea as a bad thing. Instead I went back to Florin for dinner, where I ended up chatting for a little while with a Welsh couple, Hefin and Emma, who were headed south, trading tales and recommendations. I then headed over to the Joy Ride, where I had a beer, read back through my notebook starting in Brasil (actually quite an interesting exercise, reminding myself of quite how much I've seen and done on this trip so far!) and then got chatting with some of the other gringos in there.

The first were three fellow Brits, Trif, Cecily and Pete, with whom I arranged to meet up the next afternoon and watch the England football game which Florin was going to show. Then there were a couple of Irish lads, Donheh and Eoin, who'd been in the previous night and regaled me with stories of quite how crazy it had all got after I left. They were both quite determined not to have a repeat performance, as they were planning to go to Potosi the next day - in fact, they had been planning to go for the last four days, and, for reasons largely due to alcohol, had mysteriously failed to do so on each occasion. We were then joined by two Irish girls, Nadia and Jenny, who had also been central participants in the previous night's high-jinks (with Nadia reportedly dancing on tables at one point...) and were even more determined to have a quiet night. In fact, they weren't even going to have a drink. Oh, all right then, just one. You can probably guess roughly how this all ended. We were politely ejected from Joy Ride at 2am when it closed, and then ended up in a little grotto of a subterranean bar and club (with cave-like alcoves for tables) where the activities included Karaoke (mostly in Spanish) and dancing, much of it of the salsa variety. I finally got a cab back to the hostel at 5:30am. Oops. Though I did at least wait at the correct door this time....

La Ciudad Blanca

2009-03-30T12:00:00.000+01:00

My attempts to catch up on sleep in Potosi were again thwarted by the fact that pretty much every traveller there seems to be headed out on the tours to the mines, which inevitably means there's lots of people bumping around about 7:30 in the morning. Still, in this case being awoken for this wasn't such a bad thing, as it meant I had a chance to say goodbye properly to Julien and Stine. After that, I spent much of the morning reading. A little too much, in fact, as when I went to get a cab over to the bus station, I found that the centre of town had totally snarled up, so I ended up walking there. Luckily this was pretty much all downhill, but I was stressed and somewhat warmed up by the time I arrived at the bus station, with only 5 minutes before my bus was due to go. The bus itself was again not great, but at least was better than the one from Uyuni had been, although as I was squeezed in by the window I unfortunately didn't have the option this time of putting my legs into the aisle to stretch out. There was some more amazing mountain scenery as the road, luckily paved this time, switchbacked its way over to La Ciudad Blanca, the "White City" as Sucre is known.

Sucre also has the distinction of being Bolivia's capital. Or one of them, depending on your interpretation of events. You see, the city is technically the judicial capital, being host to the Supreme Court, and is also the birthplace of Bolivian independence. However, the government and legislature are both based up in La Paz, which is also the main centre for businesses and the international travel gateway. This is slightly similar to South Africa, where the parliament sits in Cape Town, the legislative capital, the civil service of the government is based in Pretoria, the executive capital, and the Supreme Court is based in Bloemfontein, the judicial capital. In practice, pretty much everything of importance politically in Bolivia happens in La Paz, but sniffy residents of Sucre still refer to their city as the capital, dismissing La Paz as "the seat of government". Ok, Civics lesson for the day over.

My mild disgruntlement at the bus company increased somewhat when I discovered that the bus had reached its final destination, and it wasn't the bus terminal! Annoyingly, somewhat like what happens in Chile, the bus had finished its journey at the offices of the company instead. This was particularly annoying as one of my reasons for picking my hostel in Sucre, the HI, was that it was only a few minutes' walk from said station. Nothing to be done about it, though, except to get a cab across town, in the company of a Canadian who was aiming to get a connecting bus out of town that night. Arrival at the hostel also soothed my slightly irate mood, as the guy on the front desk was very polite and helpful (albeit once again all in Spanish, a situation to which I am now getting used and beginning to appreciate, as my language skills are improving slightly) and it turned out I had room 24 (a 4-bed dorm) all to myself, and it opened out directly onto the balcony at the rear of the house, overlooking the garden. Nice.

Next task was to head back to the bus station, running the usual gauntlet of exhuast fumes, honking taxis and rumbling micro-buses when crossing the main road, and sort out my bus ticket out of town for Thursday. I was determined to do this in plenty of time so as to make sure (a) I got a cama (sleeper) service and (b) I got one of the seats on their own that I liked. In the latter case, I was to fare even better than hoped, as I managed to get the seat right at the front, so nobody would be lowering their seat-back into my personal space. Mission accomplished. This done, I got myself cleaned up back at the hostel, and then headed into town in search of some dinner. I was slightly delayed once again by traffic, in this case a near-solid file of micros grinding their way down the hill into the centre of town, but made it to within a couple of blocks of the central plaza by around 7:30, and started having a look at some of the restaurants Stine had helpfuly recommended.

At this point, I got the first of what have been many frequent recent demonstrations of how the Gringo Trail keeps bringing you back into contact with the same people over and over, when I walked past the window of a pizzeria and did a double-take as I saw Mark and Katie, from the salt flats trip, sitting there. I popped in and had a chat with them, during which it turned out that Jun, Miriam and Robin from the trip were also in town. I then headed on to have my dinner at a nice little bar/restaurant called Florin, one of a bafflingly large number of such in town under Dutch ownership. One pleasant chicken shoarma later (I was in the mood for something other than typical Bolivian food at this point), I ambled out and nearly bumped straight into Jun, and ended up staying and having a couple of Happy Hour drinks with him, Robin and Miriam. Once they headed for bed, I popped into the Joy Ride, reportedly the busiest hotbed of Gringo nightlife in town, for a swift beer, but tiredness and the fact that, for the first time in the city, I didn't see anyone I knew meant I headed back to the hostel by midnight, where I then embarrassed myself by standing outside the wrong door to the hostel, getting upset that nobody had answered the bell, when the one I actually needed to use was a couple of metres away and unlocked. Oops.

An even quieter day

2009-03-29T12:00:00.000+01:00

Woke up at the unearthly hour of 8:30am on a Sunday. I blame the altitude - when you even half-wake short of breath, you tend to wake up fully pretty quickly. Plus, the door to my dorm creaked like something from a Hammer horror movie whenever people went in or out, and everyone heading out on the mine tours tended to be up and moving by about 8. I made the surprising discovery that the hostel actually did breakfast, and then the less-surprising one that this consisted of bread and jam. And tea or coffee, but I don't really drink either of them, a fact which seemed to unnerve the ladies serving from the kitchen.

After a quick burst of internet during which I sorted out my hostel for La Paz and my flight from there to Rurrenabaque, the jungle town from which I am planning to visit the Madidi National Park, part of the Bolivian section of the Amazon basin, I went off to explore around town and see some of the remainder of the town's colonial architecture - although Potosí became a virtual ghost town by the start of the 20th Century, a fair amount of it has survived in one form or the other, although often in a different use from that for which it was originall built. After working up an appetite (and a slight shortness of breath) looking around the old town, I had the almuerzo, the set lunch at one of the restuarants in the town centre, which got me a massive bowl of soup with some bread, pique lo macho (beef and sausages, on chips, onions and peppers, in a spicy sauce) that was hot enough for me to really notice it, and then a little cup of lemon-flavoured ice, with a drink, for the sum of around 3 pounds. If you haven't got the point yet, Bolivia is very pleasantly cheap!

In the afternoon, I wrote up a bit more of my journal, then headed back to the hostel, where I bunked down with a book for a little while (thanks to the hostel's book exchange, I was comfortably stocked with reading material again) until I eventually got chatting with a new occupant of the dorm, a Norwegian lass from right up above the Arctic circle in Kirkenes called Stine. After getting all kinds of hints from her about where to go in Sucre, that being both my next stop and where she had spent the last 3 months as an exchange student, and passing on some about Uyuni and down into Argentina, we ended up joining up with Julien, a French guy from the dorm, and heading out for some food. After a bit of a wild goose chase, caused partly by it being Sunday night and mainly places being closed, and partly by both Stine and I forgetting our guidebooks, we ended up back at the Torre de Pizza, where I had a fairly underwhelming lemon chicken but the others both seemed to enjoy their pizzas. After finishing our accompanying drinks, we decided that an early night wouldn't be such a bad thing (Stine wasn't actually drinking, as she was still recovering somewhat from her leaving party from Sucre the previous night!) and headed back to the hostel.

A quiet day in the World's Highest City

2009-03-28T12:00:00.000Z

I treated myself to breakfast out for once, going to the Cafe La Plata on the cental square and having their desayuno Americano, which translated to toast and jam, orange juice and huevos revueltos, a kind of scrambled egg with ham in it. After that, I prowled the local internet cafes to find one that would let me Skype home - unfortunately, the connection was so slow that I was speaking to my Dad with about a 10-second lag on the line, which isn't really conducive to conversation, so I headed back to the hostel and gave myself one of my occasional strimmings (I hadn't clippered my hair for about 2 weeks, which is quite a long time for me these days...). Then I headed into reception, and pleaded (successfully) for them to put the TV on on ESPN so that I could watch the England-Slovakia friendly game - I know, I'm travelling, I ought to have better things to do with my time than watching football, but it was an England game after all!

Feeling suitably gleeful after England's 4-0 triumph, I headed off for a late lunch, ending up at the execrably-named "La Torre de Pizza". The food wasn't bad, though, a quite pleasant dish of home-made gnocchi with Bolognese sauce. After this, I got myself onto the last tour for the day around La Casa Nacional de la Moneda, the old Mint. This is described in certain guidebooks as "one of the most important examples of Spanish colonial civic architecture" and is notable both for its size (covering a whole city block) and its intact 18th-Century metal mills, used for converting the silver into coin-thickness plates. The tour itself was in Spanish, which annoyingly started out relatively slow and comprehensible and seemed to get faster as the guide went on. There was a certain amount of information on posters in English, though, and the written Spanish stuff was easier to understand than our guide, so I managed to get most of what was happening.

After this, I wrote up a bit more of my journals, and then went into the Plaza, where there appeared to be an impromptu fiesta going on, with a marching brass band and its accompanying dancers making its way around the square to the steps of the Cathedral, many of said dancers in traditional dress, which is most noticeable for the Andean peoples by the women's baffling fondness for bowler hats - the rumour is that this came about in the late 19th Century, when British traders came to some of the tribes and offered their hats as part of the trade for the local weavings and the like. The men weren't impressed with this headgear, but the women were, and the bowler has now become effectively part of the tribal dress of these groups, usually in black, brown or dark green!

Dinner that evening was again at the La Casona pub, and consisted of a different spicy beef-based dish, whose name unfortunately escapes me, but it was again good. And again, they had live music there, though in this case a somewhat less elaborate set-up, with the group called Enharmonia consisting of a guy with an acoustic guitar and a girl singing. She did have a beautful voice, though, so the music was almost as spellbinding as the previous night's had been. I also had the chance to sample some of the local beer, Potosina - the landlady had been very apologetic the previous night that their stock wasn't refrigerated, but this time it was. However, one unexpected side-effect of brewing at these kinds of altitudes appears to be that the bottle is very prone to fizzing over when opened, and it continued fizzing for about half an hour after opening! Actually tastes quite good, though.

The joys of Bolivian buses...

2009-03-27T12:00:00.000Z

Get up, check out, off to the bus station, the usual routine. No hostel breakfast this time, but I managed to get a couple of deep-fried potato-cake type things from a little old lady at the side of the road for the princely sum of 2 Bs each, so I was at least slightly prepared for what the day might bring. Most of our group reassembled (10 of the 11 on our tour were on the same bus!), and were less than 100% pleased when we found that the bus company had swapped the new, shiny bus we hd been shown the previous day for a little minibus, on whose roof all our packs were going to be travelling. I was even less impressed when I discovered that, following Murphy's Law, I, the largest person on the bus, was in the seat with the least legroom on the bus. So I would be spending the best part of 6 hours either killing my knees or swivelled around into the aisle. Lovely.

Still, the drive itself was pretty spectacular. If only the same could have been said for the road. The panormaic vistas of mountains along the side of which we snaked as we headed up towards Potosí were matched in size only by the size of some of the potholes in the road. Or at least it felt that way. I immersed myself in Lauren and Ness's Lonely Planet Bolivia for some of the trip, seeing what else it had to offer beyond what my trusty Footprint provided, and then curled up as best I could with my iPod to last out some of the rest of the trip (I was all out of books at this point, thwarted by the power-cut in San Pedro from hitting the book exchanges there). I awoke to our lunch stop, a proper little middle-of-nowhere with few options for food. I ended up getting a crushed corn cake known as a humita, as this was all the sole Boliviano I still had in small change would buy me - foolishly, I had used all my smaller notes and coins, and there was no way I was going to be able to get change for a 50 or 100 Bs note there! I then attempted to doze off again.

This time, I was awoken by us grinding to a halt. Turns out a bus in front of us had gone off the side of the road (luckily the rockface side, not the cliff-edge side) on a narrow climbing section, and everything was backed up behind it - both of its rock-side wheels had left the road and gone into the gully by the rock edge, so it was hanging diagonally across its suspension with no traction to get it out of there. All its passengers had disembarked and people were largely standing around trying to work out what might be done to get it out of there. In relatively short order, there were 4 minibuses all queued up behind it, and some of the Bolivian equivalent of the Highways Agency had turned up in a road-grader (it's a dirt/gravel road rather than tarmac on that route). We all seemed likely to be there for the duration until the driver of one of the trailing minibuses, whom I judged at the time to have more cojones than sense, decided to try and squeeze through the narrow gap on the cliff side of the grounded bus. And, against all expectations, and with someone hanging out the front door to tell him if his wheels were about to go over the edge, made it through. Obviously, as soon as it was shown that one bus could make it, all the others did so as well, including ours, so we were on our way for the loss of a bit under an hour, which wasn't too bad considering.

Hence, it was late afternoon when we arrived into Potosí, the highest city of its size in the world - 160,000 or so people at over 4,000m altitude. The reason for this is the mines of Cerro Rico, the "rich hill" whose silver mines effectively funded the Spanish Empire for 2 centuries or more. In fact, it had a similar population at the end of the 16th century, making it one of the largest cities in the world at that time. However, these riches were extracted at the cost of the misery, and indeed the lives, of around 8 million indigenous Andeans and African slaves who worked the mines over those years. After independence, the mines remained open and under state ownership until the 1980s, although the silver had largely gone by the latter parts of the 19th century, and their continued operation was largely due to demand for tin, which the Spanish had never been that bothered with. These days, the mines are still operated by Miners' Co-operatives, but they struggle to make a living, and work in conditions that, but for the use of dynamite for blasting, have scarcely changed from the Middle Ages. Tours to the mines are actually Potosí's biggest tourist attraction, but, given my claustrophobia when underground, one which I declined to partake in.

At any rate, on arrival, I was again to suffer for my having foolishly used up all my change and small notes, as I was unable to secure transport to my lodgings. Luckily, Jerome and Estelle let me share their taxi to their hostel, which brought me about halfway to mine and did quite a bit of the climb from the bus station to the town centre, but still left me gasping my way for another 10 minutes or so across town fully laden with my packs and wondering where all the oxygen had gotten to. Still, I made it, and checked into the La Casona hostel, which was handily only a block and a half away from the central Plaza. I had a brief initial wander around town before the restaurants started opening for the evening, at which point I went to the La Casona Pub (no relation to the hostel) where I tried some beautiful microbrewed beer from Ted's Cerveceria in Sucre and had pique de lengua (spicy tongue, with a salsa and some chuños, a local variety of freeze-dried potatoes!). After this, I caught up on more of my internet needs (as your Inboses can probably attest) before heading back to the pub for their live music that evening.

This turned out to be a local folclore group of 8 musicians called Waira, playing the classic Andean instruments (including the tiny guitar that's a bit like a ukelele and the ubiquitous pipes and flute). For a cover charge of around 1 pound, they played a couple of sets of great music, and I had a very pleasant time, chatting with the bar staff (who all appeared to be from the same family, apart perhaps from one of the waiters who easily wins the prize of the campest Latin American I have yet met) and later with another English lad called Andy (from Hull) and a French lad called Marceau - they were heading on to Uyuni the next day, so I sang the praises of Estrella del Sur (whilst warning they could be tricky to get hold of!). And then it was time to go back to the hostel and sleep.

Sunrise, Salt Flats and Silly Photos

2009-03-26T12:00:00.000Z

4:30am is not generally a nice time of night. Even approaching it from earlier in the evening, it tends to be a time for exhaustion to raise its ugly head, but when it's a time to awaken, it is just plain horrible. Still, spurred on by the prospect of sunrise on the world's biggest salt flats, we managed to get up and loaded onto the vehicles and headed out into the darkness. Again I was glad of Carlos' experience in the job, as the route we took was totally unmarked and frequently seemed to involve random turns off the track we'd been following. It was over an hour's transit through the dark before we took up station on the salt flats, dug out our cameras, wrapped up as warm as we could manage and watched the slow arrival of dawn. Again, we appeared to have beaten the competition to the punch, as numerous other vehicles roared past us as the light gradually crept onto the eastern horizon. Suffice to say that the sunrise was gorgeous, and I won't try and describe it - you can make your own minds up when the photos are eventually online.

Once we'd taken ou fill of sunrise pictures, we packed back into the Land Cruisers and carried on to the Isla Incahuasi, where we climbed up to the mirador to take in the view across the salt flats whilst the drivers got breakfast ready. Breakfast in this case turned out to contain pancakes, which had presumably been cooked back at our accommodation, and after a couple of these and some hot chocolate, I was ready to take more photos, in this case concentrating on the kind of "comedy" perspective pictures for which the salt flats are brilliant (e.g. people apparently falling into a glass of orange juice, or a bunch of us apparently marching into a Pringles tube). After that, we had another brief photo stop out in the middle of the flats, and another at the only salt hotel still operating on the Salar (and that one has been asked to close for environmental reasons), before we hit solid ground again on our way into Uyuni.

Back on solid ground turned out to mean a souvenir-shopping stop as soon as we hit the town of Colchani - I haven't yet worked out what, if anything, I want to get from here in Bolivia, and I hardly had any local currency at this point anyway, so no purchases for Pat, but Lauren in our jeep decided to buy a wollie hat with little "llama ears" on the top. It kind of suits her, but I wouldn't be seen dead wearing one! After this, the jeeps split for a bit, with Emilio's crew having lunch in Colchani and the rest of us heading on to one of Uyuni's slightly weirder attractions, the Train Cemetery. This consists basically of a whole bunch of rusting, collapsing old steam locomotives and rolling stock, taken onto a branch line outside the city and basically left there to collapse. The old Engineering student in me found this kind of sad, and I was sorried enough about scratches and tetanus etc (despite having the jab) that I didn't really feel like scrambling around on the old rust-buckets and getting my photo taken, which was the principal activity there.

After our dead trains, we headed into Uyuni city centre, where Carlos pointed us in the direction of markets, ATMs etc whilst he got our lunch cooked up. In the company's offices, but there you go. I was overjoyed, having heard rumours the ATM was out of order, to find the thing working, and also to be able to check my e-mails quickly (for someone like me, 3 days away from my mails feels like a loooong time!). We then had a final filling lunch before bidding farewell to Estrella del Sur, and checking in to our various accommodations - I, along with the majority of the group, was in the HI in town, which was reasonably well-priced (45 Bs, about 4 pounds fifity, for a single room) and not too far to walk back to the bus offices, given I had already decided there was no real reason to spend more than a night in Uyuni itself (from what I've seen, just about the only reaction most other Bolivians have to mentioning the town of Uyuni is to mention quite how cold it is - that's it, that's apparently all it's famous for in its own country). Unfortunately, one of the other things Uyuni is known for internationally is its dryness, which equates to the hostel enforcing a "one shower per night, maximum seven minutes per shower" rule, with an attendant lady with the keys controlling access to the shower-rooms! Still, this was enough to get the dust and stench of the trail off me, and after having a shave as well I felt slightly more human when I met up with the others again in the evening to go for dinner. As luck would have it, our first choice place was closed, but we found another one, and had a nice meal before collapsing as one might expect of a group that had been up since 4:30am...

Across the Puna

2009-03-25T12:00:00.000Z

Turns out that even 3 or 4 blankets aren't always sufficient at altitude, and it also doesn't help when the other jeep crews at the refugio leave at around 5:30am, an hour or so before we were due to, making a great deal of noise in the process. We got our packs stowed again and ready to load the vehicles, and we were glad to see that Carlos had reappeared in the morning (he had apparently been down with something flu-lke the previous night, prompting various of the ladies on the trip to seach their pharmaceutical hoardes for potential cures). We had a slightly surreal breakfast of cake followed by bread and jam, then loaded up and set off to the north again. Our first stop for the day was the Arbol de Piedra (Stone Tree), a natural rock sculpture amongst a whole field of other wind- and water-eroded boulders and, whilst we weren't allowed to climb the "tree", we could and did scramble around on various of the others, to the usual accompaniment of the snaps and whirrs and beeps of digital cameras.

Having snapped to our hearts' content, we piled back into our trusty steeds and rolled on further north, taking in some of the longest drives of the trip on the way to the Lagunas Altiplanicas (high-altitude lakes) - it was at this point that we started counting our lucky stars that Carlos' vehicle had the MP3 cable, as we could iPod our way across the miles whereas Emilio's group aparrently spent quite a lot of the time with a CD of Andean music on repeat! The first of the lakes was Laguna Honda (meaning Deep Lake, nothing to do with the car manufacturer!), then there was one whose name I didn't write down but was actually from Quechua rather than Spanish, and then Laguna Hedionda (literally, Stinky Lake), which had quite large deposits of borax and supur around the edge, hence the well-deserved name. And this was where we broke for lunch.

After our feed, we carried on north, stopping to admire the view of Volcan Ollague, apparently one of the most active in South America, and also to goggle at the bizarre sight of two Swiss cyclists, who had apparently started down at Ushuaia and were making their way up to La Paz, Bolivia's capital. So there we are, transported by 4WD vehicles and with all our supplies and baggage on the roofs, and there they are, with only what they can carry in their panniers. Bit of a contrast. I was defnitely glad to be doing things our way, though! We kept on northwards, crossing the Salar de Chiguana, a smaller set of salt flats just to the south of the main Uyuni ones, and made one of our occasional supply- and toilet-stops in the village of San Juan. One of the features of crossing such a forbidding landscape as southwest Bolivia, somewhat similar to my times in Africa, is that the need to go to the loo becomes quite a driving thing, and travellers (especially guys, for whom the great outdoors makes for easier territory) tend to take the chance to go whenever the opportunity occurs. And when you're traveling through a landscape largely devoid of any trees or other large plant cover, then rocks become your friend. Once there aren't any rocks to hand either, the guys at least have the option of just going a ways away from the vehicle and facing downwind. Ahem.

After San Martin, it was only a relatively short drive, albeit one which took us past an army settlement where the troops were giving each other piggie-backs across a football pitch, to get us to Villa Martin, the little place which was our stop for the night. Some of the companies stop at one of the salt hotels (thus named due to their construction from salt blocks) near the flats, but Estrella actually stays in a little local guesthouse (which we later found out is actually owned by Carlos' parents!) which I reckon scores higher on the comfort front. We had a little time after dumping our bags to explore what little there was of the village, taking in the quinoa fields outside town, before heading back for the usual warming drinks and biscuits before dinner. However, our peace and serenity at this time were tested somewhat by one of the kids of the household, who kept hassling us about whether we wanted to take a shower (it was an extra 5 Bs charge to do so, albeit with hot water), to the point where some of us decided not to just because he was being irritating. Once dinner was out of the way, we all headed to bed pretty early, as we needed to be up and ready to leave by 5am the next morning to go and catch the sunset.

Into Bolivia

2009-03-23T12:00:00.001Z

The early night was probably somewhat of a help, as I had to be at the office for my tour at 8am. Although, again, the company's timekeeping turned out to be somewhat more flexible than ours, so it was at least half past before we actually got on the minibus that ould take us to the border. We first of all cleared Chilean emigration at the edge of town, then drove on for about an hou or so to the Bolivian frontier, where we were met by the Land Cruisers (not actual jeeps, but more comfortable) which would be our steeds for the next few days to Uyuni. The border formalities were relatively rapid for those of us not from the US - our American cousins unfortunately suffer once again in Bolivia from their nation's aggressive aproach to border control, in that they must pay a fee of US$135, equivalent to that which the US charges Bolivians applying to go Stateside. They don't have the facilities to do this at the border for everyone, so their passports are put (safely wrapped up in cardboard and duct tape!) into the care of the tour company until they reac uyuni, where they have to pay at the immigration office. Thus, Ness, Lauren, Mark and Katie were spending 3 days passport-less, whilst Philip (German), Jerome and Estelle (French), Miriam (Dutch) Robin (Canadian) and Jun and myself (British) just had to pay the 21 Bolivianos (just over 2 quid) border tax.

With the formalities out of the way, we got down to breakfast, which consisyed of (surprise, surprise!) ham and cheese sandwiches, though bolstered by apple juice and yoghurts. The latter caused no end of amusement, as they reacted to the 4,500m altitude of the border by exploding somewhat whenever they were opened. Once we had been fed and watered, we split between the two vehicles, with Mark, Katie, Robin and Jun )who had been travelling together for about a week already) joined by Miriam in one Land Cruiser, driven by Emilio, whilst Ness, Lauren, Philip, Jerome, Estelle and I wee chauffeured around by Carlos. My initial reaction was annoyance at being in the more crowded vehicle, but ours was actually a newer model, with slightly more space, and had things like an MP3 interface for music, which Emilio's lacked. And we had Carlos, who was brilliant. He didn't really speak English, but was practiced at dealing with Gringoes with minimal Spanish and spoke slowly and deliberately, making things clear to all of us what was happening. And if there was anything complicated, we had the advantage of Ness, who is dual-national US-Spanish (unfortunately for her currently with a lapsed Spanish passport, so she got caught by the US restrictions) and thus fluent in both languages.

Thus began our little Odyssey across the Puna, through the Reserva Nacional de Fauna Eduardo Avaroa and up across the Salar de Uyuni. Our first stop was Laguna Blanca (White Lagoon), which served as a mirror for the surrounding countryside. Just a few minutes' drive further on from this was Laguna Verde (Green Lagoon), which was coloured a startling blue-green due to the mineral content (particularly a high content of arsenic - not somewhere to think about refilling water bottles or anything!) and also exposed to a vicious wind that whipped across the plains, still basically treeless at this altitude. Moving on from Laguna Verde we stopped at the Termas de Polques, some hot springs where an enterprising soul had built a shallow swimming pool to enjoy the 38-degree water. This was absolutely heavenly to be in, given the chill at altitude outside, but getting out and getting changed back into dry clothes was a brief ordeal at the end of it - 20 minutes' comfort for around 2 minutes' discomfort seemed a fiar trade off to me, though!

After our impromptu hot bath (which we had been recommended to take advantage of as there were no hot showers at the night's accommodation...), we drove onward to the Sol de Mañana (Morning Sun) geysers, which weren't spouting but were giving off clouds of steam and the inevitable sulfurous rotten-egg smell that always takes me back to Rotorua in New Zealand. I should note here that none of this driving was on roads - there aren't any through the park, and even the tracks there are are poorl defined and frequently ignored. Carlos frequently went off-piste, but on that first day, despite being one of the last groups to leave the border post, we were one of the first to arrive at our refugio for the night. After the usual questioning, I found out that he's been driving tours in the region for 16 years, the last 5 of them with Estrella del Sur, so it's not exactly surprising that he knows a lot of the quicker routes. In any case, we made it over the saddle at 5,000m (the highest point of the trip) and back down to around 4,300m, where out refugio at Huaylla Jara was located, near the shores of Laguna Colorada (Red Lagoon - can you see the pattern here?). There we had a late lunch before going out to take in the red colour of the lake (actually more of a kind of dark orange, but still not normal for water - it's caused by micro-organisms) and the many flamingoes who call it home. Unfortunately, this was also when the wind really picked up, just as I'd left my beanie back at the refugio, so I had to botch together a combination of my bush-hat and bandana to try and keep from getting ear-ache. I did get some reasonable photos, though.

Having surived the arctic blasts down by the lake, we headed back to the refugio, initially for tea and biscuits (I know, how English??) and then later on for dinner. In the gap between these, we did the classic backpacker thing and got a running game of Shithead going. Some of us also went to investigate the little store at the refugio, where we got hold of some beer, albeit at prices that seemed somewhat expensive for what we'd heard about Bolivia. But when you're miles from anywhere in the middle of a national park, that's not exactly a huge surprise. After dinner we stayed up for a while longer, reading, writing journals and chatting, until the freezing cold and lights-out drove us to our beds, where we buried ourselves in the multiple blankets provided.

Valle de la Luna

2009-03-23T12:00:00.000Z

Another to be added to the list of "things I've learnt on this trip" - San Pedro de Atacama is utterly dead on a Monday morning, at least before 10am. Normally, this wouldn't bother me, as that's about when I would get up, but I had actually made an effort to be out and about a bt earlier to try and sort out getting myself on a jeep to Bolivia the following day with the company I had had recommended, Estrella del Sur. Unfortunately, as well as the quality of their tours, the other thing they appeared famous for was the fact that their office was never open when you expected or wanted it to be. After finding it closed again in the morning, I headed to the Tourist Information office, where they keep a book of comments by tourists on any of the companies in San Pedro, and after leafing through the descriptions of the companies (one had a history of occasional breakdowns and poor accommodation, another had a history of drunken drivers...), I felt reassured that my determination to go with Estrella del Sur (which, incidentally, means Southern Star) was the correct one. So I did the only thing I could think of - I set up on their office's doorstep and waited for someone to appear.

Amusingly, I wasn't the only one in this situation - there were two American girls, another couple from the States and an Anglo-Canadian couple all also waiting for the appearance of the elusive man from the company. And eventually he did appear, an hour or so after the office was supposed to open at 10, at which point we all took the oportunity to get ourselves booked, confirmed and paid for. The next challenge for the morning was to get hold of some Bolivianos, the Bolivian currency that is nigh-on impossible to find outside its native country. After being turned back by around half a dozen places loudly advertising "Cambio - Bolivianos" with the dreaded No hay (literally "there isn't any"), I finally managed to get some. After that, I booked myself onto a tour to the nearby Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) for the afternoon, and then bought myself a new towel to replace the lost sarong that may well still be decorating the end of a bunk in Jujuy, before going and having a sandwich for lunch at the Coyote Bike cafe (anywhere that advertises itself using Wile E Coyote is good in my books...).

Having taken advantage of the surprisingly rapid internet in San Pedro (albeit at high cost) to upload a bunch of my photos to Facebook, I headed off on my Moon Valley tour. I was joined on this by the two American girls, Ness and Lauren, who were also on the Estrella jeep to Bolivia, and there was a further North American presence in the form of a Californian by the name of Brandon and a Jamaican-Canadian named Tania. Our guide for the afternoon was a very garrulous Chileño by the name of Dani, who helpfully did all his commentary in both Spanish (and at a comprehensible speed rather than the machine-gun babble for which Chile is renowned) then in English, giving those of us with some Spanish a good chance to brush up a bit without missing out on any of the info. Our trip took in a mirador (viewpoint) over the Montañes del Sal (a range of low depressions rather than mountains, with heavy salt content), followed by a trip to the Valle de la Muerte (the Valley of Death - a rather melodramatic name for a relatively pretty bi of the landscape) and then the Valle de la Luna itself.

The valley gets its name not for any astronomical reasons but because the terrain there is believed to be similar to that on the moon, though I don't know if that was ever checked with Messrs Armstrong, Aldrin et al who could have actually told them. We saw a rock formation known as the "3 Marias", although to be honest I agreed with Brandon that the 1st Maria looked more like a rabbit than anything else, and then took a quick walk over to a small old salt working and the ruins of the accommodation in which the miners stayed. Dani also informed us at this point that the Atacama, as well as being one of the driest places on the planet (no rain ever recorded in some places), has the biggest thermal differential in the world - it can go from around 40 Celsius in the heat of the day to around -15 in the middle of the night in the space of less than 24 hours. After this, we took a walk through a canyon in the valley and then, as sunset approached, joined all the other tour groups in the park by climbing up a convenient dune to catch the sunset and, more importantly, the lighting effects thereof on the Andean range in the background. It was here that I caught up with Simone, my German companion from the bus in the previous day, who was with a New Zealand lass who caused much hilarity for the rest of us and howls of indignation amongst our Yank contingent by voicing the generally-held belief that American tourists are grand exponents of the "fanny pack" (better known our side of the pond as the bum bag).

Still, we all remained on speaking terms on our return to town, where Ness, Lauren, Tania and I went to the Empanada stall in the local market - I've been to a few places with quite a wide range of the pastries before, but this one had a book of over 200 different options, which they cooked to order. I had a Pato Picante (spicy duck) and the classic Piño (beef, egg, olive and onion), both of which were very pleasant. After this, Ness and Lauren went back to finish re-packing, and I went to grab a beer with Brandon and Tania. It was over this refreshment that I found that Brandon had even more aggressive views on Islam than my old flatmate Tristan (who at least was often starting arguments just to wind me up), and the combination of this and my need to stock up on essentials (bottled water and loo roll) and grab a shower before the hot water at my hostel went off meant I said my goodbyes after just one beer. I had also been planning to pop online again for a bit, and maybe swap some books, but unfortunately I was thwarted in this by a power-cut. It seems these happen frequently enough that many of the restuarants and more upmarket accommodation places have emergency generators, but alas this does not apply to the internet centres, so I had an earlier night than I'd planned.

Back to Chile

2009-03-22T12:00:00.001Z

Another morning departure, another slightly rushed exodus from my hostel, and annoyingly this time I forgot the sarong which serves as my travel towel. Whoops. Just to improve my mild irritation, the bus was then late, and when it came time to get on, it turned out that the person supposed to be in the seat next to me had passed out on the floor in front of our seats and was sticking out into the aisle. After poking in the shoulders and knees, and stepping several times on his feet, I eventually practically shouted in the man's face. At which point he finally awoke somewhat, looked around in confusion, responded to my suggestion that he get off the floor and pick which seat he would occupy by rolling into the seat by the window, put his seat back as far as it would go, threw a towel over his head, and went back to sleep. This would be the state in which he would remain for pretty much the whole trip, apart from when the staff woke him up for the border crossings. Worryingly, I realised during one of these stops that I had actually met him before - he'd been in my hostel in Bariloche, but showed no signs of recognising me.

At any rate, having proved thus unable to converse with my neighbour, I ended up chatting with a German lass from a row in front called Simone, as well as enduring a certain amount of teasing from most of the rest of the bus, all of whom found the initial way I'd found him incredibly funny. At any rate, we went back over some of the ground from my day-trip out of Salta, before carrying on to the far side of the salt flats and thus on up towards the Jama Pass itself, providing yet further opportunities for me to attempt landscape photography from the window of a speeding coach. Our passage through Argentine border control was pretty straightforward, and from there we actually carried on right through to San Pedro de Atacama, as the Chileans had (relatively sensibly) decided that there was no point in having a border post out in the desert in the middle of nowhere when you can instead just put it on the edge of the first town you come to, especially as this allows you to use the same post for the Bolivian border as well.

Chilean immigration unsurprisingly took a bit longer, with the usual searches for any foodstuffs we might be illicitly importing, though I was lucky enough to be near the front of the queue due to being near the front of the bus. Hence, when I came out of the immigration centre with my bags, the driver happily informed those of us who'd made it that far that we could wait about 45 minutes or so for the whole bus's baggage to be checked if we wanted, or we could walk into town, which was only about 5 or 10 minutes. Given I was supposed to be meeting a friend from earlier in my travels that evening, I opted for taking Shanks' Pony into town, and so set out in the company of Simone, who'd also decided that exercise beat boredom at this stage.

Once we reached town, Simone and I went our separate ways as I got checked into the Residencial Vilacoyo, where I had the unfamiliar luxury of a room with a single bed, for less than I'd been paying for some of my dorm beds down south in Chile. I took the time to explore town a little bit (it doesn't take long in San Pedro!), getting some information from a few of the companies that run the trips across the salt flats into Bolivia, before going over to the square to meet up with Molly, my friend from Valparaiso, who was in town before heading north on one of said trips the next morning. We had dinner at a little local place where I indulged my liking for chacareros (Chilean beef sandwiches with tomatoes, green beans and chilli), before walking back across town to meet up with Hubert, a Frenchman Molly had met the previous day and agreed to have a drink with that evening. And a pleasant evening it was, fuelled principally by Pisco Sours and Caipirinhas (San Pedro is not a cheap place, but most of the restaurant/bars have a 2-for-1 Happy Hour promotion for much of the evening on some of the more popular cocktails....), before it was time to bid Molly farewell and bon voyage.

A happy ending to the 6 Nations

2009-03-21T12:00:00.000Z

Another early departure, though for once prompted not by the bus timetables but by my determination to get back to the relatively large city of San Salvador de Jujuy in time for lunchtime so as to watch the final matches of the 6 Nations Rugby. The trip back down the gorge gave me various opportunities for further photo-taking, although trying to do so out of the window of a bus never gives the best results. We arrived in Jujuy without any problems, and I made my way over to my home for the night, the rather bizarrely-named Yok Wahi hostel. Once checked in there, I headed off into town and, although the first place the hostel receptionist had suggested wasn't showing anything beyond CNN when I got there, I found a little restaurant a few doors down where I persuaded them to set up the rugby on the screen, in exchange for which I had myself a final Argentine steak lunch and settled in to drink beer until I ran out of rugby.

Having cheered myself up immensely by watching England take the Calcutta Cup off Scotland (only mildly spoiled by the restaurant occasionally losing reception, the first time coinciding with England's opening try), I then got the extra delights of Wales v Ireland, and the last-minute drama that saw our cousins in green taking the Grand Slam for the first time in over 60 years. However, by this point I had also been drinking beer for around 4 hours in the middle of the day, so the next order of business was a much-needed siesta back at the hostel. Fortified with sleep, I headed back into the town centre to stock up on a few things like toiletries which I figured I might not have such a wide choice of up in the Andean countries, then spent a bit longer writing up these diaries before heading back for yet another early night - re-reading this, it's almost like I overcompensated for my exertions in Mendoza and Salta by going into my shell for a while.

A brief interlude in Tilcara

2009-03-20T12:00:00.000Z

A very cold awakening - the first time this trip that I had not wanted to get out of my bed due to the conditions outside of it rather than those inside. I was up earlier than normal for me again, this time in an attempt to get a bus to the little mountain village of Iruya, which I had been informed was exceedingly pretty. Unfortunately, it appeared this opinion was shared by a certain number of other travellers and a lot of locals, as the buses were full. Time for Plan B. On the recommendation of other friends who'd been to the region I headed back down the gorge a little way to the village of Tilcara.

Tilcara is slightly bigger than my base in Humahuaca, and is notable for the ruins of a large pre-Conquest (mostly Incan) fortress on the outskirts, the Pucara (this apparently is just the word for "fortress" in Quechua, the Inca language), which I promptly climbed up to on arrival, having fortified myself with water and prepared to run the gauntlet of the dust and the village's pack of stray dogs (everywhere here seems to have them, generally harmless but enough to make me nervous given that the Rabies jab is one of the group I've never had). To be honest, the actual remnants are just baselines of walls and the like of dry-stone construction, and everything that can actually be looked around to give a proper impression is 20th-Century reconstruction, mostly from the 30s and 50s. It does give a great view over the valley, though, and is free to visit.

Having worked up a bit of an appetite, I headed back into the village and made my way to a little restaurant called Patio de Comida, where I gorged myself on llama schnitzel and potato salad. Thus sated, I explored the local craft market for a bit, finding numerous things that would potentially be quite pretty back home, but none of them that I wanted enough to actually buy them and then carry them halfway around the continent. By around mid-afternoon it was time to head back to Humahuaca, where I racked up a bit more internet time (there honestly isn't that much to see or do in the village). Dinner was then at a little place my Footprint guide had recommended called El Portillo (nothing to do with Michael, before anyone from back home decides to try and be funny), where I had a traditional local stew called locro and some salad, along with some more of Argentina's ridiculously cheap line in house red wines. And then I went back to the hostel and had another early night.

Llama stew - actually quite tasty

2009-03-19T12:00:00.001Z

In a fit of occasional masochism, I decided to try the hostel breakfast again before departing Salta. Unfortunately, it was still bloody awful. So I wasn't feeling terribly full when I got my taxi to the bus station, but better on time and slightly peckish than stuffed and cursing at a departing bus. In fact, in this case I ended up sitting out near the platforms chatting with yet another in the seemingly inexhaustible stream of Danish girls I've met on this trip, this one by the name of Lotte, until our bus arrived. Turns out we were actually in adjacent seats as well, though conversation was not what it might have been due to her having had only about 3 hours' sleep and then spent several hours at the bus station due to bus-related (and possibly driunk-influenced) confusion, such that she conked out shortly after getting her seat.

At any rate, after about 4.5 hours on the bus, having my eardrums assaulted by overly loud films, I arrived in Humahuaca, one of the various villages that occupy the Humahuaca gorge which leads up to the border with Bolivia. There I was due to stay a couple of nights at a little guesthouse/hostel called the Posada El Sol. Normally they apparently do a free pickup from the bus station, but the vehicle involved was "unavailable" so I had to walk there. In the heat, at around 3,000m altitude, with a series of signs in which the last, possibly critical one, was missing, so I missed my turn and carried on up the hill, cursing loudly under my breath, before finally doubling back and finding the place at a second attempt. The place itself is nice if you're in the "getting away from it all" mood, but can be chilly at night (largely due to the altitude) and the manager was my second example of the non-English-speaking staff member on the trip so far - good practice for my Spanish, but occasionally a bit wearing.

So, I got myself settled in, then headed into town, where, after climbing the hill to look at the memorial to the heroes of the War of Independence, I was surprised to find that this little village actually has quite reasonable internet connections considering, and about half a dozen cyber-cafes, before searching out some food. I hadn't had lunch, so was trying to eat at the very unArgentine time of about 6pm, which somewhat restricted my options, but in the end I found a little place called Casa Vieja (the Old House) where I had some quite pleasant llama stew and some fairly average (but, more importantly, very cheap!) house wine. I then headed back to the hostel, racked up a bit more typing time on its temperamental web connection and headed to my bed, making use of every available blanket and amusing myself listening to the German girls downstairs in the dorm splatting mosquitoes.

The "Amazing Attractions" of Salta

2009-03-18T12:00:00.000Z

No prizes for guessing which out of "up and about early" and "what do you mean it's the afternoon already?" sums up my start to the day after the St Patrick's celebrations in Salta. I didn't have anything planned anyway, although it was faintly spooky that all the other people in my dorm (including Ben and Dee) had checked out in the morning, so I awoke to an empty room. Surprisingly, though, I awoke in pretty good health, and I was to discover that Lisa was also feeling no ill effects from our green-tinged binge the previous night - in the end, we headed off to grab some lunch and get various bits of admin done (I needed to get laundry done, she needed to sort out a bus ticket, I wanted to back up my pictures, etc etc) before taking the teleferico (cable-car) up Cerro San Bernardo, the large hill overlooking Salta's city centre. There was some giggling on the way up, though, when the recorded message announced that the Teleferico Complex was "another amazing attraction for Salta". The actual attraction up there consisted principally of the great views out over town, no matter how much they might try to sell the merits of the artificial concrete waterfall or the (currently closed) "Ecological trail".

Back at ground level, I headed internet-wards while Lisa went off to get some shopping done. With my mind set at ease by having all my pictures backed up again (after all, how could I possibly survive without at least 20 comedy shamrock-related photos...?), I headed back to the hostel to find that I am perhaps developing some kind of new remote-acting travellers' curse, in that Lisa had now managed to lose her wallet. Luckily, the damage for her was somewhat less than it had been for Pete (largely due to having an alternative card), but the lesson appears to be "don't travel for any period of time with Pat in northern Argentina if you value your bank-card". Whilst I waited for my laundry to turn up, I took the opportunity with an empty bag to sew on the Chilean flag patch I had acquired, and then once my delightfully clean clothes made an appearance, I got down to the important if rather dull business of repacking my bags before going to the Asado night. Yes, another one. Only this one with added folclorico music and dancing. Which goes to show that, amazingly, it is possible as a male to dance around waving a hankie without it impinging even slightly on your perceived masculinity.

A Busy Paddy's Day

2009-03-17T12:00:00.000Z

Very early (for me) start, as Lisa and I had to be ready to leave by 7:15am. The breakfast at Backpackers' Home in Salta turned out to be even worse than most others, as the bread was scarcely edible, although there were some pastries and cheap & nasty cornflakes as if to try and make up for this. Good thing I wasn't in the mood for too much breakfast, as our guide for the day, Federico, actually turned up a little early so I was flapping around, brushing my teeth and putting the last few things in my daypack, when he turned up. Life was very comfortable for the first part of the trip, as it turned out we were only picking up the other two people taking part after a couple of hours, as they were staying further up towards the border. So I blagged the front seat, and Lisa got to stretch out across the back for a while. Unfortunately, the weather did not look so obliging, with a low cloud ceiling, and the unmistakeable signs of rain to come. However, Federico assured us that we would be fine as soon as we got above 2,000m altitude, and offered to buy us mojitos that evening if it stayed rainy all day! So, after a brief stop near Jujuy to get coffee and more breakfast (a decision which probably saved the rest of the vehicle from a symphony of my stomach rumbles for the morning), we started up the Quebrada de Humahuaca.

Now, I'll write a bit more about Humahuaca Gorge when I get to the bit where I stay there, but suffice to say, very pretty rocks and the like. We, however, turned off right near the beginning of the gorge and took the road that leads up to the Jama Pass into Chile. One consequence of the proximity of this border, and more particularly of that with Bolivia, is the large number of police checkpoints, manned by the Gendarmeria, who apparently serve largely as border police, rather than by the local state/provincial police or the Policia Federal Argentina. We were lucky enough not to be stopped on our way up, though it was noticeable that Federico, who looked as though he had some indígena blood (this is the accepted term for those of native South American descent - they don't appreciate being called indio), took care to take off his sunglasses before approaching any of the checkpoints. Our initial destination, and the place to pick up our other travelling companions for the day, was the village of Purmamurca.

The principal reason for visiting Purmamurca is the surrounding hills, which, due to their varied mineral content, are in various different shades, and one particular area is known as the Hill of Seven Colours. Some of them are more obvious than others, but you can easily pick out red, green, yellow and black. At this point, Federico offered Lisa and me the opportunity to ride in the back try of the pickup as we drove through by the rocks, which we gleefully accepted. And very good it was, too, giving uninterrupted views to all the surrounding hills and getting a wee bit of the wind in our hair and a chance to soak up a bit of sun, for indeed Federico had been correct, and as soon as we'd popped through the ceiling at around 2,000m, the sky was clear and the views were great. After driving (and walking) around the rocks for bit, we headed down into Purmamurca town, where we had 20 minutes or so to look around the market in the town square (the first stereotypically Andean market I'd encountered) while he went and got our travelling companions for the day, who turned out to be two middle-aged Swiss ladies. Bizarrely, though, one of them was Swiss-Argentinian, so spoke the local dialect easily but hardly any English, whilst the other was Swiss-German, spoke reasonable English but hardly any Spanish, and the two of them conversed with each other principally in French!

After leaving Purmamurca town, we carried on with our steady ascent, headed for the pass (not the Jama pass itself, but the precursor, over the pre-Andean range and onto the high plateau known as the altiplano or Puna, which was still at a dizzying 4,170m). To aid in combatting the effects of altitude (given that we'd ascended almost 3,500m!), Federico offered us some coca leaves. Now, some of the more streetwise or chemically-minded amongst you may be aware that coca is the precursor product for cocaine, however (worry not, Mother!) it takes about 40kg of leaves, and extensive processing featuring acid, to make even a gram or so of cocaine. The leaves are used frequently, though, in the Andean countries, either as a tea or chewed up and held in the cheek, for their effects in counteracting altitude sickness. So I tried chewing coca leaves. And it wasn't too bad, until the taste of the damned things started coming through, which was pretty vile, so I got rid of mine and resolved to handle the height by myself. The net result of which was that I got quite light-headed and kept dozing off for the next hour or so, though I did manage to wake up and stagger up to the marker showing the high point of the pass for a photo.

Once we cleared the pass, we descended back to the depths of around 3,700m and continued over to the Salinas Grandes, the salt flats which are one of the few distinctive features of the otherwise fairly barren Puna. These are a sizeable area where the water coming down from the Andes on one side and the pre-Andean cordillera on the other got trapped and as water evaporated, a crust of minerals formed, which is now thick enough to drive on. And the most common mineral is good old Sodium Chloride, meaning the flats are a massive white sheet, very bright on the eyes when you are driving across them up in the back tray of a pickup, as we were once again. The flats are actually exploited for purposes other than tourism, and we could see where sections of the flats had been dug out to form pools, which, via evaporation, became salt pans, allowing salt mining to take place. There was also a store (with that Godsend of travel on the altiplano, toilets) made entirely of salt blocks used as bricks. It seems to work as a relatively substantial building material, but the whiteness doesn't last long as it rapidly soaks up pollution from the air and becomes a murky grey.

After our salty experience, we headed out across the Puna, leaving behind the paved highway and heading along gravel roads as we drove towards the top end of the famous Tren a las Nubes train line. Along the way, we stopped at a local restaurant, run by several indígena families, where we had a very pleasant stew, soup and home-made bread for lunch. Slightly less pleasant than the food was the CD of 80s music to which Federico subjected us, although there was the odd tune I grinned and bellowed along to. We didn't stop in the town of San Antonio de los Cobres itself, the end of the tourist train line, as it is, to be frank, a bit of a hole, but instead started alongside the tracks across the Puna, headed back towards Salta. It is unfortunate that many of the most spectacular parts of the railway, engineering-wise, are remote enough that the road cannot reach them, but the road is also quite impressive as it switch-backs down the mountainside, and it rejoins the railway for the passage through the Quebrada del Toro (Bull Gorge), where we stopped and had a walk on one of the longest viaducts (no trains to run us over, thankfully). And soon after this, we popped back under the cloud-cover and the rain started up again in earnest, so we snoozed a bit on the way back into town.

And snoozing was required, as Lisa and I had an appointment with the Goblin, the local Irish pub in Salta, where we were planning on celebrating St Patrick's Day properly. We grabbed some food first, then got a cab into town (for the princely sum of 3 pesos, about 60p...) and settled into the green-tinged warmth of the Goblin. There we discovered about half-a-dozen Irish, mostly merry and heading towards drunk, and about 10 Aussies and Kiwis, already near-enough paralytic after drinking since around lunchtime. There were also a fair smattering of locals, some of them getting into the spirit and one or two looking confused and horrified. Most notable of those getting into the spirit of things was one middle-aged local guy who was a bit of a rugby fanatic, and thus ended up doing the haka, quite convincingly, with the Kiwis and singing the Fields of Athenry with the Irish (with which I also joined in). Although he also started teaching some of the young locals in the bar the Yogi Bear drinking song, which should really never be sung in polite company (especially if there is something of a fixation on the verses featuring Booboo and Susie...).

Amusingly, though not terribly surprisingly, there was also a small reunion for me, as two of the Irish in the bar were Grainne and Kate, the girls who'd been staying at my hostel in Pucón and had gone up the volcano there. What with them and Roisín and Pete, a very nice couple the latter of whom was resonspible for the first of my shamrock cheek decorations for the evening, and me and Lisa, and Ben and Dee a bit later on, and another English girl called Jen and a New Yorker by the name of Jim, we had quite a pleasant little party, which rolled on satisfyingly into the wee hours, fuelled in my case by caipirinhas and in Lisa's by caipiroskas, until around 4am Lisa suddenly hit a wall, and she, Jen, Jim and I hopped a cab back to the hostel, where I was only too glad to collapse once again in my bed.

Settling in in Salta

2009-03-16T12:00:00.000Z

After two nights with minmal sleep, including 18 hours cooped up on a bus, I arrived in Salta in a mildly zombie-like state, and was relieved that my hostel for the next few nights had a nice gentleman to meet people off the buses and chuck them in a taxi, at the princely sum of around one pound, to the hostel. Worked for me. Whilst waiting to check in, I got chatting with another lass from the bus, who'd been sitting a few rows forward and was also staying there, an Irish physiotherapist by the name of Lisa, and she joined Ben, Dee and myself for some lunch at a little cafe/restaurant called Alvarez that the guy on reception had recommended. And a good recommendation it turned out to be, being cheap, filling and conveniently on the way into town. After food, Ben and Dee headed back into town to crash out, whilst Lisa and I went to check out some of the various travel agencies in town, all offering pretty similar tours of the surrounding area. We had been thinking just to check prices, but ended up being persuaded by an offer at one place and signed up for a trip the next day up to the Altiplano, the high plateau near the border, taking in multi-coloured hills, salt-flats and part of the route of the Tren A Las Nubes (Train To The Clouds).

We couldn't take the train itself - it doesn't run in the summer, due to weather issues - but this offered us the chance to see some of the route as well as other sights in the area, and it was with an English-speaking guide in a double-cab pick-up truck rather than the usual minibuses, so I swallowed my slight misgivings about prices (I know, that'd be my slight Scots heritage coming out again) and went for it. With plans thus made, I detoured to the bus station again on the way back to sort out my ticket to Chile - the buses only run 3 times a week, so they can get filled up if you leave it to the last minute. Having set this for Sunday, I meandered back to the hostel to partake of the free dinner provided, which was Arroz con Pollo, rice with chicken. To be honest, it was a long way from the best meal I've had, but as it was free there wasn't really anything to complain about. Given the early start the next day and my ongoing lack of sleep, I called it a night around midnight and went to the welcome embrace of my bunk.

Yet Another Day In Transit

2009-03-15T12:00:00.000Z

I overslept. Not exactly a surprise, but it got me a mild ticking off from the staff. I just looked shame-faced and shattered, and apologised profusely. Checkout times are one of the things some people actually use to help them pick where to stay, as if you've been out and about on the town, you really don't want to be having to get up and cart all your stuff out of your room early the next day. Independencia's time of 10am is slightly earlier than average, and unfortunately I slept straight through the alarm I had put on (that or did my old trick of turning it off and going back to sleep without remembering). The rest of the day passed fairly quietly, being concerned principally with feeding my hangover, getting online to print my bus ticket for the evening (and write up more of these tales), and a bit of reading. Then it was time to do my best "little donkey" impression and head back across town to the bus Terminal. There I arrived, slightly hot and bothered because I thought I was cutting things fine, to find the bus was late, but never mind. I chatted with Ben and Dee until the vehicle made its belated appearance, then settled in for the long overnight run to Salta. Movie choices this time were as eclectic as ever, being Rendition (rather too much torture and screaming for my liking) and Codename: The Cleaner (another entry in the Really Silly canon), and the food was about halfway to edible. And as per usual for me, I drifted in and out of really light sleep without ever actually feeling all that rested.

St Patrick's Eve Eve Eve

2009-03-14T12:00:00.001Z

Unsurprisingly, given the previous day's bike- and alcohol-related exertions, I slept in late and wasn't planning on doing much. I got my admin done for my planned next stop, Salta, thanks to Pete's laptop and yet another of the seemingly omni-present WiFi links in hostels in Argentina - it's one of the abiding differences of my travel this time that so many people seem to have laptops, something that would have been unthinkable a few years back due to the expense. Now it seems like about 1 in 3 of the people you meet have the bloody things. Still, it made my life easier, by not having to queue for the couple of free access machines in the hostel or go out and find an internet cafe. After that, I went out to hunt for some kind of snack to eat, conveniently forgetting that many Argentine cities are damned near closed mid-afternoon, what with weekend trading and siesta (yes, whole cities here do basically close down between about 1pm and 4pm), so I ended up getting some empanadas and stuff to make sandwiches with from the supermarket and heading back to the hostel. There I found Pete in a flap, as he'd mislaid his bank card.

Now this has to be one of the more unfortunate things that can happen to you whilst travelling without involving actual bodily harm. Particularly if you're traveling with only one card, as unfortunately Pete was. Immediate reaction is to try and track down places you could have lost it. Kind of pointless when these include four wineries, at least 3 bars and a good deal of the Mendoza countryside. Pete actually still had the details of the card, so next thing was to work out what he could pay for, mostly online, before contacting the bank to declare it lost. Finally, we had to work out how he could get money sent to him while the new card gets sent out. In this, at least, I was able to help a little bit by buying up his remaining Chilean currency and his stash of US Dollars with Argentine cash, thus giving him a bit more liquidity on which to survive. As I said, it's one of the more irritating things to happen, particularly if you then end up stuck on the phone from another continent back to the UK, being told to "If you want to report a stolen card, please press 1..." and the like, and then when you do get through, you're fighting the effects of the Data Protection Act sometimes. Even getting a replacement passport can be easier than having to cancel and get replacements for your bank card, at least if you're within striking distance of an embassy or consulate.

At any rate, what with all of this going on, it was early evening before I headed over to Break Point to meet up with Dee and Ben as I'd said I would. We'd been planning on liaising as we were all headed up to Salta around the same time, so were going to try and get on the same bus and be in the same hostel. As it was, we'd organised our bus tickets separately, but had still managed to end up on the same bus, and they hadn't booked their hostel yet, so we managed to get that lined up as well. They were heading out for Mexican food with another lad from their hostel, but I'd already arranged with Pete to go out for more steak of some kind, so I agreed to try and meet up again later. Back at the hostel, Pete was still ringing the UK, struggling with someone from Visa on a bad line who didn't understand the phonetic alphabet, and had linked up with Evangelina, his new Argentine friend from two nights ago, again. In the end, once he had finished banging his head on a telephonic brick wall, Evangelina and Noelle joined us for food, along with our new room-mate, a Bolivian guy called Evo who was another of the crazy people cycling large chunks of South America.

Evo was actually an interesting antidote to most of the stereotypes people have about Bolivians, being visibly mostly of European rather than Andean descent and damned-near bilingual (to the point of having a fair smattering of British slang). And it was partly at his instigation that, having fed and then returned to the hostel (Ben and Dee had retired early pleading exhaustion), we joined some others in heading back to Believe yet once more, as they were holding a St Patrick's party. Now, yes, I know, St Patrick's Day is the 17th, but the pragmatic approach of the Argentines was that this being midweek would be damned inconvenient for a party, so they'd celebrate it on Saturday. And on Tuesday as well. And some of the other bars in town were planning parties for Monday night as well (on the basis that people here don't usually go out until after midnight, this does actually make sense). Thus, my supposedly relatively quiet final night turned, by the usual Sod's Law that applies, into quite a long and messy evening, resulting in getting home around 6am, having been conversing variously in English, Spanish, French and German with different people outside the pub, and had the almost-obligatory photo taken wearing a silly hat.

Friday 13th doesn't have to be bad!

2009-03-13T12:00:00.000Z

In contravention of all superstitions, this was one of the best days of my trip so far. Once Pete and I had dragged ourselves back into the land of the living, we headed off for the bus-stop to get down to the little town of Maipu, about 40km from Mendoza which is where a lot of the wineries in the area are based, and, more importantly, where the companies renting bikes to go around and visit said wineries are based. Now, I know what you're thinking. Wine-tasting and cycling. Two activities which do not necessarily seem like obvious partners. Particularly when coupled with a region where pretty much all roads are flanked by irrigation ditches and a country where the drivers are certifiably crazy. Surprisingly, though, it does work rather well. There's a few companies that offer bike hire in the area (it's a self-guided type of trip, rather than an organised "follow-the-bloke/girl-with-the-flag/umbrella" kind of affair) - Bikes & Wines appear to have most of the hostels signed into promoting them, but the more popular, largely on the basis of word of mouth, appears now to be Mr Hugo's.

Now, Mr Hugo's bikes maybe aren't quite so fancy. You don't get brain-buckets (yes, sorry Mum, I went for the company without safety helmets...). The flyers and maps and the like look less swish. However, it is a small, family business (the first person you meet on arriving is Mr Hugo himself), and at the end of the day, everyone who's been out cycling sits down and has another glass or two of complimentary wine back at his place, and there's no stress about having to be back on time or you get fined, etc etc. Just nice and casual. So, with this being the reputation, it isn't too surprising that Pete and I met three other backpackers headed down that way whilst we were at the bus stop - Ben and Dee, a couple from Herefordshire, and a Kiwi lass called Marissa. They became our companions for the rest of the day, and what a fun day it was.

Acting on advice from Ross, my companion earlier on on my travels, we cycled down to the farthest winery on the route to begin with, getting half the cycling out of the way whilst we were still energetic and fully sober, then made our way back from place to place. Hence, our first stop was the delightful little CarinaE winery, where we got given the tour (and met the one-woman bottle-labelling operation! - it's a small operation), tasted 3 of the wines, and liked them so much that we bought a bottle of a fourth (a Torrontes that they bring in from Cafayate - it was mid-30s, so refreshing white wine is a good thing!) to share (and at this point Pete and I demolished the sandwiches we'd made). After that we went to the Familia di Tomaso place, which is also described as a small place, and in terms of output it is, but it's become such a fixture on the tourist circuit that it's very busy, and we felt somewhat like we were being put through on a conveyor belt for the tastings there. So we moved along to the La Serna vineyard, where we had gourmet sausage sandwiches or steak sandwiches, and a nice bottle of Malbec. And then we moved on to Tempus Alba.

Now, we hadn't planned for this to be our last stop. But we hadn't planned on Maverick. That obviously wasn't his real name, the bartender at Tempus Alba was actually called Cristian, but the nickname stuck. Our first experience of him was his determination to kiss everybody when we arrived. Though he told me I was too hot and pushed me under the air-conditioning. Then he advised us, if we had any idea which wines we liked, not to bother with the tasting and just get a bottle or two. We did the maths on some of the bottles and decided this made sense, selecting a bottle of Malbec Rosado, similar to what we had tried first, and a bottle of Tempranillo, on the basis that we hadn't tried that yet, and adjourned to the sun-deck where most of the tables were set. And there we met two English lads whom Marissa had met before. And found out that they'd been there for about 45 minutes, supposedly doing a wine-tasting, but largely being ignored. Cristian had apparently been very friendly, got them set up, then spent much of his time polishing the bar or sitting talking with some friends of his and smoking. So they nicknamed him Maverick, and we adopted it.

To give you a flavour of Maverick, here's a few examples. The lads who'd given him the name decided to move on.
"How much do we owe you?" they ask.
"I don't know, what did you have?" comes the response.
"Well, we were sort of doing the wine-tasting..." is the slightly sheepish answer.
"Oh. well, what do you think it cost?" he came back.
"About 8 pesos...?" one of the lads suggests hopefully.
"Sounds about right" comes the response.
The tastings are supposed to cost 20 pesos. In another exchange, he invited us all to a party at "a friend's house" that night. We discussed it a little, and Pete quite liked the idea. At this point Maverick asked Marissa:
"So, do you party all night, then?"
"Sure, I'm a Kiwi, we all do. Do you?" came the game reply
"Oh no, not me. Well, not without help anyway..." was the slightly worrying response.
Other memorable moments included walking up and caressing the shoulders of both Pete and Ben (at this point, I thanked my lucky stars that I had been sent to the air-con on arrival!), and when he decided that he wanted to go home and informed us that the police were here to escort us home for our safety...!

Still, we'd spent over an hour up on Maverick's terrace, so we had to abort the possible visit to a chocolate and licquers place (given that the latter has absinthe as a speciality, probably a good thing!) and just power on back to Mr Hugo's, much of the time on the dirt hard shoulder as it appeared to be rush hour for all the buses and lorries in the area. Although slightly later than the 7pm suggested, we were still in time for some of the post-wine-tour-wine, as well as conversing with our fellow intrepid explorers from the day and ooh-ing and aaah-ing at the most gorgeous little kitten. It was around 8pm and getting dark by the time we headed out onto the road to flag down a bus back to Mendoza (for which Mr Hugo basically paid for the tickets, earning him a standing ovation from us all for not forcing us to try and dig out change for the damned ticket machine). Heaven knows what the regular users of the bus thought of about 20 crazy, half-cut gringos and gringas sitting on their bus giggling their way back to the city.

Still, this was only the daytime portion of the celebration, as we'd decided to meet up for drinks later, once we were all cleaned up, at Break Point, the place where Ben, Dee and Marissa were staying, handily situated right on the bar strip on Villanueva. Back at our hostel, Pete and I discovered we had two new room-mates, a pair of Swedish girls called Linda and Sofia (no, I'm not making this up), who decided to tag along with us. So we all headed over to Break Point, where we managed to nab an outside table to have a few al fresco beers. Unfortunately, we left it a bit late to move on, and everywhere was rammed (certainly not with outside table space for a party of 7!) when we tried to find a new perch, so we ended up indoors. At this point, people slowly started to drop away from the group, first Marissa, then Ben (who was nearly falling asleep in his chair) and Dee. Our Swedish room-mates wanted to find somewhere to go salsa dancing, a prospect which I, with my utter lack of any latin dancing experience, viewed with mild horror, but we got suggested places from the bar staff and headed off across town.

Disappointment was to greet us, though, when we found they'd actually pointed us to a regular dance club, playing loud doof-doof music. After much discussion outside the entrance to a couple of places, I indicated that this was not my preferred way to spend the night, and that I would head home, leaving them to enjoy the dancing. And then they decided they didn't really feel like it anyway. So we ended up back in the Irish pub, Believe. Aaah well. A slight anticlimax to a great day, but probably for the best.

Why you should not pick your drink based on your drinking partner's name

2009-03-12T12:00:00.000Z

Another in the growing list of lazy days. Spent some of the time watching TV down in the common area (as a result of which, I can now add "XXX", that Vin Diesel masterpiece, to my list of "Really Really Silly Films"), went on the net for a bit, partly to Skype home and say Happy Birthday to my little brother Alex, and then went for a late lunch at a little place just across from the hostel with Pete and Lev. The latter had to get his stuff in order for his bus that evening, so Pete and I then headed off across town to the gigantic Parque San Martin, where we wandered for a bit before realising it was so big we actually needed some kind of a map. We were hoping to get to Cerro Gloria, where there's apparently a monument to the troops of the Army of the Andes who crossed over to fight the Spanish in the wars of independence, but by the time I swallowed my pride and let Pete ask for directions, it was getting late and we were advised by the locals not to go up there.

On the way back across town, we went down Avenida Villanueva, where many of the bar/restaurants are, getting an idea of the feel of the place, as we were thinking of heading out the following night. We then swung by one of the ubiquitous Carrefour supermarkets (the first time I saw one of them in South America was weird, like when I saw Tesco's in Thailand) to get some supplies for lunch for the wine tour we were planning the next day and for having a few drinks at the hostel that evening. The initial plan was to get some cachaca and make caipirinhas, but we couldn't find either limes or bagged crushed ice, which rendered this rather less of a good idea, so just settled on getting some vodka. Pete was somewhere between elated and horrified that you can get a litre of vodka for less than 2 quid in the supermarket here, and in the end we decided that it was fated to be when we found one of the brands of vodka was called "Peters".
Back at the hostel, after we'd got cleaned up, we started on the vodka, initially with some of the "Paso de los Toros" grapefruit drink I'd gotten somewhat hooked on, and then with apple juice (Pete's favourite way of consuming it, and one I'd gotten to like whilst in Krakow). Alcohol being the social lubricant it is, we started chatting rather more with our fellow hostellers, including Australians, Swedes, Norwegians, Dutch and French, before eventually getting chatting to three Argentine girls. You could tell we were a little drunk by this point, as Pete scarcely spoke a word of the language, and my Spanish is rudimentary, and at least initially it appeared none of them spoke English. We managed to gather that they were two sisters, Noelline and Evangelina, the former studying in Mendoza, and Noelle, a colleague of the latter, before it turned out that Noelle spoke pretty good English, so I was spared some of the ongoing challenge of translating for Pete whilst he tried to chat up Evangelina. I've been a translator for people a few times before, and a wingman when out with other lads on the town, but not normally both at once!

After realising that we'd finished off the vodka, the girls suggested going to a bar they had had recommended, which was called something like "Iris". We obviously thought this was a fantastic idea, and wandered off across town, following the directions they'd been given. Amusingly it turned out that the bar wasn't Iris, it was Irish - they'd brought us to Believe, the local "Irish pub"! There we settled in for a little while, but tiredness, budget, the need to be up and about in the morning, and the fact that Pete was visibly rather drunk at this point (I might well have been as well, but I couldn't see me...!) conspired to send us home relatively early (i.e. only about 3am or so...)

Crossing the Andes. Neither Hannibal nor any elephants in sight...

2009-03-11T12:00:00.000Z

Another day, another border crossing. I've had that feeling a few times on my travels, but just occasionally, the cross-border schlep is actually really worth it. When you're going through one of the highest passes in the Andes would be one of those times. The first couple of hours or so were pretty uneventful, the usual greenery of the Chilean countryside whizzing by with the mountains just about visible in the distance in the haze. Then we started up the valley towards the pass. At this point, my memory took me back to the approach to Milford Sound in New Zealand, where it all starts with the valley narrowing in a bit, and then gets closer and closer. In this case, the mountains get up above the treeline before things start getting close around the road, and there's a long series of switchbacks back and forth across the mountain, including several tunnels and avalanche shelters (if the producers of the next Bond film are looking for a good road to chase down, I reckon this'd be pretty solid at keeping people's attention!) before the final tunnel (about 2 miles or so long) through the mountains - it used to go over the very top of the pass, by a statue of Christ the Redeemer (he gets in everywhere!), but they cut the journey time down a fiar old bit when they built the tunnel. Pete and I spent a good part of the valley approach and the climb up the switchbacks frantically trying to snap the scenery through the bus windows, with mixed results (stupidly, we'd got seats on the sunny side of the bus, so a lot of my pictures have reflections of the bus's horrible orange curtains somewhere in them...).

The border post itself is on the Argentine side of the pass, where officials from both countries stamp your respectively in and out, and the scans for fruit, vegetables, dairy etc are made. This would be one of the times that the Force was with me travelling-wise, as we got to the border with a couple of small minibuses in front of us, whereas by the time we had all been processed and our bus was ready to leave, there were 5 double-decker coaches queued up for the crossing - I would probably have done my nut if I'd been on one of them! After the formalities were out of the way, it was a pretty straightforward onward run into Mendoza itself, though the scenery is also beautiful on the Argentine side of the pass, just not quite so steep and twisty. Once we got to the bus station, owing to a lack of local cash and the non-functional state of the only ATM we could find in the terminal, we ended up walking across town to our hostel. This was really only tolerable thanks to the way Mendoza is set out - it's technically a desert city, but thanks to the irrigation canals (some of them dating back before the Spanish invasion) which supply the surrounding vineyards and the city itself from the Andes, there are trees all along the roadsides, with water usually bubbling along. Given the temperature was in the 30s for most of our stay there, the shade and the moisture were much needed!

Our home for the next few days was the Hostel Independencia, just off the north side of the Plaza of the same name. One of the bigger places I've been in recently, and consequently maybe not quite as easy to meet people as it might have been, although having someone you're already hanging around with affects that as well, obviously. The staff were generally pretty cool, although they did seem occasionally to have a wee bit too much of a sense of humour. That evening, I welcomed Pete to Argentina by dragging him out to go get giant bife de chorizo steaks - unfortunately, he couldn't finish his, so I had to. Ahh, the things we do for our friends when travelling. After that, we got chatting back at the hostel with an American lad called Lev, who was hobbling somewhat after doing his leg in earlier in his trip, and ended up going for a quick beer with him, but it had been a long day so we turned in pretty early.

Open Skies

2009-03-10T12:00:00.000Z

Morning brought a rather abbreviated goodbye to Mollie who, despite our entreaties to also head over to Mendoza and keep our little band of musketeers intact, was heading down south through Chile for a while. After goodbyes and breakfast, I caught up on a bit more internet time on Pete's laptop and read for a while, before we headed into town to get him a ticket to Mendoza the next day (I had already got mine the day I arrived). On the way there, we had a nice set-lunch deal at a little bar-restaurant called Palta's, and afterwards we headed up to Cerro Bellavista, to see the Museo de Cielo Abierto.

Now, Valpo is known as the artistic capital of Chile, and quite a bit of this is visible around town in the form of street art - some of this graffiti is spectacular, and some of it is the usual mindless vandalism that comes to the fore when certain people get their hands on a spray-can, and some of it, in the form of the "Open Air Museum" is done by recognised artists on a trail around one of the more central hills. To be honest, by the time Pete and I had finished the trail around the hill, we were both of the opinion that much of the amateur stuff is better than the stuff done by these professionals.

Still having some time left that afternoon, we headed over to Cerro Artilleria which, as the name might suggest, has something of a military connection, being home to what was once a military college and is now the Naval Museum. Unfortunately, we were a bit too late to see around the museum, but we could still enjoy some of the best views we'd had out over Valpo, as the haze and mist which had blighted much of our time there had now cleared off somewhat. For our evening meal we paid another visit to Mastodonte, where I had chicken in a pepper sauce and Pete broke the habit of a lifetime by getting fish and finding he actually quite liked it, then we went back to the hostel where we sat around in the yard chatting to Nadja and 2 French ladies, Sylvaine and Clemence.

Premier beach resort, my a*$e

2009-03-09T12:00:00.001Z

After a surprisingly good breakfast, featuring more good brown bread along with ham and some fruit, Pete, Mollie and I went out to explore the city a little bit more and then head over to Valparaiso's sister city just up the coast, Viña del Mar. Our principal objective in town was the Museo Almirante Cochrane, celebrating Chile's favourite adopted Scottish naval hero, which was at the top of Cerro Cordillera. The plan was to get the ascensor up there, look around the museum, then head back down to the town centre and the railway station. Unfortunately, this failed to take into account two things - firstly, the ascensor wasn't operating, so we had the best part of 200 stairs to climb (you can all imagine my joy at that...); and secondly, the museum appeared to be somewhat less than we had had indicated to us - my generous spin was that perhaps they were refurbishing the place, but basically there was nothing to see as most of the house was closed off, and all you could do was go out on the back terrace and take in more views of the city.

So we swallowed our slight disappointment, and headed for Viña, reputedly Chile's main beach resort town. The first surprise was quite how close the two cities are - the connecting train only took about 15 minutes or so. The second was how unlike any of our idea's of a beach town the place looked once we got out of the train/metro station. The third was the discovery that said beach resort had built a municipal carpark on what appeared to be a mass of reclaimed land in the estuary of the town's river, taking up about 3/4 of the potential channel. When we then discovered that much of the seafront was a jumble of rocks that wouldn't have looked out of place on the British coastline, liberally festooned with rubbish, and that when you did get to the sand, the vista was dominated by probably one of the world's ugliest piers, we came to the universal conclusion that Viña del Mar is actually a bit of a hole. And an expensive hole at that, judging by the cost of food.

Back in Valpo, we headed back to the hostel to freshen up, then went out to investigate one of the food places recommended by my Footprint guide, called Mastodonte. The book describes fairly kitsch interior - what this actually means is that, on the Mastodon/Mammoth theme, there are large, colourful murals of jungle scenes and the like, and fake stuffed heads on the walls in the ground floor part, whilst the basement section is more like a prehistoric cave. On the bright side, it does very good traditional (i.e. fairly unhealthy) Chilean food, in massive portions, and has beers from the local El Puerto brewery (including Redbeard red ale, and Blackbeard black ale - can you see what they did there?). I had a chacarero, a Chilean slant on the "massive beef sandwich" theme, containing lots of green beans though not, as far as I could tell, any sauerkraut this time. Oh yeah, and about half of Mollie's salmon, as the portions were a bit big. Yum.

After that, we went back to the hostel, where Pete and I, who had been tormenting Mollie for much of the last day with our mass of shared cultural references which meant nothing to her (Mysterious Cities of Gold is one that comes up a lot here, for obvious reasons), introduced her to the wonder of the BBC Comedy department which is Coupling, which Pete helpfully had the first couple of series of on his laptop. She lasted a couple of episodes before crashing out, whilst we hung on for a couple more, glorying in the comedic genius that is Jeff, and giggling along to the classic episode "Inferno". And then it was time for bed again.

And lo, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Paradise

2009-03-08T12:00:00.002Z

My favourite way to start the day, up bright and early (ish) and off to the bus station. Well, I say THE bus station, Santiago has four of the damned things, but I had at least worked out in advance which one I needed (Pajaritos) to get to Valparaiso. Whilst waiting for all of 10 minutes or so there, I got chatting to an American girl called Mollie, who had also been in Bellavista hostel (though we'd never actually talked there or anything) and it turned out was going to the same hostel as me, Luna Sonrisa ("smiling moon" - means something like crescent moon) in Valpo - for the sake of my poor typing fingers, I'm afraid I'm going to be using a local abbreviation for a name again, whereby Valparaiso (Valley of Paradise, literally) becomes Valpo. There being two of us, and Valpo being composed largely of hills, we agreed taking a cab was a good plan, and thus made our way speedily rather than sweatily or stressfully to our hostel.

Having been checked in by Nadja, another German-speaker (though actually Swiss) working in a hostel and on her first day (deja vu, anyone?), we headed off to find a cafe for some late lunch, and made our way to El Desayunador, which translates literally to "the breakfaster" such that, to be honest, I definitely prefer the Spanish version. There we were awed to have found a place which actually had proper brown bread, a thing most rare in much of South America. After our feeding, we split up, as Mollie wanted to go to one of Pablo Neruda's houses, whilst I needed to sort a few things on the internet (llike my hostel in Mendoza) and then wanted to explore a bit more around town.

Luna Sonrisa is on Cerro Alegre which, along with Cerro Conçepcion, is one of the most popular areas for visitors to Valpo, being both within easy striking distance of the centre and far enough removed to keep at some remove from any of the noisier antics down near Chile's busist port. I wandered down to several of the lookouts from the hills down over the city (many of them, unfortunately, obscured somewhat by ugly high-rise buildings), and then went down into the city itself. After a bit of drifting, I discovered a large local supermarket, where I decided to stock up on a few supplies and make another of my occasional curries that evening, to the accompaniment of the Chilean equivalent of goon, the ubiquitous cask-wine so familiar to backpackers in Australia, though I have to say I think the Chilean stuff is somewhat better quality, and at about GBP2.50 for a couple of litres, exceedingly good value. Thus laden with shopping, I made my first use of Valpo's ascensores, the Victorian/Edwardian-era funicular railways and elevators, many of them still using totally original machinery, which ease passage up some of the 40-odd hills on which Valpo is built.

Having done my usual thing and got rather too much food for me alone, I invited Millie and Nadja to join me in my curry-fest that evening, and we were also joined by a lad from my room, Pete, who had been happily and soundly asleep at 2pm when we arrived but had now surfaced to face the day. After feeding, Pete, Mollie and I headed down the hill again a wee bit for a drink at a local bar, but made it back to the hostel for around midnight-ish, ahead of the trip we had planned the next day, to Chile's "premier beach resort", Viña del Mar.

Up on the roof

2009-03-07T12:00:00.000Z

Emboldened by the previous day’s underwhelming breakfast, I had a lie-in, before one of those days where nothing particularly touristically exciting happens, but necessary things such as laundry get done. I also had possibly the worst meal I’ve had so far in South America, a bland combination of chicken and rice in which the former was, as I discovered when I’d almost finished it, not fully cooked all the way through. Quite how it can take 40 minutes to undercook a piece of chicken is beyond me, but I guess I should just count my lucky stars that I didn’t get food poisoning. So I comforted myself by visiting one of the local shops which proudly advertises “32 different types of empanada” and partaking of an “Espanola”, which had chicken, ham, egg, chorizo and onion, all in a pasty. And very pleasant it was, too.

The rest of the afternoon was largely spent up on the roof terrace, chatting with Kyle and a Scottish couple, Rich and Tam, reading and doing some advance planning for Bolivia. I was due to meet up with Cameron, the American exchange student whom I’d bumped into in Puerto Varas and Valdivia, that evening, but unfortunately he was feeling ill that afternoon (had he been eating chicken…?) and had to drop out. I tried getting back in touch with Aga, and got a message saying they should be at the Plaza de Armas around 10, but, when I got there and looked around for half an hour or so, I couldn’t find her or her friends, so I hopped on one of the last trains back to my suburb and gave myself another early night, ahead of the bus to Valparaiso the next morning.

Fun and games in Santiago

2009-03-06T12:00:00.000Z

Having returned to the realms of the free hostel breakfast, and had an early night, I was up in time for morning feeding. To be honest, I needn’t really have bothered – yep, the odd bit of toast and jam, and tea and coffee which I don’t drink, is scarcely worth the extra hour or so’s sleep. Still, having awakened, I had more time to converse with some of my room-mates.

Kyle, to whom I’d chatted briefly the night before, is an American and is cycling from Tierra del Fuego back up to the US, the whole length of South America. This is the kind of ambition which I totally respect whilst knowing 100% that there is no way in hell I would ever do anything similar. He’d cycled in from Valparaiso that day, and was planning to rest up and chill out in the city for a few days while he waited for this partner in pedals, who was still in Valparaiso, on the coast.

Georg, who was checking out that morning, is from Osnabruck in the north of Germany, fairly near Hamburg, which has been one of the British Army’s main garrison towns in Germany since World War Two. Whilst studying in Hamburg for his Master’s in International Relations, he had taken time to study in Buenos Aires, and was now doing a bit of travelling to round off the trip. He spoke exceedingly good English, but was interested in having a chat as he regards conversing with native English as being the best way to polish around the edges of his language skills.

So, we headed off up the road, through the Bellavista neighbourhood to the foot of Cerro San Cristobal (St Christopher’s Hill), where I prevailed upon him to take the funicular up to the top. The views from there were generally great, although marred somewhat by the rather obvious smog hanging over parts of the city – this is a regular problem for Santiago, as the air gets trapped by the surrounding mountains. So we passed an enjoyable hour or so talking about travel, Germany, football, beer and the other usual small-talk that might be expected, then headed back down and grabbed a lunch at one of the numerous bar/restaurants along Pio Nono before Georg had to get his bus.

I then headed off to explore a little of the city, going for a wander past the Palacio de Moneda, the home of Chile’s President, around the Plaza de la Constitucion, over to the Plaza de Armas, the site of Santiago’s Catedral, and back through the Parque Forestal along by the Rio Mapocho. Well, they call it a river, anyway. Through that part of the city, its course is enclosed by concrete, and the river runs along only a part of that, a murky brown colour and smelling somewhat akin to an open sewer at times. Not as picturesque as it might be…

Having had an explore for a bit, I popped back to the hostel for a siesta, then treated myself to a few cervezas artesanales up on the hostel’s rather pleasant roof terrace. Whilst the Capital brewery’s Pale Ale and Amber Ale were reasonable but nothing too special, the Cross brewery’s Golden Ale was most enjoyable. Cheered by good beer and a view of the sunset, I headed over to the local Metro station to meet up with Agnieszka, who regular readers may well remember as the Polish lass I met whilst in El Calafate (and who was complicit in my excessive consumption the evening before my departure from the city…)

As noted before, Aga is studying in Maastricht in the Netherlands, and as part of her degree is in Santiago on exchange. By this point, having done her pre-study travelling, she was settling in ready for her courses – indeed, she had just moved into her flat that day. We had quite a pleasant dinner at a little restaurant called Venezia on Pio Nono which, despite the name, had almost no connection with Italy, culinary or otherwise. I had the Congrio, a local fish which I believe is basically a conger eel, with pure picante, which is spicy mashed potato. Though I really didn’t think it was particularly spicy, and gleefully added chilli sauce. Aga meanwhile had some chicken, accompanied by possibly the strongest caipiroska I’ve ever encountered in my life. She ended up asking for extra ice, lemon and sugar, and turning it into two drinks, both of which were still very strong! Having thus recharged our batteries, we headed on to meet up with some of Aga’s fellow exchange students, who were also out drinking in Bellavista, a mixed bag of Germans, Finns and a Frenchman, along with a scattering of Chileans, with whome we passed a fun few hours’ drinking.

Another dull day in transit

2009-03-05T12:00:00.000Z

A horrible early start, a stumble through town to the Tur-Bus terminal, a few moments of regret at my level of appreciation of Chilean viticulture the previous night, and then pretty much a full day on the bus up to Santiago, during which I used up a fair part of my accumulated supply of reading matter. On arrival around 8pm, after almost 12 hours on the bus, I had only to navigate my way through Santiago's metro system, which was actually pretty easy, and then from the Baquedano metro stop to my hostel, which was slightly less so. There I was checked in by a very bubbly German named Juliana who happily informed me it was her first day at the job (bizarrely, I think the majority of the gringos I've met working in hostels have been Germans, now I come to think of it...), before I popped over to the nearby strip of bars and restaurants on Calle Pio Nono for a snack and then went back to the hostel to crash out.

The Knee Strikes Back

2009-03-04T12:00:00.000Z

My love affair with the Treehouse's lovely beds was unfortunately cut short this morning by my decision, possibly inspired by the Irish girls' determination to tackle the volcano, to get out and do something a bit more energetic and see a bit more of the countryside around Pucon. I'd decided to go to the Parque Nacional Huerquehue, an hour or so's drive from town, to do the Sendero Los Lagos (the Lakes Trail), which I'd been assured by Sarah, and by Ross and Steve who had done it the day of my arrival, was fairly easy, and not too strenuous apart from "a bit of uphill near the beginning". The intial signs for the trip were not overly propitious, given that I arrived at the bus station to find that all seats on the minibus were already taken and we additional passengers were being packed as tightly as possible into the aisle. My visions of a seat and a chat with fellow visitors to the park, perhaps finding a hiking buddy for the day, were in ruins, and I was left standing, slightly stooped as the ceiling did not provide enough clearance for a 6'1" individual, and getting bounced around for the best part of an hour, much of the latter half on dirt tracks as we approached the park. Not the most comfortable of trips.

Still, I made it, and set off up the path towards the lakes trail. And the early bits were pretty much what I expected, a little bit of up, a little bit of down, some nice views over the lower lakes. And then, after passing a campsite, the trail started to go up. And up. And up. In fact, probably about an hour and a half of near-enough continuous up (it could certainly be done quicker, but not by me - up requires a certain amount of breathers and cursing at life). The views were, it should be said, pretty impressive, but I was realising that what I'd hoped would be a pretty easy hike was not going to work out that way, and also realising, with horror, that I would have to negotiate my way back down this hill again on my way back, which would almost certainly cause problems with my knees, which have never been the strongest on downhill work and have been downright flimsy since my travels on the Great Wall last year. However, I persevered, and had quite a pleasant picnic lunch up by Laguna Verde, one of the small lakes for which the trail is named, though it is most certainly not green as its name would imply. I was joined at this point by two German girls, Kathrin and Kirsten, from another hostel in town, the one a guest and the other a temporary member of staff. You do meet quite a lot of backpackers here, especially in Chile, who work for a month or more at a hostel in exchange for accommodation and sometimes food.

Along with the girls, I elected to do the shorter of the two circuits up at the top of the hill, as contrary to my remaining hopes, said trails were not particularly flat, and I was not in the mood either for more climbing or for more enforced descents if I could avoid it. As it was, the girls forged ahead of me on the way down, as I had to slow down to try and nurse my knees through the situation. As it was, the right one went a little bit early on, but was only a little painful, whereas the left waited until I was about two-thirds down and then properly "pinged", to the point where I nearly fell over when it happened. This thus necessitated my going even slower down the hill, as I tried to compensate for two screwed knees, and grimacing through the occasional flashes of pain when the left knee sparked up again. I was thus not in the happiest of states of mind when I got back to the entrance and found that the girls and I had gotten the times for the buses back to Pucon mixed up and we were looking at waiting 2 hours for the next transport. And at this point, our guardian angels appeared, in the form of a 2 Chileño lads who had been camping up in the park and were driving back to town in their pickup, and who generously agreed to give us a lift back. And there was much rejoicing.

Back in town, I comforted myself with a spot more wine, the remnants of my pasta, a bit more wine which I had purchased, then some more wine offered by Duncan, a friend of Sarah's and fellow JLA guide, then a bit more wine with an impromptu asado that the hostel's Chileño staff and their friends had decided to have, and then a little bit more wine. Strangely, by this point I wasn't really feeling pain any more from my knees, and I had absolutely no trouble getting to sleep...

Going for a quick dip

2009-03-03T12:00:00.000Z

Another losing battle in the morning against the urge to just stay in bed, cocooned comfortably in a little world of warmth. However, an eventual emergence was necessary, so I could go rafting. Now, I haven't done a great number of adventure activities as such out here, largely because they're still relatively expensive and I'm trying to travel on a tighter budget than I traditionally have done, but I'd decided that it was about time I treated myself a little, and added another continent to those in which I had gone zooming down rapids in a glorified inflatable. Once the drive out to the river, a fair bit of it down dirt roads, was completed, we faced the inevitable discomfort and mild embarrassment of getting kitted out for the ride. First the wetsuit, not usually the most flattering of garments, and not the most comfortable one to be wearing whilst still dry and with the temperature in the high 20s or low 30s, along with waterproof booties that are almost inevitably not quite the right size (leading to much sloshing in the rare excursions onto dry land later). Then a kagoul and some deeply unattractive shorts to be worn over the suit, largely to try and avoid cuts and abrasions to the material underneath. Then the additional bulk of the lifejacket, which also ratchets up the heat factor since it needs to be done up tight to be effective, and finally the bucket helmet. It leaves you looking and feeling an utter berk, and this deep standing level of unattractiveness plays its part in my ongoing refusal to buy photos or anything like that from rafting.

At any rate, once we were kitted out and had scrambled down to the riverside, we helped with manhandling the rafts down (a process interrupted by the passage of an itinerant cow through our midst as one of the rafts was being lowered from the road on a rope...) and then had the safety briefing, delivered by our safety kayaker for the day, Josh, an American. We were then split into crews and handed over to our river guides, which left Guy and Magali (a French couple), me and an Austrian called Chris with the smiling Max, a Chileño who luckily could handle himself quite happily in English, though by the end of the trip we were getting most commands in both English and Spanish. The actual rapids themselves were a mixed bag, a few grade 2s and 3s, a couple of 4s, a "4 and a half", and a grade 6 around which we had to walk while the boats were coaxed through, as 6s are too dangerous to run. Our trip was enlivened somewhat by the fact that Max got knocked out the back of the boat as we were going through the 4.5, much to the gleeful hilarity of the other guides (for whom, by tradition, he would now have to buy beers), leaving us ploughing on down the line we had entered without any steerage guidance until Chris had hoiked him back into the boat! It all worked out ok in the end, though, and it was a fun afternoon.

Once saely back in town, I grabbed the materials from the supermarket to make myself some dinner, and then lounged around reading in a hammock back at the hostel until I left like cooking, getting chatting in the process with a couple of Irish girls, Kate and Grainne, who'd just arrived and were going to do the volcano climb the next morning. Despite a certain amount of suggestion, I declined to join the volcano ascent, on grounds of cost, laziness and concern for my dodgy knees, and set about brewing up yet more Bolognese sauce, my default option for a home-made dinner on the road, and also partaking of a little of the local Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon - my conversion to an appreciation of the joys of red wine continues apace. Later on, I popped over to Mamas and Tapas to have a drink with the Irish girls, and we all ended up chatting for a while with Trey, a somewhat inebriated member of the river guiding fraternity (it's ok it was his day off the next day...) before heading back for a pretty early night.

Avoiding false economies

2009-03-02T12:00:00.000Z

A peculiarity of Pucon is that, unlike almost all other places I've thus far been in South America, there was no element of breakfast included in the dorm price. The upside of this (at least from my point of view) is that there is no incentive to get up early in morning, and so I could take full advantage of the incredibly comfy orthopaedic mattresses and fluffy duvets with which the Treehouse had equipped its dorms. Once I finally did drag my lazy carcass out of bed, I headed off to make arrangements to go white-water rafting the next day. This actually involves slightly more effort than might be thought, as there are numerous agencies, respresenting the different actual rafting groups in town, usually with different prices. This would also be a good example of where some people occasionally make a false economy - some of the groups in town (particularly one group) are quite a bit cheaper, but a few questions brings to light the salient fact that the cheapest operator actually had a fatality on the river on New Year's Day. Suddenly, saving five pounds or so doesn't seem the most important thing.

After making my arrangements with a French-run combine called Aguaventura, I met up with Ross and Steve and took them to Volcamburguer, where I had some truly delicious salmon and rice. Ross then needed to get to an internet cafe to sort out some stuff back home, so Steve and I lounged around in the hammocks at the Treehouse for a bit, then we all ended up going to the beach. In Pucon, this translates to sitting around on a field of black gravel watching the more intrepid of those in attendance take a bracing dip in the lake. Once we had satisified our thirst for sun for the afternoon, we headed back to the hostel and slaked our thirst of the more regular kind with a few beers, before going on to a little local restaurant called Coronado for dinner. By now both fed and watered, we went and had a drink in one of the most popular local bars, which for its sins has been saddled with the name of Mamas and Tapas. Truly cringeworthy (in fact, almost as disturbing as the Escape-Goat...)

The bar itself is a nice enough setup, but I remember it now principally as the first place I sampled Chile's national cocktail, the Pisco Sour. This is another one of those marvels of simplicity which Latin America does well, consisting of Pisco, the local spirit (basically a kind of clear grape-based brandy-like drink), lemon juice, sugar and sometimes, a little bizarrely, egg-white (a small amount of this is apparently used to produce froth on top...). Personally, I'm not too keen on the egg bit, but the drink itself managed to fill a small part of the void in my travelling lifestyle left by the absence of caipirinhas since leaving Brasil. Mamas and Tapas also introduced us to another Small World moment, as Ross bumped into an Irish lad called Killian, whom he'd met in Torres del Paine and who was travelling around South America with his kayak. As you do.

Mamas and Tapas was pretty quiet, though, surprisingly so for somewhere that was reputed to be the most popular bar in a major tourist destination, so we headed along the road to the Krater Bar, which turned out to be roughly as dead but did at least have the joys of pitchers of Kunstmann beer to make up for it. We decided that we were simply unlucky enough to have turned up in town just after the last weekend of the school summer holidays, so all the locals had headed home, and there weren't many gringos as a lot of them had headed east to Rio for Carnaval. At any rate, we engaged in a wee bit of people-watching and marvelled at one of the town's legion of stray dogs, which regarded part of the road opposite the bar as its own, and barked and jumped around if any vehicle tried to park in it or drive away again - the best moment was probably its showdown with a pickup truck which ended with the dog chasing the truck down the road for a block, barking as if its life depended on it. And then tiredness kicked in, amplified for the other lads by the fact they had to be up bright and early for their bus down south in the morning.

No goats in the city, sorry...

2009-03-01T12:00:00.000Z

Another day, another bus to catch, and so I set off for the brief trudge back across town, pondering how the mist that had dogged my steps in Niebla the previous day had now made it into Valdivia itself, and thus how my sandals were not necessarily the most appropriate footwear, as the chilliness of the morning set in. Glorying in the short trip that allowed for a departure at a sensible time, I was there in plenty of time and got myself settled in for the 3 hours or so up to Pucon. On arrival there, I dodged past the usual throng of touts, happily assuring them that I already had a reservation and thus that I did not require any help with accommodation.

My destination there was a quiet little place called The TreeHouse. I was slightly intrigued by the place, as it was owned by two guides for Journey Latin America, one of the companies with which I had worked whilst at Trailfinders. Only one of them was in residence at the time, Sarah, a fellow Brit - her business partner (and also, I later discovered, ex-boyfriend) Cristian is Chilean. Over the course of the next couple of days, particularly one later evening of asado and wine, I got to chat with Sarah a bit more, and one of my favourite of her stories concerned the original name she had planned for the hostel - the Escape-Goat. Now, quite apart from the fact that you really have to be a native English-speaker to appreciate the truly dreadful punning humour, this turned out to have a drawback - Sarah was firmly convinced that a hostel with such a name should have at least one actual goat present, but when she mentioned this to the official handling her inquiry, he told her that he was very sorry, but the property is in the urban zone of Pucon, and the goat is most definitely a rural animal. Dogs, cats or even a couple of chickens would be permissible but not, unfortunately, a goat.

This story just serves to highlight one of the small things that keeps reminding me that I'm in Chile rather than Argentina - the bureaucracy. The Chileans appear to be absolute suckers for rules and paperwork (more legacy of the German influence, perhaps...?) such that you can expect to be given a receipt for pretty much anything. Any payment you make for a meal in a restaurant or a cafe, you must be given a receipt. When you buy a bus or train ticket, it is also a receipt. When you check into a hostel, you are given a receipt. Even the internet cafes will sometimes give you receipts. Another change would be the absence of people religiously indulging their mate addiction - in Argentina, and especially in Uruguay, it is totally normal to see people wandering around on a baking hot day fervently clasping their thermos flask of hot water and their mate cup. And there is never any problem with getting change in Chile, whereas in Argentina (especially Buenos Aires) it has to be hoarded jealously against the time you need it.

At any rate, after getting my stuff settled into my dorm at the Treehouse, I headed off for a bit of a walk around town, and to get some food and some internet time. The former was accomplished at a wonderful little establishment called Volcamburguer - the volcano theme is pretty much ever-present in Pucon, given that the town is dominated both geographically and in terms of tourist activities by the mighty Volcan Villarica - climbing this (and often sliding at least part of the way back down) is for many people their raison d'etre for coming to the town. Having had yet another proof of the Chilean tendency to add avocado and sauerkraut to anything sandwich-like, I checked my e-mails and headed back to the hostel, where I settled in with a glass of wine and a book, and had a sandwich whilst I waited for Ross.

Now the more obsessive amongst my readership may remember Ross from back in southern Brasil and my first days in Argentina, when we had basically ended up almost shadowing each other to start with and then travelled in tandem for a while. I had briefly bumped into him by the bus station in El Calafate, but it now turned out that we were not only in the same town again, but the same hostel, and in fact the same dorm. Small world. Ross was now travelling with another friend of his from home, Steve, and it turned out the two of them had been walking in Huerquehue National Park that day, so they didn't get back until relatively late. When they did, we just sat and had a drink and played cards for a while before surrendering to the inevitable and crashing out.

A preponderance of sauerkraut

2009-02-28T12:00:00.000Z

Time to explore Valdivia a bit. I got a bus to the little town of Niebla, which is at the mouth of the rivers on the conjunction of which the city of Valdivia is built, and is home to one of the series of forts built by the Spanish colonial authorities principally to keep the British from getting any ideas about the attractiveness of the first major port up the South American coast after rounding Cape Horn. It was also a lone outpost in Mapuche country for much of Chile's early history and, due to the unfriendly territory to its landward side and the series of forts to seaward, was regarded as nigh-on impregnable, the "Gibraltar of South America" in the late 18th Century, only to fall, the one and only time it was seriously attacked, in 1820, during the Chilean struggle for independence, to an audacious and unexpected assault from the extraordinary character of Lord Cochrane, a Scot and contemporary of Nelson who had been employed to head the embryonic Chilean navy. All the kind of thing that is generally right up my street. Unfortunately, my enjoyment of exploring was curtailed somewhat by the weather - whilst it remained hot and sunny all day in the city and down most of the river valley, the mouth of the estuary and the headlands on which the series of forts sit was shrouded in sea-fog, rendering the views intermittent and the climate cold and damp.

Thus mildly disheartened, I returned to Valdivia proper just after midday and took myself over to a restaurant called Dino's which, I had been advised, was one of the few places in town with access to the ESPN sports channels, where I settled myself in with a pint of the local ale (on which more later) and a "Dinissimo" sandwich to watch the Ireland-England game in the 6 Nations. Oh yes, that sandwich - pork steak, lettuce, tomato, guacamole/avocado, mayonnaise, tomato relish and sauerkraut, all in a bun. By the time I'd added mustard and the local chilli sauce, that was quite some combination. Shame I couldn't say as much for the rugby, which was not a great game and left me in the state, now familiar for England rugby fans, of frustration at a game we might have won and yet conspired to lose. Dammit.

After the disappointment I sloped back to the hostel, finished my chick-lit book, ate up the leftovers of the previous night's curry and eventually summoned up the enthusiasm to head out and get a microbus just out of town to the Kunstmann brewery. As the name might imply, this is another holdover from the German influence on the area, but the range and styles of beer they produce are more similar to those of a North American micro-brewery than your typical German beer. There was also the slightly bizarre sight, when I arrived, of a wedding party (bride, groom, best man, bridesmaid and video-camera operator) who had just arrived, in full wedding regalia, and went for a beer at one of the tables in the corner. Still, once they moved on, I could devote my full attention to the sampling of the beers, of which there were in theory 8, but one of those was just an unfiltered version of an existing one so I don't think it really counts: the lager was reasonable as these things go, the unfiltered, stronger lager was very nice and refeshing, the Torobayo pale ale (pretty much their signature beer) was nice in both the filtered and unfiltered versions, then there was the Trigo (a Weissbier and new addition to their stable), the Miel (an incredibly sweet honey-beer - almost a desert beer), the Gran Torobayo (a deeper, stronger, maltier version of the classic) and a pretty coffee-ish Bock. So yes, despite not being sure if I could be bothered to go out there, I did enjoy the brewery (and I had a hotdog with, surprise surprise, Sauerkraut in it as well). And then I got the micro back to town and crashed out back at the hostel.

In transit

2009-02-27T12:00:00.000Z

Farewell to Puerto Varas and on to Valdivia. For once, the bus timetable was not conspiring against me, and I had an easy morning getting breakfast and finishing off my packing before getting on a bus around 11am to head a few hours further up Chile to the port town of Valdivia. This has the reputation both of being one of the more pleasant places to live in Chile, and of being one of the most German places one is likely to find anywhere outside Europe, having been one of the base towns for German immigration to Chile in the 19th Century. My travel there was eased by reading "The Oxford Murders", a fascinating book by an Argentine author that got made into a film a couple of years back, and when I finished that relatively brief tome, by starting on a large volume that I can only describe as chick-lit - yes, I will read all kinds of stuff on the road, and I was surprised to find myself actually really enjoying a book that I wouldn-t have gone near with a bargepole back home. On arrival at Valdivia, it was only a brief 10/minute trudge across town to get to my hostel, after which I put a load of laundry in and headed off to get some food, ending up having a bargain meal of fish from down near the markets by the river.

Having filled myself up thus, I made a trip to the supermarket to get ingredients to cook again (my economy drive continuing apace!), this time trying something a wee bit different and deciding to make chicken curry. Although I couldn't get most of the individual spices, I managed to get by with curry powder, though I was slightly surprised that, having bought what I believed to be a chicken breast from the meat counter, it was actually both breasts still attached to the bones of the rib-cage, which was something I hadn't planned on. Still, it only added a little bit to my prep time, and I had several more Chilean micro-brewed beers to help pass the time, as well as chatting with Deep and Sarah (a British couple) and an American lass called Catherine. Cue a quiet night on the table on the patio.

Kuchen? In Chile??

2009-02-26T12:00:00.000Z

Up at a remarkably early hour once again, and time for a spot of breakfast before heading off on my tour for the day. And oh, how happy I was - brown bread. Actual, real, honest-to-God brown bread at breakfast time, and even a bit of ham, and not a spot of dolce de leche in sight. Our guide for the day was Mauricio, one half of the couple owning the hostel (I never met Malin, but that's not entirely surprising given they have a 1-year-old daughter), and I have to say he is one of the best-informed, most talkative and helpful guides I've had on a trip in quite some time - certainly the best I've had in South America (although Hugo in Puerto Madryn was pretty good as well). My fellow travellers for the day were Cameron, a Berliner named Bernd who's based in Silicon Valley these days and an American couple whose names I inexplicably never got, but who were travelling up South America after 14 months working at the Amundsen-Scott base in Antarctica (her as a cook, him as a mechanic - apparently the scientists don't generally stay there over the winter). As we left in the morning, the air was grey and misty, and it smelt like a rainstorm on the way. I had sighed and dug out my waterproof, but Mauricio just smiled and said the weather would be fine as soon as we got towards the eastern side of the lake. I was slightly sceptical.

Puerto Varas is at the southern end of Lago Llanquihue, a massive body of water in a valley gouged out by an ancient glacier, on whose terminal moraine the town sits - to give you some idea of the scale of this, it's something like the 3rd biggest lake in South America by area, and gets up to about 370m deep (Lllanquihue apparently means "deep place" in Mapudungun, the Mapuche language). It used to be linked to Lago Todos Los Santos ("All Saints' Lake") to the east, before Volcan Osorno forced its way up between them, where it now sits, a near-perfect cone volcano amongst the surrounding countryside. When we started out, the volcano, normally easily visible from the lakeshore in town, was hidden in the fog, but by the time we'd driven for half an hour or so east, Mauricio's prediction was coming true and the blue sky was showing through the clouds as the fog burnt off. By the time we reached our destination at Lago Todos Los Santos and started our 2-hour hike, the clouds were well and truly gone, and Volcan Osorno stood out in stark splendour against a cobalt sky.

The walk took us through the channels carved in the scrub by either rainwater or snowmelt, the former sometimes forming flash-flood-like torrents while the latter tends to mean streambeds that are dry in the morning are flowing by late afternoon as meltwater comes down off the volcano. The most visible demonstration we got of this was when we crossed one stream by jumping over a low flow, only to recross the empty bed 5 minutes' further downstream and see where the trickles of the leading edge of the meltwater were headed for the lake. We were accompanied in all of this by a local dog, who then also came and sat with us when we had our picnic lunch on our return to the minibus (totally shameless that one, a golden retriever or some cross thereof who just sat there and looked doleful at whoever had what she wanted at that point - firstly the Americans, who had gotten empanadas, then Mauricio and I, who both had meat sandwiches, then Cameron, who had crackers).

After lunch, we headed back down our trail, navigating our way in reverse through the roadworks that seem to be a major feature of southern Chile at the moment, to go and see the Saltos de Petrohué, a set of "river-falls" as the locals put it, caused by water running down the 80m or so height difference between the two lakes through the basalt rock left by the volcano's activities. This produces some very impressive flows through several of the chokepoints, though Mauricio pointed out that due to it being late summer, the flow is much lower than at some other times of year, so some of the falls we saw would be underwater at other times, and the flow would expand to go through some of the side-channels which were basically empty. Having had our fix of water, we then headed up the tightly switchbacking road to the ski centre on Volcan Osorno. It's currently out of season (obviously) but they still have the lifts operating, and by walking around up there (it's above the treeline) you get some amazing views back over the lake towards the city, and onwards to the other volcanoes which form many of the highest peaks in this part of the Andes, including Tronador, which stands sentry right by the border with Argentina.

By now feeling slightly sleepy, despite the invigorating effects of the mountain air, we made one final stop at the Laguna Verde (green lagoon) on the way back - here we saw what Mauricio had thus far skillfully managed to avoid, the coachloads of tourists who often hit the sights aroud here, many of them from cruise ships docked at Puerto Montt, the ocean port just sout of Puerto Varas. A couple of the lads also got some of the local küchen (yep, that's the German influence again), made with indigenous berries known as Ulmo. Finally, it was time to head back into town, now finally escaped from the cloud cover as well (apparently it held on until early afternoon there, so going on the tour was definitely a better way to spend the day!), where I picked up a few micro-brew beers from the Austral brewery (based right down in Punta Arenas) whose wares I had so enjoyed in El Calafate, had another pasta dinner (tours aren't cheap, so I had to dial back the budget a wee bit) and then crashed out.

Bienvenido en Chile

2009-02-25T12:00:00.000Z

As many of you are aware, I don't really do early mornings. Still less likely am I to be wide awake and happy on said morning if I've had one or two drinkies the night before. So it shouldn't really be a surprise that I overslept a wee bit the day I was due to leave Bariloche on an early bus. Well, I say overslept. What I actually did was wake up, turn off the alarm clock, not get out of bed "quite yet" and then wake up half an hour or so later in a blind flap, and do my champion headless-chicken act getting out of the door. I am quite well-practiced at this, unfortunately, so at least I had packed almost everything into my bags the previous night and so was able to do a 3-minute departure. I made it down the evil little hill on which Pudu hostel sits and then stood for about 10 minutes waiting for a local bus to turn up to get me to the bus terminal. Eventually, I decided that trying to save a couple of quid by getting a bus rather than a cab and thus risking having to buy a whole new ticket to Chile was a particularly daft false economy, and flagged down the next passing taxi. So I made my bus in the end.

The journey itself was really beautiful, at least on the Argentine side, cutting alongside the lakes that give the region its name, which were lovely in the morning sunshine. See, I can't have been feeling the effects that bad, or I wouldn't have regarded sunshine as being a beautiful thing. The border crossing took a fair old while, mostly due to the wait at the Chilean side whilst all the bags were scanned for fruit, vegetable or animal matter - yes, the Chileños are about as obsessed with bio-security as my old friends the Kiwis (and yes, I am still bitter after over 3 years about the NZ$200 fine I got for accidentally bringing in an apple from Australia...). We also had the fun experience of driving for a few kilometres in quasi-No-Man's-Land, having been stamped out of Argentina at the Argentine border post but not actually stamped into Chile until we made it through the pass to the corresponding Chilean post on the other side. From there, the journey was relatively straightforward and would have been dull but for my book, although it was noticeable right away that the countryside in southern Chile looks quite a lot like northern Europe.

Possibly partly as a result of this, but also of the fact that it was relatively unsettled frontier country (having until recently been a stronghold of the Mapuche people, who stood up to both the Incas and the Spanish), there was an awful lot of immigration in the 19th century from Germany, France and Switzerland, and this is reflected in some of the architecture, as well as in names of streets and businesses and the like, and possibly also the food - the most common fast-food found in Chile is the hot-dog, usually in the form of the completo where it is drenched in mayonnaise, ketchup, onions and sometimes guacamole, sauerkraut or both, and the area around Puerto Varas and Valdivia is more blessed with sauerkraut availability in general in restaurants than anywhere I've been outside Europe.

On arrival in Puerto Varas I was slightly gutted to find that my bus company was one of those which did not stop nice and conveniently in the centre of town, but a fair way out, leaving me another one of those fun treks in the mid-afternoon fun of which I am so fond in order to get to my hostel, the Compass del Sur. In keeping with the north European theme, this is owned by a Chilean-Swedish couple, and they advertise on Hostelworld and the like that their staff speak Chileño, Svensk, Deutsch and English. I just had the luck to arrive when the lass on duty only spoke Chileño (which even some Spanish speakers think could occasionally be classed a different dialect with the amount of weird vocab they use), at the usual machine-gun pace for here - luckily, the basics of showing someone into a hostel are fairly self-explanatory, and I was able to understand about 40% of what the lass said, and infer the rest. Having gratefully dumped my bags, I popped back into town to get supplies from the supermarket (yep, pasta-and-sauce nights again, with a drop of viño to accompany) before a quiet night in, some of which was spent comparing micro-brew preferences and recommendations with Cameron, yet another exchange student doing a semester in Santiago.

Hammocks - a great invention

2009-02-24T12:00:00.000Z

As a consequence of my cycling endeavours, I had designated this a "do-as-little-strenuous-as-

possible" day. I was up for breakfast, but then took to one of the garden hammocks again, until the sun started getting a little intense, so I moved in to the chill-out room, the upstairs lounge area where the TV and DVD player where, to continue my reading. I eventually hoisted myself back into the vertical plane to go and treat myself to a final Morfy's (as usual, the place was packed, and as usual at least half of them were Israelis...) before catching up a bit more on these diaries, swinging over to the supermarket and then heading back to catch the latter half of the Man Utd - Inter game on the TV with some of the lads in the hostel (I think I was the only one supporting Inter). In the evening, I treated myself to a bit of comfort food by cooking myself cottage pie (which got approving noises from Mark and Alice when they tried a bit, even if I had had to improvise a bit to make the gravy), and then was pleasantly surprised to be reminded by Siobhain and Mark that it was Pancake Day, so I whisked batter and helped make (ok, and eat) a few pancakes. Then, in the evening, I popped back to my old haunt at the South Bar to meet up with Trish and Stephen, the Irish couple I had first bumped into in Iguazu and had met a few more times on the way. And then I crashed out, ahead of an early departure to Chile the next morning.

Saddle-sore

2009-02-23T12:00:00.000Z

A momentous occasion. For the first time at Pudu, I actually made it up for breakfast, and found what I'd been missing out on - home-made scones! After some of the badly toasted slices of yesterday's baguette and the like which some places serve up, this was heaven-sent, and almost made me regret the amount of sack time I'd been racking up the previous couple of days. In this case, I ended up chatting over breakfast with Siobhain, the Irish lass in my dorm, and Anke, who's Dutch, and, surprisingly for me, deciding that what I need after the "I think I'm going to die" effects of climbing the hill the previous day was to go cycling for the afternoon. There's a trip, known as the Circuito Chico (little loop), which runs from town out around one of the smaller lakes and alongside the big ones for a total of about 60km, but you can get the bus out and hire bikes from around the 18km mark, which cuts it down to about 25km. Now certain people (I'm looking at you, Mr Porter!) will be laughing at my thinking this quite a bit to do, but I haven't used a bike seriously in years, and that was generally in East Anglia, a very flat and bike-friendly part of the world. But I decided to do it anyway.

So, off we went, we three intrepid musketeers, to the Bike Cordillera office where we were kitted out with bikes, helmets, locks and our maps, which showed (with little arrows) the steep up and down bits. I noticed with concern that, in a manner that Escher would be proud of, there seemed to be more up than down parts. We had about 5.5 hours that afternoon to play with, so had decided to do a couple of short walks as well as the actual cycling, taking us down to the beach at Playa Lago Moreno (well, it had sand and went into the water, so technically it was a beach, but I've never seen a beach with that many plants growing out of the water about a metre offshore before) and over to see Lago Escondido ("hidden lake"). After that, on the suggestion of the lady who rented us the bikes, we were making a detour into Colonia Suiza, a little village in the neighbourhood, because this was apparently "nearly flat" and gave us the chance to pop into a cafe and have a local microbrewed beer. Nice plan, right?

What I perhaps hadn't factored in was (a) how much I hate going uphill, (b) how uncomfortable I get on bike saddles after even about 5 minutes, and rental bikes aren't renowned for extra-comfy saddles and (c) how truly, desperately unfit I am. I managed one reasonable ascent with the bike, but by the time we got to the first of the pretty steep bits I gave up halfway up and got off and walked my bike to the summit. This formed the pattern for much of the day - on the flat, the downhill and the really easy uphill parts I stayed on the bike. When it got going steep uphill, I got off and used shanks' pony instead. This also gave me the chance to rest my aching posterior, which as the afternoon went on got tenderer and tenderer. The Hidden Lake was pretty enough, but Colonia Suiza was a bit of a damp squib - the road into and out of there was unsealed, meaning I got to add aching arms (from serving as shock-absorbers) to my aching leg muscles and overworked lungs, the beer wasn't that special (and was fairly pricey) and the route was anything but flat. And we realised we were running out of time at this point, so had to hurry rather than admiring the scenery as much.

If this makes it sound like an unmitigated disaster, it wasn't. The views were lovely, and the riding on the downhill stretches and the occasional near-flat parts was still fun, it just got subsumed somewhat in the pain factor as time wore on towards our 8pm deadline to be back. It was also fascinating hearing about Anke's travels, as she is a psychologist (not a psychiatrist or psychotherapist) and had done some volunteer work in Cuzco at a psychiatric hospital there. Siobhain, amusingly, works in IT supporting the banking sector, and clapped her hands over her ears and nearly screamed when I uttered the words "go live", which is a sure sign of a kindred spirit. At any rate, we made it back on time in the end, and got onto the bus back to town, where we were overjoyed to have seats, even if there was a certain amount of occasional shifting in place to find the least painful position to sit in (at least for me, I can't speak for the girls). Back at the hostel, I had one of the more relieving showers I can remember in quite some time, and then Anke and I went to a really good Mexican place called Dias de Zapata, where I decided that for once budget be damned and I would have a really nice meal, so stuffed myself on fajitas. On our return, I ended up waiting around in line for ages to get near the computer (normally I'd have just gone and found a 'net cafe, but that was not an option given how I felt at that point) before calling it an early (for Bariloche) night at around 1am.

Looking a gift-chair-lift in the mouth

2009-02-22T12:00:00.000Z

Unsurprisingly after my carnivorous exertions of the previous night (okay, and the wine) I didn´t make it up for breakfast on Sunday either, appearing from my cocoon around 2 in the afternoon. At this point, I met one of the new arrivals at the hostel, an Irishman (not exactly a surprise - due to the owners and word-of-mouth I reckon at least 40% of the guests at Pudu were probably Irish) known variously as Jay, JP or Joseph Patrick, with whom I elected to get some exercise that afternoon by heading out west of town and climbing Cerro Campanario.

This latter was a fairly surprising choice given that (a) I was still metabolising about half a cow and 3 fields' worth of grapes, (b) I'm lazy and (c) there was a chairlift. Well, we both had a fit of the bravado and uttered something along the lines of "Hah, chairlift, who needs one of those?" and set off up the hill/mountain. About 5 minutes into the climb, I started to regret this decision. About 20 minutes in, I was cursing with what little spare breath I had. By just over 30 minutes, I staggered up to the cafe and viewpoint at the top of the hill, doing my famous impression of an asthmatic camel, and vowing that I would not be so stupid in future as to look a gift-chair-lift in the mouth. However, my good spirits returned fairly quickly, helped by the combination of clear mountain air, wonderful views, and a large slice of chocolate cake from the cafe.

Continuing our theme of foolhardiness, we decided not to pay for the chairlift down either, and instead scrambled back down, which was probably a bit dumb of me considering my occasional knee issues, but luckily we made it without any mishap, and got back on the bus into town. I stayed on when JP hopped off, heading over to the Terminal to sort out my ticket into Chile, as most of the cheaper companies (i.e. the Chilean ones) did not do internet or phone bookings. Luckily, one of the companies still had a ticket office open at 8pm on a Sunday (not the most sensible of times to go searching for a ticket, in restrospect) so I was able to sort that out and head back to the hostel, where I ate the remainder of my pasta bolognese from Friday night and had a quiet couple more beers. That evening I actually went out to explore town a bit more, but again, Sunday night wasn't really the best time to do this, so ended up spending much of the time in a little place called the South Bar, drinking more microbrew beer and arguing football with a couple of Brasilian lads and 3 Argentine girls from the hostel where I was gratified that, for once, my loud assertions that Maradona couldn't be the world's best player because he was a dirty little cheat and a coke fiend found a willing audience in the Brasilians...

More beef you say? Oh, go on then...

2009-02-21T12:00:00.000Z

After my numerous bus journeys and other tiredness-inducing factors in the previous few days, a lazy day. I lay in rather than getting up for breakfast, then lounged in one of the hammocks on the back garden looking down over the lake. Tried to catch the Man U - Blackburn game, but unfortunately (I think because it's covered by Setanta) none of the channels in Argentina were carrying it, so had to make do with frantically checking up on the internet. Had a (very) late lunch back at Morfy's, to which I was showing worryig signs of addiction, and then went for a wonder down by the foreshore, marvelling at the fortitude of those brave souls swimming in the lake, and watching the volunteer fire brigade (with almost all their vehicles) practicing down in a car park by the lake!

Back at Pudu, I took more advantage of the Happy Hour(s) deal on the local beer (Happy Hour, happily, runs from 6-9pm there), got to know a few more of my fellow hostellers, and hung around in the garden waiting for the start of the week's grand Asado. Now I know, I keep going on about these, but this one was pretty serious going - it started at around 10 at night with the Choripans (sausage sandwiches), then worked its way up through various cuts of beef, finishing with the bife de lomo at around 1am, all of this accompanied by copious amounts of Mendoza Malbec. Happy, happy day.

Up At The Lakes

2009-02-20T12:00:00.000Z

Even before we reached Bariloche, it was noticeable that we had left behind the open, barren plains of Patagonia and moved on into a land of lakes, forests and hills. The eastern foothills of the Andes are host to a great many lakes, and on the shore of one of the largest of these, Lago Nahuel Hapi, is the city of San Carlos de Bariloche, known universally just as Bariloche. The San Carlos part supposedly came about as a result of a postal error, when someone was writing to an English settler called Charles who lived in the village there, and accidentally put down "San Carlos" (St Charles) when he meant "Don Carlos" (Lord Charles). It's unsure if the individual involved was even a nobleman, but the name apparently stuck. I have no idea if this really is true, but it seems as good an explanation as any!

Being up in the foothills also means that the climate's a fair bit cooler, and, what with the breeze blowing along the lake, I decided it was time to dig my shoes out again in preference to my sandals once I reached my hostel. The accomplishment of this, I found, required the ascent of Calle Salta in town, which winds up the side of the hill from the Centro Civico where I got off the local bus from the terminal into town. On arrival there, panting and wheezing in my traditional impression of an asthmatic camel, I was greeted by Leo, one of the owners, a cheerful porteño with dreadlocks and a seemingly ever-present Boca Juniors shirt. He showed me around, pretty much all in Spanish, which, to give him credit, was pitched slow enough and clear enough that I actually understood. After handing in a big bag of laundry to be done, I went back down the hill to explore the town, first priorities being food and internet access.

The former was sorted by the Bariloche institution that is "Morfy's". This is a burger-bar with a difference, that being that you sit there and pick out whatever salads, sauces etc you want to accompany your burger, choripan, milanesa (breaded schnitzel) or lomito (steak sandwich), while the guy serving you grins and bounces along to the loud music he has playing. By the time you've added lettuce, tomato, onion, carrot, egg, hot peppers, chimichurri, chilli sauce, garlic sauce, mustard, etc etc to your sandwich, you just don't want to think about getting your grease fix anywhere else.

Once my internet needs had also been met, I made one of my infrequent trips to a supermarket, having calculated that my budget was being mauled very severely so it was probably time to cook. Also, Pudu is one of the more reasonable hostels where they let you bring your own grog in, so the supermarket also serves as your chance to fuel up for the evening. However, I did also try some of the hostel's beer, given that they have 3 beers from the local Cerveceria Manush, a rubia (blonde beer), a roja (red ale) and a negra (porter) - it would be both rude and against my personal commandments not to have done so! This also entailed conversations with Mark, the hostel's Mancunian barman and occasional receptionist, who was such a nice character I even forgave him for being a Man Utd fan.

The evening thus faded into a happy, faintly tipsy daze, during which I met various Americans (notably Alice, who was working temporarily at the hostel), Mauricio, a Chilean Canadian, and his cousin, who were paying a quick visit to Bariloche while Mauricio was down to see relatives in Chile, and James, an Irish lad whose speciality appeared to be going out and getting in so late that he didn't make it to the Spanish classes he was taking. This was all enlivened by a brief powercut, and also collective astonishment when some of the Argentine guests started cooking an Asado at around half past midnight.

A bit more Hurry Up & Wait

2009-02-19T12:00:00.000Z

Up and about, and time to checkout. Another of those "hurry up and wait" times, where I have to check out by late morning, and my bus isn't until late evening, so I have a day to burn in Puerto Madryn. In the end, I spent much of this with Julie, my Quebecoise friends from the Asado night, down at the covered beach shack the hostel keeps on Puerto Madryn beach. There we chilled out, occasionally went out into the sun for a while, had a couple of beers, and chatted for a bit with Gaston, the owner, when he turned up. After that, we went for lunch at El Nautico, my dinner venue of the previous night, where we enjoyed the Menu Ejecutivo, the set-price menu. This is pretty common in Argentina, and while this one was a bit more expensive than usual (Ar$35, about GBP5), this included a starter, main course, desert and drink. The latter was supposed to be half a bottle of house wine each, but as Julie had red and I had white, and they were all out of half-bottles, they gave us each a full bottle for the same price! So I got ham with potato salad, white salmon a la española, then neapolitan ice-cream, with a bottle of white wine, for five quid. Result. Much of the afternoon was then spent either on the net or lounging around the hostel reading, before heading back to the bus terminal. There, I was amused to discover that my Israeli friends from earlier, Ben and Michel, were on the same bus again, although they were getting off in El Bolsón a couple of hours before me. The Mar y Valle bus didn't do the movie thing, but the food was ok and once again, miraculously, I actually slept a fair bit!

Uncooperative Orcas

2009-02-18T12:00:00.000Z

Amazingly, I did actually wake up in time for the trip, and managed to bolt down a minimal breakfast and make my sandwiches for lunch before the bus turned up. Sarah, Patxi and Vincent were also taking the trip, so there were a few familiar faces, and the guide, a loquacious local named Hugo, turned out to be both well-practiced in English and well-knowledgable in his field, which is always a good combination. Our tour took us out onto the Peninsula, via the usual stop at a Ranger station for the park and a brief visit to the Information Centre, which had a viewpoint to look out around the neck of the peninsula, displays on the flora and fauna (including the skeleton of a Southern Right Whale) and, as Hugo proudly advised us, "probably the best toilets in South America". After this, we headed on to Puerto Pirámides, the only settlement in the park, from where Sarah was heading off on a boat trip to look for seals, dolphins and the like, and do a bit of snorkelling. The rest of us had a couple of hours at leisure to explore the village and the surrounding area and grab some lunch. I have to admit to a bit of geekery in that I was fascinated by the way that, due to the very shallow bay and low gradient of the seabed, the boats that were to be launched were towed or pushed down into the water and back out again on trailers by tractors of various sizes. I don't think I've ever taken that many pictures of tractors in my life.

Once Emma returned and we had all consumed our various sandwiches, empanadas or other lunches, it was back on the minibus and on to the east side of the peninsula and the Caleta Valdes, an inlet sheltered from the ocean by sandbanks where Magellanic Penguins nest. Many of the previous year's juveniles were ashore and moulting to get their new plumage - until the whole lot's been replaced and the oils that make it water-resistant and help form insulation have been secreted, they can't really swim or hunt, so there's a lot of them standing near-enough stock-still on the shore of the inlet, which at least makes photography a bit easier. After this, we went on to Punta Cantor, where there is the only mainland Elephant Seal colony in the world. What this means in real world terms is larger than usual, fatter than usual seals, with the adult males having a kind of trunk effect on the snout which gives them their name. Unfortunately, there were no adult males ashore when we got there, though the juveniles were still pretty massive. The adult males are pretty spectacular in their abilities though, as they're apparently about 4.5 tonnes, roughly the size of a minivan, can operate offshore about 500 miles from shore for months at a time, and can dive to 1,500m deep when hunting.

After this, we headed up north along the east coast of the peninsula, to the imaginatively-named Punta Norte, where there is a large sea-lion colony. Partly as a result of this, it is one of only 2 places in the world where Orcas (Killer Whales) have developed the tactic of intentionally stranding themselves temporarily on the beach, sliding in right up beyond the shoreline to munch down on some of the tasty snacks living there and then slithering and eventually swimming back in. Unfortunately, as there's only a select group of the creatures that do it, you don't generally get to see it. You don't even always get to see the Orcas themselves, even in the right season, and unfortunately that's the situation we found that day. Slightly gutting, as they were the thing I wanted to see the most, but as they say, if you want guaranteed sightings go to a zoo or a wildlife park; these are wild animals. My longed-for sighting not having appeared, I dozed much of the way back into town, and went out that evening for a dinner at the Cantina El Nautico, which was a nice fish called pejerrey. Many people still feeling the effects of the previous night's asado, it was pretty quiet at the hostel, so I got one of my occasional early nights.

Sorry, the system's down....

2009-02-17T12:00:00.000Z

I awakened to yet more views of the Patagonian countryside, which is relatively flat, almost completely treeless, and correspondingly bleak. And it goes on for miles and miles and miles. Travel down there requires the same level of distractions or patience (or both) as travelling the interior of Australia. On the former count, we were offered a fairly basic breakfast of crackers and some kind of cookie, and a film about Houdini, which I didn't really get into. Most people just carried on getting what sleep they could until we arrived in Puerto Madryn that afternoon, about 18 hours after our departure from Rio Gallegos.

On arrival in Puerto Madryn, I had one of my occasional tests of my Spanish, as I had to sort out how to get from the bus station to my hostel. The lass in the Tourist Info place was really nice, though, which helped. In fact, she was even really nice when I went back and sheepishly explained that I'd gotten confused as to which hostel I was supposed to be in and had just rung the wrong one. Ooops. Turned out the only really feasible ways to get to Hi Patagonia were either a cab or on foot, so my instinctive distrust of paying for taxis kicked in and I decided to walk it (this may also have been affected by the fact that I only had large denomination notes on me, and Argentine cab drivers, even more than most others, deny having any change much of the time). So I walked there. If it comes down to it, it was only about 10 or 12 blocks or so, so I think I did it in about 20 minutes, attracting the usual slightly strange looks I get when wandering around with the main pack on my back and the daypack hanging off the front. The member of staff who greeted me and checked me in was, slightly confusingly, German, another Matthias. I was also somewhat crushed to find that the only company doing a direct service from Puerto Madryn to Bariloche, Mar y Valle, would not do phone or internet bookings, so I had to walk right back to the bus station I had just left. I sighed.

Just to show that the travel gods have a sick sense of humour, when I got back to the bus station I found that, in a situation eerily familiar to me from certain times at Trailfinders, the relevant computer system to book the bus I wanted had crashed. I sighed again, and set off to explore the town centre a bit more. Truth be told, there's not an awful lot to detain the curious tourist in downtown Puerto Madryn, so I was quite glad to bump into my Israeli fellow travellers from the bus, Ben and Michel, with her brother at a cafe, and sit down to rest my feet for a bit. After that, I went back, more in hope than expectation, to the bus station, and for once hope was rewarded - the system was working again and I could get my ticket. Hurrah! No longer-than-planned stay in Puerto Madryn for me. Next stop was an internet cafe to book my accommodation in Bariloche (annoyingly, this was another one where I had to fight the conviction of an adult filter that Hostelworld is an "innappropriate site"), then Carrefour to get some supplies for the next day, then back to the hostel for an Asado.

Yes, I know, the Asado theme is getting worryingly popular, but if you're in Argentina and even remotely amenable to eating red meat, you'd be eating them a lot as well. Plus, this was one of those which featured copious amounts of vino included in the price, along with the ensaladas and the all-important carne. This was my first encounter with Gaston, the exceedingly genial owner of the hostel, and he proceeded to sit me at a table with a fellow Brit, Sarah (amusingly also resident in Bristol, though having grown up in Oxford rather than Cambridge) along with two French lads (Patxi, a French Basque, and Vincent), a Quebecoise named Julie and a Balaeric lass named Salina, who had been working and living in London. There then ensued the usual stuffing of faces (with beef, chorizo sausage, chicken, etc), quaffing of vino tinto, and swapping of travellers' tales and the like. I was also eventually persuaded to try an Argentine drink speciality of Fernet Branca and Coke. It seems to be an Italian-influenced thing, and is apparently particularly associated with the city of Córdoba over here, but I have to say I think the stuff's vile. It's right up there with Pernod in the list of "things I would have to be drunk to the point of insensibility or paid an obscene amount to drink". At the end of proceedings, sometime around 1 or 2, Salina and Gaston were heading off with an Argentine couple staying at the hostel to additional bars, but I demurred, citing my need to get up early the next morning for a trip, which, given that it was the principal reason I had come to Puerto Madryn, I didn't want to miss.

My own transport hell

2009-02-16T12:00:00.000Z

On this morning, I was reminded of my old friend from Bristol, Dan, who, when discussing the advisability of mixing drinks, used to chant "Beer then wine, feel fine. Wine then beer, oh dear...". It is fairly logical from this point to realise that wine then beer then beer then wine, almost all of different varieties, is not going to be a good thing. Hence, my morning was spent in a state that might charitably be described as "woolen-headed", as I grabbed a minimal breakfast, checked out and settled my bill, said farewell to Aga and stumbled into town, headed for the bus station. After checking my bag onto my coach, I made a quick dash back to the nearest ATM, stood nervously in the queue (ATMs in El Calafate almost always run out at the weekends, so on a Monday morning everyone was stocking up again...) and was then very surprised to bump into Ross, my travelling companion from northern Argentina, in the street outside the bank. It turned out he had been down to Ushuaia and also Torres del Paine, over the border in Chile, and was now headed north. This time, unfortunately, we weren't due on the same bus, and I think he's now further ahead than me, but it's always nice to see a friendly face.

Having frantically grabbed a soft drink from the supermarket and run back to my imminently-departing bus, I settled in for almost 5 hours to Rio Gallegos. During this time, my hangover unfortunately kicked in properly, leaving me with a massively churning stomach that wasn't helped by being on a bus. Similarly, my mood was not brightened by the discovery that most of the nearby seats were occupied by a large family of Argentines, the screaming child section of which proceeded to make the ensuing hours into something akin to my own personal travelling hell. 3.5 hours in transit in Rio Gallegos didn't help much either. It's a bleak place, under a steely Patagonian sky, and the most interesting thing in the vicinity of the bus station is the Carrefour supermarket. Though the latter did at least allow me to partially sate my desire for food, any food, to settle my stomach some more. After this, boarding the long overnight bus up the coast felt like a real release.

I had, as has become my practice for overnight trips, paid the extra for the Cama service, so I had a seat on my own without having to scramble over everyone, reasonable legroom, and the joys of an onboard meal service and movies to look forward to. In an even-more-surprising twist, the food was actually halfways-edible, and I had the luck of getting a second helping as of the Israeli couple sitting just across from me, Ben and Michel, the latter was vegetarian so didn't want the beef that we were served. After that, we were treated to the Keanu Reeves film Constantine, which isn't quite as bad as it might sound, and then I actually managed a certain amount of sleep on the bus.

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head

2009-02-15T12:00:00.001Z

Due to my late extension of my stay, I needed to swap rooms, so I had to get all my stuff out of Titi Caca room, store it down in the foyer, then later shift it into Fitz Roy room (which turned out to be directly below). This didn't really interrupt my plans for the day as (a) I hadn't really come up with any ideas what to do, since I wasn't planning on staying this long and (b) it was raining pretty heavily. So I spent much of the day reading my way through a few books, both from my collection in my pack (helpfully replenished from the book exchange in Bs As when I left) and the hostel's book exchange. I braved the rain mid-afternoon to make a quick trip to the supermarket, where I got the ingredients for making pasta sauce and picked up a couple of bottles of the local vino to sample, given that America del Sur was one of the more reasonable hostels in terms of allowing guests to bring in their own drinks if they so wished.

These I consumed later in the evening, helped out (at least with the wine) by one of my room-mates, Agnieszka, who is Polish but studies at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands and is yet another person I've met who is studying abroad in Santiago, Chile. She and various others were having the Asado dinner I'd had my first night, and I ended up going into town with her and an Austrian lad who'd been on her glacier trip, where we eventually wound up back in Casablanca, talking to some Swedish girls Aga had met earlier in the trip and a couple of Quebecois boys who were trying frantically to chat them up. This intrepid foursome made their way over to the Casino later on, whilst we headed back to our end of town, where Aga's Austrian friend was staying in the campsite, and ended up sitting around drinking more wine with a bunch of Chilean students on holiday there. Given that I had to get up and get on my bus the next day, I left them there around 4am and shambled back up the hill to America del Sur, there to get whatever sleep I could.

Patagonia dreamin'

2009-02-14T12:00:00.000Z

Order of the day - sort out my self-inflicted travel woes. My aide in this was another of the hostel's fantastic staff, Yamila, who helped me out by going through the small print of my ticket with me and checking the e-mail I had composed in my workmanlike Español to the transport company, then (once I eventually, after about 3 hours, got the confirmation in that my big ticket had been amended) booking that elusive El Calafate to Gallegos bus. My hostel in Puerto Madryn was similarly brilliant about my changing my reservation, and just like that, it was all fixed.

A good start to what is generally My Least Favourite Day Of The Year. Better yet, I went back to my dinner venue of the previous night, the Casablanca pub-restaurant, where I managed to watch both an FA Cup game and the Wales-England match from the 6 Nations (the result of the latter may have gone against us, partly aided by a horrific referee-ing display from pesky South African Jonathan Kaplan, but at least England played with some kind of feeling and panache again). All this accompanied by more of the very pleasant cerveza negra from the Austral brewery just over the border in Chile. Afterwards, I popped back to the hostel for a catnap of about an hour or so before heading into town again.

First order of business was dinner, for which I treated myself to one of the local specialities, trout, cooked in this case in a beer sauce with onions and peppers. From the restaurant, I headed on to the venue for the celebratory concerts, although as I arrived there wasn't actually a band playing. Instead, I had unwittingly turned up to the decisive stage of the contest to find the Reina del Lago Argentino, the Queen of Silver Lake - there were girls from various of the districts around the area all competing for this prestigious title, and I ended up standing through the best part of an hour of the contest, a comedian and a long medley of Phil Collins songs over the PA system (seriously) before the night's headline performance, a nationally known group called La Bersuit.

The music was pretty eclectic, anything from quite stately, almost folk, songs through to bouncing tunes more akin to rock, all pushed along by the three singers. Style-wise, the only thing I could perhaps compare it to amongst English-language groups I know would be The Cat Empire, although the latter has more of a salsa and reggae emphasis. In true Argentine style, it looked set to continue well into the small hours, so I made my way back out of the crowd around 1am, slightly confused to be stumbling over push-chairs and baby-buggies as I did so (the Argentine tendency to stay up until all hours starts early...) and headed back to the hostel.

Ice ice, baby

2009-02-13T12:00:00.000Z

The glacier tour necessitated a relatively early start, with a pick-up from the hostel between 8 and 8:30, ahead of the trip out from El Calafate into the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, which takes about 2 hours or so to get to by the glacier face. I had decided to pay the necessary additional Ar$35 to take a boat trip of about an hour out on the lake itself, giving a chance to see the glacier from below, at lake level, as well as the normal views from the hillside facing the leading edge. This was properly chilly, but pretty spectacular - the only downsides were that it was quite overcast at this point, meaning the photos perhaps lacked a little of the magic a clear blue sky as background might have given them, and that we didn't actually see any icebergs calving at this point on the trip.

However, both these factors were remedied as the afternoon wore on - despite the light drizzle which disfigured my otherwise stunningly picturesque picnic lunch, the sun came out after a while, and we saw numerous blocks of ice breaking off from the face of the glacier, accompanied by detonation sounds, and tumbling into the lake below. I saw a couple of chunks which were maybe two or three stories high fall off, although not the most spectacular type, when chunks the whole height of 70m or so of the face, plus potentially a fair bit below the waterline, go off with a real bang.

On return to the hostel, I asked Patricio, another of the staff, to ring up and book me a bus ticket out of town to Rio Gallegos on Sunday. This was intended to link in with the ticket I had already booked for myself up from there to Puerto Madryn, my next stop. I didn't anticipate this being a problem. Unfortunately, at this point I was reminded that it was Friday 13th, when I discovered that of the 3 companies running services on my desired route, one doesn't operate on Sundays, one only has a service at 4am, and the last was already full on the noon and 2:30pm departures. Bugger.

I either accepted leaving El Calafate at 3 or 4 in the morning with a layover of 12 hours or more in Rio Gallegos (really not a good thing) or I had to try and change my other ticket. The latter option, unfortunately, had to be done directly with the company involved as I had booked online, and they only worked 9-6 on weekdays and 9-1 on Saturdays, and I was already too late to get it changed that evening. My sole window to fix this was the following morning, at which point I would have to also get my Calafate-Rio Gal ticket set up, and change my reservation at the hostel I had pre-booked in Puerto Madryn. Oh, and I needed a bed for Sunday night in Calafate now. Luckily, despite the inauspicious date, my luck was at least in on the last front - there was precisely one bed left in the hostel for that additional night.

The faintly ironic thing about all of this was that this type of situation was precisely the kind of thing I warned people about when I worked for TF, and they asked me why they should book with an agent rather than doing it all themselves over the web. Had I, for example, got the guys on the travel desk in my hostel in Bs As to book both my tickets, I could have had it all sorted, but no, I had to do it myself and try and be clever. Part of the upshot of this was that, though I tried not to think about it and just go and enjoy my time in town (there was a concert that evening as part of the town's birthday celebrations), I was too worried about whether I could get it all sorted the next day to relax, and ended up coming back after a burger and a pint of beer from a Chilean microbrewery and having a fairly early night.

Due South...

2009-02-12T12:00:00.000Z

Time to leave Buenos Aires, again, but this time for good. After an early checkout, I headed post-haste over to an internet cafe near my first Bs As hostel, where I knew I would be able to sort out my photos without getting to the stage of wanting to throw my assigned computer on the floor and jump up and down on it until it was in little tiny pieces. It's one of my occasional pet hates when travelling, internet cafes that try and control what you can do too much - locked down commands and permissions, trying to charge extra when you burn data to discs yourself and sometimes now adult filters, which hilariously seem to regard sites like Hostelworld (where I often book dorm beds in advance) or Facebook as "adult content". Somewhat less hilariously, they then proceed to close the browser automatically, no matter what you might be doing.

Having fixed my backup issue by burning two brand new copies of my combined photos, I hot-footed my way back to the hostel, picked up my packs and got on the local bus to Aeroparque, Buenos Aires' domestic airport, for my flight down to El Calafate. The airport itself was small and very well organised, and a pleasure to transit through, and the flight itself was quite comfortable - I was surprised by quite how much legroom there was on my flight with LAN. I had been hoping for some views of the Andes on the flight, but sadly this was not to be due to our flightpath. I did get some nice vistas over the Pampas and then the wild open spaces of Patagonia, though.

On arrival in El Calafate, I noticed straight away that my decision to bring a fleece and other winter gear to South America was not going to be in vain - whilst it was quite warm in the stark Patagonian sunshine, the air temperature was distinctly cool and the breeze quite biting, and my decision to wear my sandals rather than my shoes seemed slightly less sensible than it had in the sultry warmth of the capital. I hopped onto the shuttle bus from the airport, which helpfully dropped me right at the door of my home for my time in southern Patagonia, the America del Sur hostel. I was met on my arrival by Federico, one of the staff members, who pointed the dog he was carrying at me and cheerily asked me what I thought of his rifle. It was that kind of place, one of the most welcoming stops of my trip so far.

After dumping my bags in my dorm, I headed into town to explore for a while, popped into the supermarket to get supplies for the next day, and then came back to the hostel for another Asado night. To the accompaniment of copious amounts of beef and chorizo sausage, not to mention a wide assortment of salads and accompaniments and a few litre bottles of beer, I settled down and enjoyed the view out over Lago Argentino, meeting some of my fellow hostellers in the process, including two girls (Emma and Alexis) from Jersey, which I think is a first for me on the road - I've met Manx before, but not to my recollection Channel Islanders. After all this, I settled in for a relatively early night, ahead of my trip the next morning, the must-do attraction of southern Patagonia, the Perito Moreno glacier.

A painful last episode in BA

2009-02-11T12:00:00.000Z

Woke up with an unfortunate feeling of Ouch - somehow in the night, much as I had prior to my departure from the UK, I had managed to pull a muscle in my back, which I have now been informed is probably something to do with my left shoulder. Whatever the cause, this is obviously not ideal when one is wandering around carrying the best part of 20kg of backpack, which on this morning I would take down to the ferry terminal in Colonia, and up from the ferry terminal in Buenos Aires to my hostel there. However, we do what we must. I think my attempts to reach around and massage my own shoulder whilst on the ferry, possibly combined with the design of the ferry seats, didn't help, and by the time I got back to the HostelSuites on Florida I was in a state approaching mild agony.

Unfortunately, as per usual at the larger, busier hostels, I was unable to check in straight away as the beds hadn't been readied after the previous night, so I went and checked my mails, then lay on my back on the hard floor for a little while to try and let my back straighten out and hopefully become a little less painful. In the midst of this, I then encountered Matthias, the German lad who had been in my hostel in Montevideo, along with the 2 Norwegian surf enthusiasts from the same place - this wasn't a total surprise, given that I had recommended the hostel to them, but I hadn't realised they'd still be there. Matthias and I then headed out, along with a Belgian named Reuben and Geva, one of the hordes of Israelis travelling in South America, for lunch. For this we ended up settling on one of Buenos Aires' surprising number of All-You-Can-Eat Chinese restaurants, just to be different (and it was cheap...) - at this point, we discovered that Geva was anything but a typical Israeli traveller as he happily started demolishing sweet-and-sour pork.

Appetite sated, I headed back to the hostel, checked into my dorm, got myself cleaned up after lugging a backpack around in the heat that morning, then went out to try and back up some more of my photos. This ended up being both more expensive than I'd expected and deeply frustrating, as the internet cafe I was using had their system more locked down than most, which somehow interfered with the Nero program I was using to burn the photos to DVD and meant that it gleefully overwrote the original copies on one of my discs rather than adding to them. At this point, I thanked my lucky stars for my policy of making two copies, as it meant I had not just lost everything from the first part of my trip. However, I bid that cafe adieu, and went and bought myself a load more blank DVDs, resolving to try and fix the various backups the next morning.

Somewhat irritated, I returned to my hostel, propped myself into a position where my back was held as straight as possible and settled in to watch the France-Argentina football friendly which was being shown on the TV there - in honour of this, most of the staff (the male ones, anyway) were in either Argentina shirts or their various club ones, drinking beer and getting quite excitable. Bit of a feeling of home there, although the commentary, featuring the "Goooooooooooooooooooooool!! Gol gol gol gol goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!" style vocal histrionics for which Latin American commentators are famous, broke the feeling of resemblance somewhat. After the match, I met up for a last time with Ana, my local friend, and we went for dinner back at the little place I had found on my first evening in Buenos Aires, which gave the whole thing a pleasing air of symmetry.

How many Chivitos does one man need?

2009-02-10T12:00:00.000Z

A bit of a wasted day. I had realised by this point that there really wasn't any need to stay an extra night in Colonia, as after looking around the old town there is pretty much sod-all else to do. Unfortunately, when I went down to the offices of Buquebus at the ferry port around lunchtime (I had accidentally overslept somewhat...) I found that they couldn't get me on a boat until 8:15 that evening, which offered little or no advantage over the 9:15am crossing the next day I already had. The internet connections in town were slow, and by the time I had done a circuit of pretty much every connection in town trying to find somewhere with a DVD-writer, my patience was wearing thin. Just to improve my mood, which was already somewhat flakey due to my having been monstered by bedbugs, the city was then hit by a fairly determined thunder-storm, at which point those of us in the hostel decided the only real option was to settle in for a heavy dose of DVD-watching.

The hostel had a pretty decent library of DVDs, of which we ended up watching No Country For Old Men (good, if somewhat black and gory, and the Texan accents could sometimes do with subtitles!), You Don't Mess With The Zohan (strong contender for silliest film I have ever seen) and Eagle vs Shark (a New Zealand indie film, but I couldn't watch it because there was a time-lag between the soundtrack and the pictures which messed with my head). After this, it was hostel dinner time (I didn't fancy braving the downpour in search of food) which was... chivitos. Just to be different. And then it was time for bed.

Colonial capers

2009-02-09T12:00:00.000Z

Time to leave Montevideo. A morning departure meant another brush with the anarchy of hostel breakfast time before navigating my way back through the city bus system to the Tres Cruces (Three Crosses) bus terminal - as with most South American cities, the main intercity bus terminal is out of the town centre so all the coaches aren't fighting their way in and out of the centre all the time. I then had another uneventful 2.5 hours on the coach back to Colonia, where I had a couple of nights to spend. I was staying at another of the El Viajero hostels there, which was actually probably slightly nicer than the one in Montevideo, with a good chill-out/TV/DVD area. Having got in slightly earlier than I'd thought I might, I had another chivito (though chicken this time) for lunch, finished off another book (Bel Canto, which I can strongly recommend) and then went off for a wander around the Barrio Historico, which is actually the remnants of the first European colony in what is now Uruguay, set up by the Portuguese from Brasil to try and break the Spanish monopoly on local trade via Buenos Aires.

Looking around the old cobbled streets, clambering around on the remnants and reconstructions of the colony walls and climbing the lighthouse kepot me occupied for a few hours, after which I had an ice-cream down by the waterfront and then headed back to the hostel, where I met a couple of my room-mates, a Kiwi called Rian (no, it wasn't just a mispronunciation of Ryan or anything, his folks were Indian) and an American called Carlo, and also had a bit of a chat with a couple of Scottish girls, Dawn and Emma, who were on the tail end of their trip and facing up to the prospect of heading home - there do seem to be a lot more people heading anti-clockwise around South America at the moment, but that may be the effect of people trying to be in Rio for Carnaval. Rian and I ended up grabbing some food at one of the local restaurants, and then tiredness kicked in and I watched a bit of TV back at the hostel with the Scots lasses and crashed out.

A quiet Sunday in Montevideo

2009-02-08T12:00:00.001Z

hh, the joys of a lie-in. Haven't had so many of them on this trip, as it seems a shame to miss out on a free breakfast when it's part of the deal in your accommodation, but occasionally my tiredness wins, especially with the somewhat underwhelming offerings in Argentina and Uruguay on the breakfast front. No real plans for the day, so in the end I decided to indulge my football- and history-loving sides and went out to Parque Jorge Batlle to see the Estadio Centenario (Centenary Stadium), built to celebrate 100 years of Uruguayan independence and host to the first ever World Cup Final (won, incidentally, by the hosts). I couldn't actually get in to see inside, as even the museum was closed, but I had a wander around and admired the monument to the winners, the base of which has carved in the names of all the winning teams from 1930 to 1990, all the while trying to keep to the shade as much as possible as my bandana was in the laundry and I was in dire danger of sunburnt scalp.

On the way back into town, I paid a visit to the giant flea-market which takes place every sunday on and around Calle Tristan Narvaja. Loads of stalls selling clothes, food, books, jewellery, even pets as well as random stuff which could be antique or could simply be junk, running for about 7 blocks. Interesting enough to look around for a bit, but I was getting tired and rather warm by this point, so I wandered back over to the hostel, where I spent some of the afternoon online and a bit more reading. Dinner consisted of my first encounter with a chivito, a Uruguayan speciality which is best described as a steak sandwich with everything bar the kitchen sink added (my Aussie friends would be pleased to know this even sometimes includes beetroot, though I haven't yet seen one with pineapple added to the mix). After this, I headed back to El Viajero, for a bit more conversation and drinks with my friends from the previous night, along with a couple more new arrivals.

Medio y Medio me gusta...

2009-02-07T12:00:00.000Z

I started the day in some confusion, as whatever its other merits, El Viajero's breakfast setup wasn't very well-organised. After that, I just chilled out for a bit, finishing my book from the previous day's travels (I'm ashamed to admit to actually quite enjoying a Jeffrey Archer novel....) and then going for a wander around town. I was somewhat distressed to be unable to find anywhere showing the 6 Nations rugby games as even the Irish pubs in town weren't open at lunchtime, so I instead headed over to the Mercado del Puerto, the Port Market, which is these days packed with seafood restaurants. There I treated myself to swordfish, baked sweet potato, salad and a couple of glasses of Medio y Medio (literally "half-and-half"), a mixture of still and sparkling white wine which is a speciality of Uruguay, and of Montevideo in particular. I also got some practice in on my Spanish, chatting with a psychoanalyst from Buenos Aires and his daughter who were sat next to me at the restaurant's bar, which gave me a bit more confidence that I could hold down some kind of reasonable conversation that did not revolve around restaurant menus, hostel reservations, bus tickets or the facilities at an internet cafe (my 4 principal areas of expertise in Spanish to this point...).

Feeling properly full after this, I went for a stroll arond the Ciudad Vieja, the old town, and along part of the Malecon, the seawall promenade facing the river. Once I headed back over to the area near my hostel, I watched a few songs being played by a Blues band in the Plaza de la Constitucion. Very bizarre to have them belting these tunes out in Southern US English, and then on finishing they swapped back to Latino Spanish to talk to the crowd. After that I headed back to the hostel, where I ended up having a chat and a beer up on one of the balconies with Wanda, another of the receptionists, and a couple of Norwegian girls embarked on a surfing tour of South America, until it was time for the asado.

The Asado is another manifestation of the great South American BBQ tradition, and quite a lot of the hostels here have them. In this case, the cooking was done on a brick oven-style setup on the roof terrace, which was also where we ate. I was joined in this by my Norwegian friends from earlier, as well as a couple of Americans, a German guy and an Argentine lass. All very happy and civilised, and it was interesting from talking to the Yanks how much the Obama factor has made them feel more welcome when travelling than a few years ago. After food, Rob (one of the Americans) and I popped into town for a couple of drinks out on the pavement tables by the main bar area. However, once he decided to go on for a night out dancing, I made my apologies and headed back to my bunk.

It may not be Rio, but it's still Carnaval...

2009-02-06T12:00:00.000Z

Another day, another stamp or two in the passport. Time to go to Uruguay. Due to it being Carnaval season, the fast boat I wanted to take across the river to the heritage port town of Colonia del Sacramento was full, so in order to get to Montevideo in time for the evening's festivities, I had to take the slow car ferry at 0930, meaning being at the ferry terminal of Buquebus by 0830, meaning being up and about disgustingly early. The things I do for travel sometimes... I choose also to blame the unspeakably early hour for the near-loss of my passport, which decided to take a swallow-dive out of my hands from an upper level in the ferry terminal, resulting in a not-terribly-muffled exclamation of "shit", a frantic surge back to and down the stairs to the main concourse and a relieved reunion with said travel document once I had explained to the Argentine gentleman who had picked it up off the floor in confusion that it was mine.

The crossing of the Rio Plata itself was relatively easy, although to get some perspective here it should be noted that the fast catamarans take around an hour to cross the estuary at this point and the car ferry takes around 3 hours - that river is almost certainly wider than the Channel even at that point. After watching the departure from Bs As, I decided fairly quickly that an unending vista of brown water was not reato my taste and went and crashed out in a chair for much of the crossing. On arrival at Colonia, it was a simple matter of claiming my bag, getting on the waiting bus (the joys of through-ticketing!) and heading off for around 2.5 hours east to the capital, Montevideo, which journey left me the lasting impression that southern Uruguay makes Cambridgeshire look hilly.

On arrival in Montevideo, I got a boost to my confidence in my Spanish proficiency when I managed to get from the bus terminal into the centre of town and on to my hostel without being able to use any English in the process (and without getting lost either). There I was checked into El Viajero by two lads both confusingly called Felipe, so they had settled that one would be Filo and the other would be Pepe, which at least made things manageable. I took a little time to get myself settled in before heading off that evening for the parades, where I had paid through the hostel to get myself space on one of the terrazas, the balconies or roof terraces where many of the families on the route rent out space to people who want an uninterrupted view of the festivities. I was the only one from my hostel going that evening (quite a few had gone to a similar event the previous night), but my fears of having nobody to talk to were unfounded, as I had an "it's a small world" moment, bumping into two Finnish girld I had met briefly in Florianopolis just before I left there, and also chatted with the owners of another hostel who were there with some of their guests.

The parade itself is called the Desfile des Llamadas, which translates roughly to the "Parade of the Calls" or something similar. The initial part is a short series of floats carrying the Princesses of the parade, all in white dresses and dancing to the music, after which comes the main part, the marching groups. Each of these follows the same basic pattern, with the first members to come along being those waving the giant flags (almost exclusively males), followed by the first of the female dancers in costumes of varying levels of spangly-ness, then somewhere along the dancers will be a series of "character dancers" dressed up as old men and ladies, before usually the most stereotypical Carnaval dancers (the ones whose costume makers appear to have only had time to get to the shops for sequins and feathers) and then the drummers. There aren't any other instruments, all the music is provided by the drums, which are all large African-style ones carried on straps, of varying pitches, and played in superb unison. The style of music and dancing is known as candombé, and is of largely African origin. Although the same basic pattern is followed by each group, there are variations in the costume, the specific tune laid down by the drums, the dancing and the overall theme, and these are assessed by a panel of judges who determine the "winners" of the parade sometime the following day. The whole affair lasts a goodly part of the night - the first parades came along just around sunset at about a quarter to nine, and when I left around 2am, exhaustion having got the better of me, they were still going through. There are so many groups now that the parade is actually split over 2 days.

Yes, Buenos Aires has tube strikes as well...

2009-02-05T12:00:00.000Z

Not the most active day either. After a lie-in (having concluded that the hostel breakfast wasn't really worth getting up for) I went for another wander around town, heading up to the Congreso, the seat of Argentina's parliament, which is very impressive, but didn't look as much so as it might have done given the grey skies behind it and the raindrops which suddenly made an unwelcome reappearance. I tried escaping into internet cafes, but had a couple of slightly weird experiences - the first one would not allow me to look at the Hostelworld website I use to book beds ahead of time, firmly announcing on-screen that this site may contain adult content and the browser would be closed; and the second one had a mouse with the sensitivity settings set way too high so that controlling the thing was nigh-on impossible. After the minor success of at least managing to speak to Mum on Skype, I gave up on this and made my way home, a journey enlivened by the unwelcome discovery that on this wet day the tube drivers had gone on strike, so the subway I had been planning to take was not running.

I was due to meet up with Ana again in the evening, but had time to make a diversion to Buller's Downtown, the city centre pub for a microbrewery based out in Recoleta (which I had frustratingly been within about 100 yards of when visiting the cemetery, without even realising it). There I had a sample tray, allowing me to taste their full range (Light Lager, Hefeweizen, Honey Beer, Oktoberfest, IPA, Stout) and subsequently had time for an additional pint of the Honey Beer (not too sweet, nicely balanced and surprisingly drinkable for an 8.5% beer - the IPA, on the other hand, was a trifle disappointing, with very little hop taste). I also ended up chatting in my broken Spanish with a couple of the bar staff, as a result of which I now know the Spanish words for bitter (amarga) and hops (lupulos). Having just made it back in time to meet up with Ana, we then wandered off to explore a bar she knew called Bellgamba, which is an amazing place, full of old photos and posters and beer bottles, really atmospheric. After one or two other stops along the way, I walked her back to her place and then made my way back to the hostel, as I had to be up bright and early for my departure to Uruguay in the morning.

Not a lot happening

2009-02-04T12:00:00.000Z

A lazy day. I said goodbye at breakfast time to Aina, who was headed gleefully south to Patagonia, where she intends to get some good use out of her tent. Much of the middle of the day disappeared in a siesta, before meeting up with Nanna again in the afternoon for a late lunch back at the Deli I'd been to with Ana (and their chicken sandwich was just as monstrous as the steak one had been) and heading back to the hostel. At this point, my inner Pom was let out to play as we settled down to watch the Liverpool-Everton FA Cup game, which the hostel was showing on the TV in the common area. Nanna lasted about half of this before pleading shopping commitments and making her departure. That evening I had a few drinks with a couple of Aussies, Nick and Sam, who had been in my hostel in Puerto Iguazu, who valiantly tried to teach me to play poker. Once again, I get some of the mechanics of it, but am nowehere near the stage where I would regard it as a pleasant pastime. And that was about that.

An Al Fresco day

2009-02-03T12:00:00.000Z

My final morning in Milhouse, as it was time to shift to the newer, shinier, air-conditioned splendour of the HostelSuites on Florida. Having effectively given myself a dress rehearsal when heading over there when Aina moved a couple of days earlier, it all went swimmingly, though once again I had to pop stuff in storage while they waited to get the beds cleared. So I put the time to good use by finally managing to catch up with Ana for lunch. We met up in the Plaza de Mayo, where I was treated to the sight of her hobbling in with one foot in a padded-boot setup, a result of injuries sustained whilst sand-boarding back at Floripa. Although she called it sand-surfing, which had apparently already led to one amusing misunderstanding when a colleague thought she said she had injured it salsa-ing (Ana doesn't really dance, a view I can certainly sympthise with). Still, I don't know, you leave someone to her own devices for a few days and she manages to invalid herself. Lunch consisted of a couple of empanadas (kind of like pasties) for her, and one of the biggest sandwiches I've ever attacked for me - does a steak sandwich really need ham, salad and boiled egg added to the mix (there would have been cheese, but we all know my thoughts on that subject)? All taken in one of the little al fresco cafes which contribute towards the air of European elegance for which Buenos Aires is famous.

Once Ana headed off to work, I headed back to the hostel, got checked in, and then headed for San Telmo, where I was meeting up with my other Danish friend of the trip so far, Nanna, who had arrived from Iguazu that morning and was feeling slightly marooned without her sister Mette (the two had been travelling together thus far and had now finally parted ways). We went for a wander around the neighbourhood that gave birth to the Tango (no, I don't mean the bloody soft drink, before anyone tries to be witty), having a drink in another little open-air cafe, this time in a little plaza, and then headed down to Puerto Madero, where we had a slightly more considered look-around than I had managed whilst fruitlessly searching for Ana in the baking sun the previous day. We had thought of meeting up with Aina that evening for dinner, but it wasn't to be, as she was off visiting a friend of a friend. And, to be honest, things would have got a little confusing name-wise if I had managed to catch up with Ana, Nanna and Aina all in the same day.

As it was, Nanna and I went to El Desnivel, the place which had been recommended to Aina and I back on the Saturday I arrived, where we had a very pleasant meal, rather more restrained in portion size than some of the others I'd had, accompanied this time simply by half a litre of the house red (served, bizarrely, in a china jug shaped like a dolphin). After that, we wandered over to Calle Chile (Chile St), where we found a nice little restaurant with yet another outdoor seating area and proceeded to work our way through another bottle or so of vino, this time of the Rosado (Rosé) variety, setting the world to rights, exchanging tales and just watching the world go by. I am starting to get disturbingly grown-up in my drinking - drinking wine al fresco whilst watching the world go by? What's happened to my beer-guzzling madness of days gone by? Ah well, I can't compain, it was a very pleasant, relaxing night.

Crossed wires

2009-02-02T12:00:00.000Z

Another day in Buenos Aires, another underwhelming breakfast, enlivened more by conversation than anything else (and to be honest, a lot of that in Milhouse focused more on the "bloody hell, what did I drink last night?" avenue than anything more serious), in this case with Danyel, an Aussie girl who I think I must have bumped into at breakfast every day there. My plan for the day was to try and meet up with Ana, my Argentine friend from Floripa, for lunch before her work in the afternoon. Here, unfortunately, we had a case of crossed wires, largely my fault I think, such that I ended up down at Puerto Madero, the district we'd been talking about going to for lunch, and she came to the hostel to find me. D'Oh! So I had to content myself with having an ice-cream and looking around the newest district of Buenos Aires. It was originally built as Buenos Aires' harbour at the end of the 19th century, but this was done just before the innovations in shipbuilding which resulted in much larger ships and meant that it had become obsolete less than 20 years after it was finished. The area sat fallow until the late 1980s at which point, in a story familiar to many residents of former industrial cities in the UK, it was converted into restaurants, bars and new housing, becoming the newest residential district of the capital.

After this, I walked back up towards the hostel, going past the Casa Rosada and Plaza de Mayo along the way, where (surprise, surprise) there was a demonstration in progress. Ana reckons the Argentines have got so used to people always protesting about something that the police don't bother to respond now most of the time, such that the city hall (at the other end of the Plaza from the Pink House) had its ground floor liberally spattered with red and blue paint stains, and apparently it has to be repainted every month or so to stop it getting totally pebble-dashed.

Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent aimlessly wandering around the city centre, catching up on the internet, buying myself a watch (my nice one stays at home, and I lost my last cheap one in China, so I had to get one here in South America) and some sunglasses (again, I have my prescription ones with me, but prefer not to wear them all the time, especially on boat trips and the like, to avoid scratching and potential loss - and I didn't get any in Brasil as most of those there are just coloured plastic, being intended more as a fashion statement than as sun protection for the eyes...), and managing to add to my collection of flag patches. Buenos Aires seems pretty well stocked with places selling them, so I now have the appropriate ones for Uruguay and Paraguay, as well as for Cuba (I could not find one while out there for love nor money) and, surprisingly, Slovenia (I had been looking for one of these for over 2 years with no luck and I find one over here!). A mammoth sewing session beckons.

That evening, I was feeling relatively tired after my perambulations about town, so I ended up doing what I despaired of some of the Milhouse inmates for doing, and just staying in having a few drinks at the hostel bar rather than going out at all. In this we were joined by a German lass named Tina, another of those studying in South America. It all started off relatively well, but as per usual the hostel bar resorted to the usual tactics of playing loud Hip-Hop music as the night went on, and my enthusiasm for anything other than my bunk just withered and died.

Lazing on a sunny Sunday afternoon

2009-02-01T12:00:00.000Z

Another month, another dissapointing Argentine hostel breakfast. That said, the fact that I made it up for breakfast was relatively impressive. Aina and I decided it was time to do some more exploring, given that the weather was holding fair (it had apparently been cloudy, rainy and horrible on Friday, so for once luck with the weather was with me), so we headed off to see some of Bs As' Sunday markets, specifically those in Recoleta and Palermo. These are two of the richest and trendiest of the suburbs, with the former holding one of the city's tourist "must-sees", the Cementario Recoleta. Yes, I know, cemeteries aren't normally my idea of a tourist attraction either, but this one is more like a miniature necropolis, it's all family tombs and mausolea and the like, rather than just gravestones, with an extraordinary variety of architectural styles. The typical tourist draw is Evita's grave in the Duarte family mausoleum, but we didn' bother with that, just contenting ourselves with walking around goggling at the wide range of tomb designs. There's an awful lot of Generals in there...

After we'd had our fill of admiring graves, we headed out to have a look around the craft market which sets up at the weekends just outside the cemetery in Plaza Francia. This was actually mostly surprisingly good stuff - proper artisan- and craft-work rather than the mass-produced tat I've seen in most markets since coming to South America. The leatherwork in particular was very very impressive. Given how little space a backpack allows one for shopping, I restricted myself to getting a little leather wrist-band, but on a short holiday you could have a field day at these kinds of markets. Argentina isn't ultra-cheap, but for the higher-value, well-crafted stuff, it's still pretty good.

At any rate, from the markets we headed off up another of Buenos Aires' wide avenues and found ourselves a little pavement restaurant for an alfresco late-lunch (my chicken was ok, but Aina's Ensalada Completa really was a complete salad, with ham, eggs, potatoes, carrots and I think olives in with the usual suspects in a really quite sizeable bowl). From there we wandered up to a subway stop and headed further out to Palermo, possibly Buenos Aires' most stylish district, and a lovely place to walk around, with parks, tree-lined streets and little cafes all over the place. The market there was a bit less impressive, but still interesting to see (this one was more commerical stuff, T-shirts and artwork and the like, rather than craftwork). After a bit of exploring there, we headed back into town, where Aina had moved to another hostel, the HostelSuites on Florida (where I am now, incidentally).

After leaving Aina there, I was headed back over to Milhouse, when I discovered a crowd on Ave de Mayo, near the end around Plaza de Mayo. It turned out they were gathered around watching a circus skills performance, with tightrope walking, trapeze and some really quite impressive acrobatics. This little unexpected free extra entertainment easily helped while away another half an hour or so before my return to the Milhouse. There, I ended up chatting with two South African brothers, Alan and Julian, who had been based in the UK for a while and had taken a break to travel around South America. With a minimum of arm-twisting, I agreed to go for steaks and wine again (I know, it's a hard life this travelling malarkey...), and once again we weren't able to go to the preferred venue and ended up back at La Casa, my impromptu venue the night before. This time I didn't go for one of the deals on the menu, and just went for the biggest monster steak (a Bife de Chorizo), at the majestic price of just over 5 pounds, which promptly turned out to be around the size of a large dinner plate and about two inches thick. With the aid of a bottle of La Carcassonne (also eminently drinkable, and also less than 4 of your pounds sterling), we eventually battered our way through these monsters, and headed back to the Milhouse, where Julian and, shortly thereafter, Alan succumbed to the effects of a bloody long day, a flight from Cape Town to Buenos Aires and about half a cow, and sought out their bunks. I lasted only a little longer myself, I have to admit. Gluttony is very tiring.

¡Bienvenido en Buenos Aires!

2009-01-31T12:00:00.000Z

Having been awakened pre-dawn to the onboard breakfast, we eventually rolled into Retiro, BA's central bus station. It's big, probably at least as big as Sao Paulo's, and fairly manic. We had to get across this, then past the train station (also called Retiro) to reach the subte (underground) station, which would send us in the direction of our hostel. Unfortunately, on the way we were hit by one of the more famous of the scams perpetrated in BA - some of the less-pleasant locals squirted us with some kind of mixture (in the guidebooks, they mention it's often mustard or some kind of white liquid designed to look like bird-shit, though this looked a bit more like vomit). Knowing about this, I told Ross to ignore the gentlemen gathered around us wafting their noses and pointing at our bags and keep moving - it's all designed to make you stop to try and clean up, or better yet take your bags off, at which point they either grab the bags or an accomplice goes for your pockets while you're distracted. So we made it onto the subte ok, but with this horrible mixture down our sides and on our bags. Lovely welcome to the city.

Still, the subway was clean, fast and easy to navigate (and cheap - less than 25p for a single), and got us easily to the Avenida de Mayo stop. This lies at the junction of the Avenida de Mayo (May Avenue) and the Avenida Nueve de Julio (9th July Avenue), which commemorate (I think) the May Revolution that started independence from Spain, and the date on which that independence was recognised - I'm more sure on the former than the latter of those. The Avenida de Mayo runs from the Casa Rosada and the Plaza de Mayo in front of it to the Congreso. The Pink House, as it is universally known, is the residence of the President of the Republic, and the Congress is the seat of the legislature - it always makes me faintly amused that one of the most macho of the Latino cultures has its President living in the Pink House. The Avenida de 9 Julio, on the other hand, runs at right angles to this across the western side of the city centre, and is often reckoned to be the widest street in the world - there's something like 3 lanes in each direction down the central Avenida itself, and another couple on either side of this, separated by flanking grass reservations, each of them a one-way street. A few blocks north of this intersection, 9 de Julio intersects with a couple of other major roads at the Plaza de Republica, which is centred on the giant Obelisco which was erected to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the city.

Why the geography lesson, you may ask? Well, it's one of the ways to try and convey the feeling of the city. By contrast with Rio, which is squeezed between Guanabara Bay and the Atlantic and surrounding hills, and Sao Paulo which, as far as I could gather from my brief transit, basically just sprawls, Buenos Aires is more laid out, classically designed, and done so on a grand scale. Those who call it the Paris of Latin America are not too far off the mark, though at times it also reminds me of both Berlin and Barcelona. The more southerly clime also means that the temperature is closer to northern European comfort levels (the lowest it's been since I've been here was about 15 degrees at night, up to about 30 during the day), the humidity's relatively low, and the daylight hours in late summer last until easily after 8pm. In short, the city is attractive, has a lovely climate, and is better set up for the traveller than almost anywhere in South America. Yes, I think I'm in love.

At any rate, appreciation of many of the finer points of this were not immediately obvious when I trudged up to the door of the Milhouse hostel that Saturday morning, travel-stained and something-else-stained as well. The Milhouse is just around the corner from the subte stop, and has built up a reputation as one of the loudest of the "party hostels" on the BA scene. Having had the place recommended by people along the way, I'd decided to try giving one of the party hostels a go, as I'd largely been staying in more chilled-out places. Check-in passed relatively painlessly, though unsurprisingly there weren't any beds free to check in to yet - this would have to wait until around 2pm. It was not yet 9am. It turned out that Ross had actually booked nto Milhouse's newer sister hostel, the Milhouse Avenue, which is up on Ave de Mayo itself, so this is where we parted ways. I headed downstairs to the bathrooms, where I proceeded to start cleaning my city welcome from my clothing and pack. Whilst it looks like it's coming out of the former relatively easily, I was most annoyed that my assailant had managed to get the stuff all over the flag patches on my pack, and the China one is still slightly icky now, days later, so I spent probably the better part of an hour blearily wiping down my bag.

After this, I went to go and check my e-mails and see if I had heard yet from Ana, my Argentine friend from my stay in Floripa. This turned out to be slightly easier said than done. Argentine hostels generally allow free internet access to guests, but the flip-side of this is that the machines are normally pretty slow and not very numerous, and don't generally have things like CD or DVD drives or Skype headphones or anything. In Milhouse's case, this amounted to 3 nigh-on prehistoric computers to serve the whole hostel, so queues and frustration were often the order of the day when checking mails in-house. Still, it was whilst checking mails that I ended chatting with Aina, a Danish girl staying at the hostel, sparked by her asking for help finding a question mark on the keyboard.

This is not actually as silly as it sounds. South American computers generally have Spanish-language (or Portuguese in Brasil, but the principle's the same) keyboards on which quite a few of the key functions are changed around or moved. What made it confusing here is that Milhouse's machines have Spanish keyboards but are set up as English-language machines, so the computer recognises the keyboards as English, meaning the keys do what they would in English, and not what they are labelled as. So if you know our keyboard layout and can type without looking at the keys, you can use them fine, but if you have to look for anything, it almost certainly won't be where it looks like it should be. And if you're used to, say, a Danish language keyboard then you can probably see how this gets more confusing still.

At any rate, this fortuitous exchange led to the two of us heading off in the afternoon to look around La Boca. This is one of the old harbourside districts of BA, the name literally meaning "the mouth", and has historically been a working-class district that often played home to immigrant communities, most noticeably that of the Italians who arrived during the 19th Century. It is, however, famous these days largely for two things - the brightly painted street of Caminito, which verges on being an outdoor art show, and its football team, Boca Juniors, the alma mater of Diego Armando Maradona and "Argentina's favourite sporting bad-boys". Our interest was in the former, it not being football season here yet, and this necessitated getting a bus to the centre of La Boca, the outlying areas being firmly in the "not safe to walk alone" category - indeed, even in Caminito most guides recommend having someone else with you, and this had prompted Aina's enquiry whether I wished to go along with her. Getting a bus involved rather more of a challenge, though, as this requires having change.

Particularly since the economic crisis of the early 2000s, change is a rare commodity in Argentina. The persistent rumours are that people are actually melting it down to get the base metals, which are regarded as a safer investment in case the economy goes bang again. Be that as it may, getting anything smaller than a 2-peso note (ie coins) can be tricky. Even shops and supermarkets and the like regularly say "no tenemos cambio", and certainly you won't get any without buying something. Unfortunately, the buses, due to the machines used to pay for tickets, can only be paid for with coins. This is due to change soon, with the introduction of a payment card system, but until then, everyone hoards what change they have in case they need to take a bus. At any rate, once we got on the trusty number 64 bus, it was dead easy to get to La Boca, as all we had to do was stay on to the last stop.

Once there, we headed over towards Caminito, trying to avoid the throngs of touts for the restaurants in the area. It should be noted that these were active slightly mroe than usual as it was the weekend, and many of the restaurants had free Tango demonstrations for dinners. However, given that neither of us was that hungry as yet, and that these places were obviously set up to separate tourists from dollars as efficiently as possible, we decided to pass on by and just keep exploring the surrounding streets. These yielded up photo opportunities aplenty, due to the brightly coloured wood and corrugated iron housing, with blue and yellow (Boca Juniors' colours) particularly prominent, but also scarlets, greens, purples, oranges and more. When the hunger pangs finally struck, we found a nice little shady cafe right at the edge of the tourist area and just watched the street-life for a bit.

That evening we went in search of that Argentine staple, a steak dinner. The receptionist at the hostel had recommended a place called El Desnivel. I've since found that just about every person and guidebook going recommends this as the budget choice in this part of town. What our receptionist was unaware, though, was that it was temporarily closed for refurbishment. So we wandered around a little and eventually went back to a little place around the corner called La Casa, where we indulged in a bit of steak and wine. Now, as those who've had the (mis)fortune of drinking with me may recall, I'm not generally a fan of red wine, however, I am growing to like the stuff over here. Unlike, say, Australia, Argentina doesn't seem to feel the need to oak its wine like crazy to build up strong "peppery" tastes, being quite happy to have quite smooth, easy-drinking reds. That evening, we had a bottle of Vasco Viejo, which literally translates as "old cow" I think. I doubt it wins any awards, but was quite pleasant accompanying our steaks, and at less than 3 quid a bottle in a restaurant, you can't really argue too much. 4 quid for a big steak dinner is not bad either, and both of us went away pretty pleased with our dining.

The only downside was that we had to hurry a bit, as I had arranged to meet Kita and Catriona, two friends from Ilha Grande, at about 8:30, and it was already almost that time when we finished eating, and we had to skedaddle across town. Luckily, this being Argentina, they weren't in that much of a hurry anyway, so we met up, had a drink at a roadside cafe/restaurant, then ended up going up to their hostel, which rather nicely has a roof terrace. This quick drink turned into a few more (though we did avoid joining the group from their hostel who were off to try and participate in "drunken archery" at a bar, which sounds to me like A Bad Idea...), with the participation of several more Aussies and a pair of Canadians called John Patrick and Sean Patrick (who were delighted to have another Patrick around as well, even if my middle name isn't John) and in the end Aina and I rocked back to the Milhouse around 2ish, at which point she went to bed and I had one more beer and ended up in an extended discussion on Scottish history. As you do.

Pinch me...

2009-01-30T12:00:00.000Z

You know how sometimes you wake up and wonder if you're still dreaming? Well, try and imagine my surprise upon awakening in my dorm to find that, unbeknownst to me, it was now inhabited largely by Scandinavian girls, who were walking around in their towels. Having pinched myself to be ultra-sure I wasn't still dozing, I headed off for another minimalist breakfast, where I had a nice chat with Christina and Saara, who it turned out are from Finland (though Christina is actually half-Chilean, which is an interesting mix). Ross, who was staying in the other dorm, walked in, looked suspiciously at me, and asked me where I'd suddenly conjured up all these girls from, and I had to answer truthfully that it was none of my doing.

On checking out, I was wondering what I would do to amuse myself until our 1430 bus, when an answer came to me in the form of the laces on my shoes (which had finally come out of storage briefly - I've been in sandals pretty much the whole time here), which inconveniently broke, meaning that my list of tasks accomplished in Spanish now also includes getting replacement shoelaces. I also found, completely by accident, an Argentine flag patch for my pack (and quietly cursed not having found it before my sewing session the previous night), before getting in some more internet time, including booking my flight down from Buenos Aires to El Calafate in Patagonia (next Thursday, before anyone asks).

Then it was off to the bus station, where I decided to grab some lunch before the bus, and ordered a Parilla, a traditional Argentine mixed grill, which turned out to consist of a large chunk of beef rib, a reasonable-sized steak, about a quarter of a chicken, a sausage, a blood sausage and some salsa, accompanied by a bowl of lettuce and tomato salad, another bowl of carrot and egg salad, some fried chunks of plantain or something and the obligatory basket of bread. It beat me. I just couldn't fit it all in. My first defeat by a meal on this trip. It doesn't bode well to have one of them already.

As I mentioned previously, we'd decided to go for the most luxurious class of bus we could get, which with this company (Crucero del Norte) equated to Cama Suite. We thus got on the bus intrigued as to what we would find - the answer turned out to be quite impressive. On a double-decker coach there were less than 30 berths. Each one had a fully reclining seat unit, with a foot rest that could be rotated up to extend the seat and form a fully-flat platform just over 6' long. Width-wise, there were only 3 across the breadth of the coach, so again plenty of room. Add in individual video screens, and you start getting the idea. I promptly christened our trusty steed the Uber-Bus in my head, and wondered whether I would ever be able to take one of the battered fleet of Megabus in the UK ever again.

This added comfort extended to a meal and drinks service onboard - the latter consisting of soft drinks (principally Pepsi), wine with the meal, sparkling wine after the meal, and juice or coffee with breakfast. Unfortunately, the food didn't quite impress as much as this. A very basic ham and cheese sandwich as an afternoon snack (cue Pat gingerly pulling cheese slices out of sandwich), a dinner consisting largely of what I think was supposed to be a spinach omelette but which I refuse to believe belonged to any recognised food group, and a breakfast whose centrepiece was a ham and cheese croissant (cue Pat gingerly scraping cheese out of a croissant). The Argentine obsession with ham and cheese is, in my eyes, one of their less-appealing characteristics. Still, this made my earlier splurge on a Parilla at lunchtime look more like prescience and less like pure gluttony.

The onboard movie choice can similarly best be described as "eclectic". Starting off in early afternoon with a firmly 18-rated action film, Face/Off (seen it before, but old movies beats no movies), then moving onto a serious drama (Michelle Pfeiffer in The Deep End of the Ocean, if I remember the title right), before ending up with a Hollywood/Bollywood crossover entitled Marigold. So at 3pm there's bullets, explosions and gore aplenty, whereas at 11pm there's mass-choreographed song and dance numbers. Weird. Still, all contributed to a decent atmosphere in which I at least managed to get some sleep rather than practically none.

The other side of the Falls

2009-01-29T12:00:00.000Z

Time to go and see the falls from the other side. Unfortunately it's overcast, which promises to make the photos rather less stunning than they might be. Ah well. Second minor disappointment of the morning is the breakfast - having got used to the generally fantastic brekkies in Brasilian hostels, it was a bit of a shock to be confronted with an Argentine breakfast consisting of cornflakes (with a choice, bizarrely, of cold yoghurt or hot milk to go on them - obviously I had a bit of both, just to be different) and small chunks of bread or rolls with butter and Dolce de Leche (ultra-sweet, milk-based brown spread that the Argentines are mad for). Where is my pineapple? Where is my unidentifiable tropical fruit juice slushie? Where is my cake? Still, life is full of these little disappointments, and we move on.

Getting to the Falls was pretty straightforward, just a case of hopping on the bus round the corner from the hostel and going. However, our trip out was enlivened somewhat when our bus came across another one which had broken down by the side of the road, and whose passengers were thus in need of a rescue. Said passengers amusingly included Stephen and Tricia, from the crossing the previous day - the habit of bumping into some of the same people over and over again is alive and well in South America. So, after a rather more crowded ride than had been expected, we got to the entrance to Parque Nacional Iguazu. Here, we found that this is one of the relatively few things which is more expensive in Argentina, being 60 pesos (about 12 quid), compared to 20 Reais (about 6 quid).

Disdaining the miniature train which is there for those who really don't want to walk when they can avoid it, we took a little trail through the forest, where we encountered Coatis. This pleased Ross no end, as he'd been quite disappointed not to have seen any of the little racoon-like creatures whilst we were on the Brasilian side. We also got a demonstration of why you are advised to keep any food out of sight in backpacks and the like - the lady walking in front of us had a whicker bag, which the Coatis zero'd in on and started trying to scrabble their way into. They apparently do this all the time to plastic or paper bags, as they've learnt that these often have food in. Given that Coatis, despite their cuteness, are potential rabies carriers, and can bite, we stayed mostly clear, with the closest contact being when they swarmed past our legs headed for the large group of tourists behind us.

Once into the park, there are 3 main things to do - the Paseo Superior (Upper Trail) takes you up along by the tops of some of the waterfalls, while the Paseo Inferior (Lower Trail) takes you face-to-face with the lower sections, usually from a fair way distant, but sometimes within a few feet of the water. The Lower Trail also gives access to the Aventura Nautica, a boat trip that Ross and I had decided to do. This consists of around 12-15 minutes in a Zodiac-type inflatable boat, taking in the views of the falls from river level and going in close to some of them. Very close. We went into the spray at the base of the Salto San Martin (which I think is the second largest flow after the Garganta), and actually dipped under one of the lesser falls round the far side of the Isla San Martin. Total soaking - thank heavens for dry bags - but quite an experience!

After our dousing, we climbed back up to by the rim, and grabbed some lunch, bumping into Stephen and Tricia again along the way. To top off his cold, Ross also had a bit of an upset stomach at this point (well, he'd had it since Floripa, but it was bothering him again), and the sun had come out, so we stopped in the restaurant and had a proper sit-down meal in the cool indoors. After that, it was onto the miniature train at last for the connection over to the final pass, out to the Garganta del Diablo. This actually takes you out over the river above the falls, so is mostly over-water boardwalks, giving opportunities for spotting Caimans (small, much less aggressive cousins of alligators) and the like. With the sun shining, the views out over the cauldron of foam and mist that is the Garganta were stunning. It was then a case of back to the bus, back to town, and back to the hostel. Ross and I clubbed together to get some pasta and sauce, and cooked ourselves some food that evening (the only time I've done so so far this trip). I spent a couple of hours downloading, sorting and backing up my photos so far to DVD, and then fixed a couple of the flags on my pack that were coming loose, as well as adding the Brasilian flag to my collection. And then it was time, once again, to crash out.

Who needs immigration officers anyway?

2009-01-28T12:00:00.000Z

Arose to the familiar routine of packing up and checking out. Life on the road being what it is, you spend quite a bit of time packing and unpacking, but that doesn't actually make it any more fun. At least in this case, I was only hopping over the river, so corners could be cut as long as everything fits in the packs. Before going to Argentina (across the Rio Iguacu), however, I was crossing the Rio Parana into Paraguay. The reasoning behind this is pretty simple - I like being able to say I've been to countries, I hadn't been to Paraguay before, it was as easy as hopping on a bus, so why not?

Well, it turns out that, although it's easy to get to Paraguay, it's not necessarily quick. The bus dawdled along at only slightly over walking pace, attempting to pick up every possible passenger on the way to the border, regardless whether or not they were at a bus stop or showing any interest in the bus. The border formalities were non-existent - Ciudad del Este is a duty-free city, so Brasilians pretty much come and go as they please, and the same applies to foreigners coming from Brasil, as long as they're only coming for the day (presumably, they take a bit more notice if you have a big bag...?).

It also turns out that Ciudad del Este is a bit of a hole. Actually, it's quite a lot of a hole. Existing as a support town for the Itaipu hydroelectric dam and a duty-free stopover for Brasilians hunting for bargains, it has evolved into something akin to a cross between Khao San Road in Bangkok and Nathan Road in Hong Kong, but expanded out to the size of a small city, with everyone speaking Spanish. On a hot, sticky day, I have to admit that my contribution to the Paraguayan economy consisted of the cost of a can of beer - I'd been thinking of getting a cheap watch or something, but the total absence of any printed prices in most places and the fact that I'm not even that great a haggler in English, let alone Spanish, put me off.

The bus ride back, once across the Friendship Bridge (which is a nice little traffic jam suspended above the Rio Parana), was at least swifter than that over to Paraguay, and back at the hostel I met back up with Ross, the English guy who had become my partner in crime (disclaimer: no laws were knowingly broken in the authoring of this blog) at this point. We were on the verge of going off to have a bite to eat and a drink before getting the bus to the border when the staff advised us that they had an Irish couple (the lovely Stephen and Tricia) waiting to cross for whom they'd ordered a shuttle minibus which, for a few Reais extra, would get you straight through, as they have some kind of a fast-track system. Sounded dodgy, but was totally legitimate, and amusingly meant that I crossed from Brasil to Paraguay to Brasil to Argentina in the course of a day, and didn't even see an immigration officer (the formalities of the stamps at the Brasil-Argentina crossing were done by the minibus driver on our behalf!).

Once in Puerto Iguazu, Ross and I checked into our hostel there, Timbo Pousada, and went off to hunt bus tickets. We had decided that, given the difference in cost between the cheapest bus and the most expensive was only about 10 quid, we were going for the most luxurious class of service we could get. At this point, we found that it was a good thing we had acted to book ahead, as one company's "full bed" service for the Friday was already totally full - luckily, our backup choice still had seats, so we nabbed those, and then headed off for our first meal in Argentina. No, it wasn't a steak, we were both still fairly stuffed with meat from the Rodizio the previous night, it was pasta. To be precise, Gnocchi in a Bolognese sauce, and very nice it was too. Happy side-effect of all the Italian immigrants to Argentina. After this it was a case of vegging out for a bit. I decided to make use of the hostel's pool (yes, both my hostels up near Iguazu had pools, though both were small), at which point the weather shifted, there being a sudden cooling in the air and it started to rain. Typical.

Still, this didn't totally finish off the day, Ross and I ended up heading over to another hostel to meet up with Paola, my Italian friend whom we had seen a couple of evenings earlier in Foz. Along with a French lad from her hostel, called Pierre-Jean, we headed off for some dinner. And yes, I had steak, though it was a small cut with pepper and vegetables rather than one of the slabs that normally comes to mind when dealing with Argentine beef. After that, Ross went back to fight off the cold he had unnacountably developed (I blame the aircon in the Foz hostel...), PJ went back to the other hostel, Paola went to see a man about a pumpkin lamp (seriously, this wasn't a Hallowe'en thing, it was being carved to give as a present!), I watched a wee bit of a football game on the TV (they´re in a pre-season friendly tournament at the moment), managed to wangle a few minutes on the hostel internet computer (Argentine hostels work mostly on the basis of free internet access, but with not many machines and not a great connection - fine if you just want to check if anything's come in, but not much use for anything else, when you still have to search out an internet cafe) and then crashed out.

The Last (Brasilian) Post

2009-01-27T12:00:00.000Z

Today was a busy day. After a hostel breakfast that was somewhat below the lofty standards most Brasilian hostels have set, Ross and I headed for the bus stop and got the local bus out to the Visitor Centre of the Cataratas do Iguacu, otherwise known as the Iguacu Falls, one of the largest and most spectacular of nature´s wonders on this planet. Well, we went to the Brasilian side today, anyway. They lie on the border of Argentina and Brasil, very close to their mutual borders with Paraguay, and I´ll leave the introduction to Eleanor Roosevelt, who is reported to have remarked on seeing them "Poor Niagara!". The actual mechanics of going to see them involve buying a ticket and getting on another bus that takes you the best part of 9km through the National Park to where the trail to the Falls themselves starts. This is at the Hotel Las Cataratas, the only hotel inside the National Park on the Brasilian side, and somewhere I was intrigued to see given how many times I, via suggestions from consultants at Journey Latin America, had sent people here whilst working at Trailfinders. To be honest, my first and overriding impression is "Pink".

The trail itself wound down, through the sweltering heat, towards the falls, taking in views across to various of the "lesser" falls on the Argentine side of the border. Numerous Kodak moments, quite large crowds, plenty of sweating to be done. Hot, hot day. And then, finally, we get to the money shot: the first views of the Garganta del Diablo, the "Devil´s Throat" which forms the heart of the falls, and is the source of the majority of photos. It is stunning. A trail takes us out, close to the base of the Floriano Falls, to a point where we can get clear shots (well, clear apart from the omnipresent spray) of the Throat. It is simply stunning. I could try all I like to describe it, but my words will not do it justice. Once I can, I will put photos up, but still, the only way to properly appreciate this wonder of the world is to go and see it. And this was only the Brasilian view, which is apparently good for the far-away pictures but you get closer to much more of the falls on the Argentine side, where I should be tomorrow.

After this natural majesty, Ross and I took a breather, had a (fast-food) bite to eat, and headed back to the Park entrance, and thence across the road into the Parque das Aves, a bird park which Caio, one of the owners of Tucano House, had strongly recommended I should see. And he was right. An extraordinary collection of birdlife, some of it in large cages and other enclosures, but the more spectacular parts in walk-through aviaries. So today I have been nearly hit in the face by both Tucans and Macaws flying at me, had my picture taken with one of the latter perched on my shoulder (and made several amateur attempts to appear in photos with the former, some rather more successful than others!), and seen more birds than I could shake an exceedingly big stick at, some of them critically endangered to the point where captive breeding grounds like this are one of the few hopes to save the species. Oh, and I saw a bunch of flamingoes happily clustering around mirrors - apparently the appearance of more birds, hence a larger flock, makes them feel more secure, and thus more likely to breed. A mirror as an aphrodisiac, who´da thunk it...

This evening, after a last visit to, and occasional disagreement with, a Brasilian ATM, Ross and I headed off to a loacl Churrascaria for another of those All-You-Can-Eat BBQs I had sampled in Rio. Suffice to say, what with that and the caipirinha I felt compelled to have to stave off the heat when we got back, I am currently one very fat, happy Pat.

Knowing your limits is A Good Thing

2009-01-26T12:00:00.000Z

Arrived in Foz, which is more agricultural and city-like and rather less jungly than I might have expected. Remind myself this is a city the size of Bristol, servicing one of the world´s biggest hydroelectric plants (Itaipu, owned jointly with Paraguay), so never really likely to be a little backwater in the rainforest. Ross and I managed to successfully navigate yet another local city bus system, and made our way to our home here in Foz, Hostel Bambu. This is new enough not to be in most guidebooks, but is quite nicely set up, and has the addedd bonuses of air-con in the dorms and a small pool out the back, which have both been absolute bliss given the high temperature and humidity here. I also took advantage of some anti-itching (possibly anti-hystamine or something) cream Ross had got, which appears to have finally drawn the itchy sting of the bites I got early in Floripa (which my memories of Africa are now informing me are probably sandfly bites) - as a result, I have forgiven him for any possible stalking and we´ve ended up hanging around the last couple of days.

Despite a brief consideration of going to see the Itaipu dam (I know, but we´re both sar Engineering types, so it´s kind of expected) we decided the effects of the heat, the tiredness from the long-distance bus journey and the fact it had somehow got to half past three without us noticing rendered this Not A Good Plan. So hammock time was very much the order of the day. In the evening, admittedly somewhat later than planned, we met up with Paola, my Italian friend from Ilha Grande, who was also in town, and went for a nice little dinner. In true Brasilian style, we ordered one main meal, which was designed to feed two and happily fed three of us, especially together with the (massive) plate of olives I ordered - for someone who was never that fond of things, I seem to be developing something of a fixation.

Enough of this Bus thing already

2009-01-25T12:00:00.000Z

Another one of those days largely filed under "Bus". Got up, had brekkie, checked my stuff out of my dorm at Tucano, lounged around, chatted with people a bit, lounged around, went on the internet, popped into the village for a spot of lunch, grabbed my pack, went to the local bus stop. Waited a bit for a bus. And a bit more. One finally arrived, so headed off across the island to the Rodoviaria, thankful that I´d been prepared enough to leave time for this (easy to do when your coach only leaves at 1800). Waited around a bit more at the Rodoviaria once I had collected my ticket. Bumped into Ross, who I´d met on the journey from Parati to Floripa, and who was also on my bus again. Found out we would also be at the same hostel (which I´d recommended before) in Foz. Started to wonder if I am being stalked. Was re-assured that this is not the case.

Loooooong bus ride. 15 hours, with a large, middle-aged Brasilian lady with quite active elbows in the seat next to me and a small child with a propensity for kicking me in the back behind me. With the addition of a screaming baby and a broken-down air-con unit, this would have been a strong contender for Hell in bus form. As it was, merely Purgatory.

The joys of the Sorveteria

2009-01-24T12:00:00.000Z

Another pretty chilled-out day. I went over to the centre of town with Ana and the Brasilian girls, where we had a look around the Mercado Principal (central market) and then over to a 350-year-old tree in a square, where there was a capoeira class/demonstration on. For those not aware, capoeira is something of a cross between a martial art and a dance, which was developed by the slaves in Brasil as a way to practice defending themselves without arousing the suspicion of their masters. If you ever get a chance to watch a demonstration, do! After this, we headed over to a mall, to grab some lunch, where I have to admit to giving in to a craving and getting some Chinese food from a buffet place.

Got the bus back over to our side of the island in the afternoon, mucked around for a bit longer, and then ended up popping into town with Ana, who has a craving for icecream at least as potent as Marija's for coffee was - ice-cream places here (Sorveterias) are largely self-service and priced by weight, so Ana had basically filled up about a pint of various kinds of chocolate ice-cream, which I was then obliged to help her eat. After that, we bumped into Alicia, along with her fellow exchange students Dan and Felicity, and had some dinner in town. I half-drowned a chicken sandwich in Tabasco sauce, which was heavenly, and accompanied it with a very nice Pale Ale from a company called Eisenbahn, based in Blumenau, which is one of the towns up the coast that was originally colonised by Germans.

Notes From A Sunny Island

2009-01-23T12:00:00.000Z

After the usual hearty Brasilian hostel breakfast, I headed off to be a bit more active for the day, in the company of one of my breakfast companions, another Ana, this one from Buenos Aires. We had decided to do the Caminha do Costa, which runs along the western side of the Lagoa da Conceicao (literally "Lagoon of the Conception"), near which Tucano House sits, to the village of Costa da Lagoa - this is only accessible via this trail, or by the regular boats which run along the lagoon. Despite the assertions from Leleia, one of the lovely hostel owners, that it would only take an hour and a half or two hours, it was more like two and a half to three before we got there, but we did take quite a few photos along the way (Ana is a keen photographer as well as a med student and working for an IT company - busy girl...) and managed to miss the turning for the waterfall we were hoping to see. That said, it meant we carried on nearly to the end of the lake, taking in some views that we wouldn't have had otherwise.

The waterfall itself was nice without being spectacular - the pool at the bottom was a wee bit muddy, but it was really refreshing to sit under the edge for a bit and chill off under the spray. However, I was rather more careful coming down from the face of the falls after the Brasilian girl next to me slid off her perch, bounced down part of the falls, ping-ponged off a rock and landed in a lower pool - she assured everyone she was fine, but it looked a wee bit painful to me! After mucking about at the falls for a bit, we headed back down to a little restaurant at the lakeshore, where we settled down for a gorgeous dinner of grilled fish - as is customary in many restaurants in Brasil, the standard portion is for 2 people, and could probably feed 3 or 4 at a pinch. After the exertions of hiking along the lagoon, this bit of relaxation felt like proper chilled-out holiday time.

We caught the boat back to town, where both of us decided to decline the evening communal meal as we were still stuffed from our late lunch. Much of the evening was then spent chilling out with a couple of drinks while a guy called Justin played guitar and we had a bit of a sing-along. A lot of the guys from the hostel were then heading on to a local bar/club called the Confraria des Artes (Brotherhood of the Arts), but given that it was apparently going to largely feature hip-hop, and that it would follow the unfortunate Brasilian practice whereby girls get in free and guys can be charged anywhere from about 40 to maybe 120 Reais (that's about 12 up to maybe 35 or 40 quid just for entry!), I decided once again to give it a miss and just chill out a bit longer at the hostel, where I ended up chatting for a while with an English lass called Alicia, who's studying on an exchange year in Santiago, Chile, and is over here in Brasil on summer holidays.

Welcome to Floripa

2009-01-22T12:00:00.002Z

Arrived in Florianopolis (Floripa) after 10 hours or so on the coach, overjoyed to find the sun shining, the temperature warm without being melting and the humidity much lower. Managed to navigate the local bus system across the Ilha de Santa Catarina on which the city sits to the satellite town of Centro da Lagoa, where Tucano House, my current abode, is.

After surviving my first long-distance bus journey, I savoured the delights of a nice por quilo lunch and an internet cafe with a half-decent Skype connection - this allowed me to finally ring up Expedia and get my "onward travel" flight out of Brasil cancelled - this I had bought so that if there was any problem either with Brasilian immigration or with TAP when I came to check-in with a 6-month ticket, then I could show onward travel. Sounds a bit overkill? Well, this is the kind of thing I had to advise people to do whilst happily beavering away at Trailfinders, in order to cover the company's collective derriere in the event of someone being refused boarding. In this case, proved to be utter hogwash - nobody batted an eyelid at either the airline or immigration - so I've submitted the ticket for a refund.

Got my stuff checked in, hopped on a local bus to Praia do Mole (the most popular local beach), where I got repeatedly slapped around by the waves, having a whale of a time, and managed to finish my latest cheap and tacky thriller from the book exchanges whilst sheltering happily in my chair under my parasol. No sunburn, a fair bit of time in the sea, and a bit of chill-out time. Bliss.

Back at the hostel that evening, there was a big communal meal - for most people this was Lasagne, but thanks to my cheese aversion, I got mountains of chicken risotto instead, which went down very nicely with the usual beers and caipirinhas (incidentally, if you come to Brasil don't drink the Nova Schin beer - it's really rather bad), and I got chatting with various of my companions, notably a couple of French lads (Vincent and Romain) and a group of Brasilian girls (Ana, Mariana, Manuela and Biatriz) as well as the usual hordes of Aussies. Various of the group headed for a rumoured beach party over at Praia Joaquina, but I have to admit I just headed for my bed.

The Delights of Sao Paulo Rodoviaria

2009-01-21T12:00:00.000Z

Day back on the buses - spent some of the morning hanging around with my Danish friends at the hostel and in town, then got on the 1340 to Sao Paulo. 6 hours later, arrived at the biggest bus station in Brasil, and successfully managed to get myself a ticket on the "Executivo" level (mid-level) coach to Florianopolis that night - I decided to get the slightly more expensive bus in an attempt to beat my usual record of total inability to sleep on overnight buses. This one, it has to be said, was very comfortable, with majorly reclining seats and leg supports, and I'd managed to get a spot such that I had a double seat to myself. Had it not been for the pesky armrest in the middle, I'd have probably slept ok, as it was I had to content myself with at least having slept a bit. Before getting the bus, ended up chatting with another English lad, called Ross, who was headed in the same direction, whilst partaking of the quality food offered by the wonderfully-named establishment "Mr Sheikh".

It's a raining Men, Women, Cats, Dogs and the odd Capybara

2009-01-20T12:00:00.000Z

Slightly less chilled day. Spent the first part of it trying to get sorted on a tour to go see various waterfalls in the area, eventually ended up on a tour which took in some of what I wanted, along with going out to an island and visiting a cachaca distillery - pineapple cachaca anyone? It was ok without being anything that special, although I did have fun getting French practice with a couple on the trip, whose first comment on hearing me go all Francophone was "You are an Englishman who speaks French? You are a secret agent!" Which is something I haven't been called before, but could obviously be worse.

The latter parts of the afternoon were largely ruled by the intense cloudbursts which hit town, putting large parts of the road network underwater and led to me eventually wading across town to send my previous e-mail - the end of the road our hostel was on was probably the worst underwater bit, but the old town, with its cobble-stoned streets, can get quite risky when it's wet underfoot. I had more of the comida por quilo for dinner (basically a self-service buffet where you pay by weight of what you eat - salads are thus A Good Thing both in terms of health and budget!) and then adjourned to a little internet place, where I stayed until the nice lady running the place kicked those of us in there out at 9pm.

Later in the evening, I ended up being persuaded (ok, it didn't take that much arm-twisting) to go into town for some caipirinhas with Nanna and her sister, whose name I keep having trouble getting right but I think it was Mette. We actually ended up back in the bar I'd been at a couple of nights earlier, inside this time, and watching a really good music DVD called (I think) "Ciudade de Samba", which is a kind of "Samba All Stars' Performance". We were met there by Nico, the Argentine lad from staff at the hostel, and thanks to his friendship with the barman, we actually got invited to a lock-in, but were all quite tired (and a wee bit drunk) and ended up declining the kind offer.

I am Sailing...

2009-01-19T12:00:00.000Z

Awoke to the rather unwelcome sight of continued overcast. Not good, as I was hoping to do the sailing trip myself that day. However, luck was with me, and as I sat around munching my way through the usual hostel breakfast, the sun broke through the clouds, persuading me that it would indeed be a good day to be out on the water. Better yet, the name of my transport for the day was the Sir Francis Drake - a name to inspire any true Englishman. Thus, I made my way across town to the quay, set myself up with a nice shady patch under the awning for the day, and thanked whichever deities might be watching that I was on one of the lighter-laden boats and not one of those groaning at the seams. A pleasant day ensued, taking in 4 or 5 beach or swimming stops, some nice fresh fruit, and generally grat weather. In fact, my only case of sunburn so far came courtesy of this, but even that was fairly mild and consisted mostly of a couple of patches around my shoulder-blades that I hadn't been able to reach properly.

On getting back to town, I headed over to the Rodoviaria to try and sort my bus ticket out of town. Annoyingly, even though the company involved apparently had buses all the way through to Florianopolis (known to most Brasilians as Floripa), there was a case of "Computer says No" and I had to content myself with the ticket through to Sao Paulo, where I would have to buy my onward ticket. I then took an hour or two to catch up on some net time and sort out my finances, before heading back to the hostel. There I found that just about everywhere serving food our side of the river was closed, but eventually managed to get some Peixe Brasileira (the imaginatively named "Brasilian Fish") for dinner. I then meandered back into town, but didn't see any familiar faces, and decided I wasn't in the mood for a drink after all, so I got an ice-cream and headed back to the hostel, where I vegged out and swapped travellers' tales with a Norwegian girl called Victoria and a Danish girl called Nanna until it was time to crash out.

You are now entering Springfield, Brasil...

2009-01-18T12:00:00.000Z

Farewell to Ilha Grande, and on to Paraty (also sometimes Parati, so excuse me if my spelling drifts...). A fond farewell to Angi, Cami, Kita (Aussie) and Catriona (Irish) at the hostel, a rather more hurried farewell to Marija at the docks, and I was headed back to Angra on the mainland, sweltering once again despite the previous night's rain. Once there, I hung around for a while before getting the local bus along the coast to Paraty, which slightly surreally stopped in the little artificial satellite towns built by Eletronuclear to service the plant near Angra - yes, it did feel a bit like a Brasilian setting for the Simpsons.

On arrival, I borrowed a Lonely Planet from what turned out to be a group of German dentists (my trusty Footprint does not have a map of the town), before slumping through the heat across town and over the river to my hostel. I then had to head back into town to get more cash, at which point I checked my mail and got some food, from which I was startled by the beginning of a cloudburst, which left parts of the historic cobbled centre of the town underwater, and me wondering just what on Earth I'd let myself in for. This luckily subsided somewhat, and I ended up going into town that evening with a bunch of other travellers from the hostel - they were due to meet up with a German lass who had been on their schooner sailing trip earlier that day, but she never turned up in the end.

This didn't really matter, though, as there were 8 of us quite happily sampling some of the local wares - I have found my first truly tasty (rather than merely refreshing-when-drunk-cold-on-

a-hot-day) beer in Brasil - it's from the Devassa brwery, and is called Riuva, and is styled as a Tropical Ale. Yum. This was had at the Che Bar (I don't know why, given I'm not sure he ever even came to the country, but Cuba's favourite adopted Argentinean son appears just as popular here), but given that this was very much priced for Gringo tourists, we soon adjourned a couple of doors down to a little cafe on the square, which was doing special offers on Caipirinhas - always works for me! Only downside is I'm having to fanatically brush my teeth with the amount of sugar that's usually in the things, but I'm definitely not coming down with scurvy any time soon...

Life's a Beach (again)

2009-01-17T12:00:00.000Z

A relatively similar day to the one before, breakfast enlivened by check-in-related chaos (the hostel had somehow managed to overbook, so the nice Spanish couple in my room were being moved on, to be replaced by a trio of Israelis - this was at least better than the any of the horde of very loud Yanks who had also descended on the place). I lounged around for a bit, Paula being off looking for another hostel and Marija having headed into town to feed her insatiable appetite for coffee, before deciding I really needed to do something with the day, getting my things together and heading off to Praia Lopes Mendes. In this, I was guided by Paula's assertion the previous day that the walk to Lopes Mendes beach had been easier than the one we did to the falls.

Well, by the time I eventually reached the top of the first ridgeline, it certainly didn't feel like it. When my infamous knee from my adventures in China gave a twinge partway down the hill, I had reached the point where I was running out of curse-words. Luckily, stopping for a bit and giving the offending area a quick massage got the knee back in line, and I made it safely down to the first beach stop, where I wasted no time in starting on the next trail, over the next ridge, to the next beach, reasoning better to get it all out of the way. And on this part of the trip, my salvation arrived, in the form of a group of young Brasilians, also doing the trek, and some of whom were suffering about as much as me. Bolstered by company and moral support, I made it down ok to the second beach, where I promptly threw myself in the sea to cool down.

After assuring my new-found friends that I was not actually crazy (and reassuring them by applying sunscreen to my now-even-more-obviously-really-pale skin), we headed on, over the last and lowest of the hills to get to Lopes Mendes beach. Which is, it has to be said, really rather beautiful. Nearest comparisons I can think of in terms of places I've been would be a less-developed version of Oarsman's Bay on Nacula in Fiji, or a slightly less groomed version of Whitehaven in the Whitsundays in Australia. It's white-powder sand, clear blue sea, and trees backing down pretty close to it. It's also rather busy with Brasilian families on their summer holidays (or it was when I was there). And no, they hadn't all done the hike, most of them got the boat-taxi service to the previous beach and then just did the last bit of the walk. Sensible buggers.

After a thoroughly pleasant couple of hours on the beach, enlivened by a brief, light rainstorm (look out to sea and it's clear blue skies except maybe the odd fluffy cloud, and suddenly there's this rumble of thunder and a black cloud floats menacingly over the island...), it was back to the previous beach, onto a boat and back to Abraao. My final evening there was spent partly escorting the girls around shopping at the markets again (no, I don't know how I ended up doing it, either) and then sitting around at the bar at another of the hostels, listening to Reggae, drinking caipirinhas, and marvelling as more rain finally arrived.

But WHY won't the beer boat let us hitch a ride...?

2009-01-16T12:00:00.000Z

A nice, welcoming start to my non-totally-zonked time on Ilha Grande - breakfast at Overnativa being the usual Brasilian combination of rolls, ham and cheese, cereals, fruits, coffee, tea, juice (and many places also have cake...). After feeding myself up, I joined p with Paula and Marija for the walk we had decided on the previous night - we were going north out of Abraao town, up to the Cachoeira de Fetceira, a waterfall in the hills outside town, and then on to some of the beaches furthere north from there, where we would catch a boat back to town. And that's largely how it all worked out - we grabbed some supplies from the little supermarket in town, and headed out, past the beaches of town and on into the hills (for Ilha Grande is nothing if not hilly). Having made the amusing discovery that Marija hates going downhill about as much as I hate going uphill, we first hiked, then scrambled up to the brink of the waterfall. And it was pretty, albeit perhaps after all the effort to get there I was left with the treacherous thought that perhaps it could have been a teeny bit prettier. After a bit of a swim to cool off, and a quick semblance of a back-rub from the waters, and a brief goggle at the intrepid souls abseiling down the face of the cachoeira, we headed back off, down the hill towards the beaches.

We had a gloriously chilled out hour or so mucking about on the beach, before deciding to walk on to the small village of Saco do Ceu, at theend of a long bay on the north side of the island. Only when we got there, and Paual got involved haggling with the local boat captains, did we realise our error, as this is not on the usual boat routes so anybody taking us back from there would be going out of their way and would charge accordingly. So we trudged back a couple of beaches (and half an hour or so) to Praia Defora, where we unfortunately failed to hitch passage on the boat delivering beer to all the settlements on the island (I was deeply distressed at this) but Paula did manage to get us on another little boat which was heading back to Abraao, at a cost of the princely sum of 10 Reais each (about 3 quid).

That evening, we availed ourselves once again of Christina's home cooking at the hostel, I watched part of Troy (which was surprisingly good, although taking rather a lot of liberties with the timeline of the original Homer...), then we headed out so that Paula could get some braidwork done in her hair and the other girls could browse the souvenir shops by the pier (the downside of hanging around with a group consisting very heavily of girls...), made a brief detour into a bar that had a band playing some live samba music, and ended up back at the hostel, where Paula, Angela, Camila, the nightwatchman and I ended up watching Mamma Mia (also better than I had expected it to be...).

Off to the Big Island

2009-01-15T12:00:00.000Z

Time to leave Rio. Made the last of my farewells and headed for the bus-stop. At this point, I made one of my occasional miscalculations, and got on the first bus headed for the Rodoviaria (the long-distance bus terminal the other side of town) - this turned out to stop all over the place, plough through the Rio traffic, and got me there 5 minutes after the bus I´d wanted to catch had left. I made it onto the next one, but with the sinking feeling I was not going to make my ferry. I was headed for Ilha Grande (translated literally as Big Island), and what the guidebooks all describe as the only scheduled daily ferry to the island would have left by the time I got to the port of Angra dos Reis.

Luckily, the alternative transport options have moved on from the "possible to maybe go over on local fishing boats" of the books, and there are both a small catamaran service (which I also missed...) and a bunch of local schooners, the last of which I was able to catch, in the company of an Aussie called Steve and his Brasilian mate Anderson, who I´d got chatting to on the coach. This meant I got to the island a couple of hours later than I´d planned, but this had the unplanned bonus that it wasn´t quite so stinking hot when we arrived, so I didn´t melt quite so much whilst lugging my packs from the quay in Abraao to my hostel.

The scene at Overnativa when I arrived was what I would learn was typical of the place - Christina, the "mama" of the place was cooking the dinner and simultaneously covering front desk. I was told to just get my stuff settled in my room and we could deal with the paperwork later (this was eventually done at checkout!). After a shower, I tucked into the home-cooked dinner, and struck up conversation with what would become my regular circle of companions on the island, an Italian girl called Paula, two Colombian cousins (Angela and Camilla, the latter about 4´6" or so) and a Zurich-based Croat doctor called Marija, who must be one of the few people I´ve met who probably has a faster metabolism than my brother Alex. Either that, or she´s got a tapeworm. She´s thin as a reed and could eat for her country, and possibly one or two others as well.

Still, it´d been a long (and sometimes stressful) day, so I managed one beer, sat around watching people play pool for a while, then crashed out.

Copacabana Ate My Bandana!

2009-01-14T12:00:00.000Z

One very chilled-out day. Popped over to the Rio Sul (South Rio) shopping centre, to buy some swimming shorts (yes, I managed to go to Brasil and forget to pack my swimming gear, I´m a muppet, I know...) and then headed for Copacabana beach in the afternoon for some beach time. Sadly, whilst enjoying the really quite large waves which run into the beach, I got wiped out by a couple of unexpectedly large ones close to the shore, and surfaced to find my much-abused black bandana had disappeared in the swell. It had come a long way with me since Broome in 2005, but now our paths diverged.... My time on the beach with 3 English lads and Linda, the hostel´s resident irrepressible Norwegian, did however yield the amusing concept of the "Man-zilian" - John had noticed a guy who had shaved off all of his chest hair apart from a very long "landing strip" running straight down the middle. Very bizarre.

In the evening, we checked out the tourist night-market down by the beach (95% identical rubbish, the vast majority of it probably made in China...), then I headed over for a brief look around the bars in Ipanema, which concluded after I ended up in an "Irish" bar listening to a Brasilian group play Blues music (in English) and it started to rain. Back at the hostel, my companions were chatting with some of the Brasilians staying there, which helped pass a wee bit more time (assisted by a few caipiroskas - the bar had run out of cachaca again...) before bed (I had by this point finished being moved around between rooms, and was firmly and happily ensconced in a bottom bunk in one of the upstairs dorms).

Into the Favela

2009-01-13T18:00:00.000Z

The day started with a slightly unwelcome surprise when, for possibly the first time ever, a Brasilian tour was early. Most of the time, things here seem to run somewhere between "manana manana" and Fiji-time, but our Favela tour, led by the marvellously irrepressible Luis, turned up early, so I was still brushing my teeth when one of the guys banged on the bathroom door to say they were about to leave! After a few pick-ups around Copacabana (and one or two in Ipanema) our minibus was full and headed off to Sao Conrado - this is the "regular" district which perches between the ocean and the favela of Rocinha, our destination. The minibus doesn´t go on into the favela, so we were out of the vehicle and loaded onto motorbike taxis. I love motos and, having not been on one since leaving Hanoi a couple of years back, was grinning like an idiot as we wound our way up the main road which cuts through the favela up to the top of the hill.

It´s a peculiarity of Rio that the hillsides, in many cities some of the most desirable property, are the location for the slums, the favelas. Our trip for the morning would take us right the way back down the hillside to where we entered by Sao Conrado. Along the way, at various points we were asked to put our cameras away and avoid taking photos for a while. This is not so much to spare the feelings of the inhabitants as it is a reflection that it is inadvisable to take photos of young men with machine-guns, who can be found in some areas near the access points. Before seeing them, you generally see the lookouts with walkie-talkies, who spread the word if police or rival gangs are approaching, an event signalled by fireworks - when this happens, it is wise to make oneself scarce very quickly. Luckily, no November 5th display for us that day.

The favelas are these days part of a semi-legal set-up - some of them have electricity meters and the like, though there are still all manner of spaghetti-like illegal connections jumping from the cables in the district. The inhabitants also don´t pay tax on their homes, as their ownership is not strictly recognised. The sewerage system is mostly of the "open drain" variety. However, there are now bus routes into the districts, and they provide an important source of affordable housing for those working in the more upmarket suburbs, so there are no attempts to remove them. Our trip took in visits to a local art project, as well as the school that is supported by the company organising the tours - the government´s grudging acceptance of the favelas´ existence means they get little or no support, so much of what is accomplished is done by charities, foundations set up by former inhabitants (e.g. some footballers and musicians) and volunteers.

Having made it safely through the favela, we headed back to our beachside suburbs, where I grabbed some lunch, in the process making the acquaintance of the prato freido, a set-meal type affair which meant that I got a bit of chicken, accompanied by rice, beans, salad, chips and an egg (spread over 2 plates...) for less than 3 quid. Given how expensive many of Rio´s restaurants are, this crossover to something more like what the cariocas eat was somewhat overdue.

After feeding, I headed off to the bus-stop again, this time headed for the neighbourhood of Cosme Velho, which is the lower terminus of the Trem do Corcovado, the funicular railway which runs up to the statue of Christ the Redeemer on the hill known as Corcovado, the bunchback. This is another of the undeniably touristy, and hence slightly overpriced, but must-do things in Rio. From a vantage point high, high up above the city (over 700m higher than the docks, at least 300m higher than Sugarloaf), you get spectacular views of the city itself, Guanabara Bay, and the beachside suburbs beyond the Rodrigo Freitas lagoon.

That evening was a relatively subdued affair, out with several other Brits from the hostel and a couple of frankly crazy Swedes. We had what was effectively another wild goose chase (again involving a cabbie trying to overcharge people amongst other things) off in search of an area reputed to have a bunch of bars to explore. Once this became a bit of a damp squib, the Swedes wanted to carry on and find a club somewhere, leaving me in the unfamiliar position of being the voice of reason arguing for going home and calling it an early night.

More tales of Rio

2009-01-13T12:00:00.000Z

Hi guys,

Yes, I'm back slaving over a hot (and it really is bloody warm here - mid 30s again today) keyboard again.

Contrary to what I wrote last time, I didn't actually go up Sugarloaf on Sunday afternoon, largely because I got slightly lost trying to find the appropriate bus down the far end of Copacabana. So instead I took the Metro into the centre of town and then got the historic bondinho (translates as something like "little tram") up into the district of Santa Teresa. This is what was once one of the nicer districts of Rio but is now a little more run-down around the edges, and has become home to a population of artists and bohemians and the like. The tram itself is an open-sided little gem from about the 1920s, which rattles over a hair-raising viaduct over the central district of Lapa before clunking its way up into the bairro district of Santa Teresa itself. On the way it passes houses both run-down and beautiffuly looked after, little shops and bars, and various other road-users which, in true Rio style, get greeted with loud ringings of the bell to encourage them to get out of the way. Although actually, thinking about it, this isn't that typical - most Carioca drivers don't bother with the horn, they just change lanes and zoom through anyway. At any rate, the district itself was quite picturesque to wander around for a bit, but the main experience was the tram itself, which, in stark contrast to many of Rio's other attractions (I'm looking at YOU, Sugarloaf and Cristo Redentor!) is remarkably cheap - about 20p each way.

On returning to the hostel, I got chatting with a mixed bunch of fellow travellers and ended up going along to what was described repeatedly as a "meat feast" - the technical term was actually a rodizio, and it was bascally an All-You-Can-Eat BBQ, with the food served on skewers direct to your table (a quick nod to indicate "yes, I'll have some of that" serves nicely to cross language barriers). This was glorious, if not brilliant for my stated aim of trying to lose a wee bit of weight whilst on the road - my personal favourite had to be the garlic steak, which was just mouth-watering. I did admittedly wimp out from having the chicken hearts, though. After this we went back to the hostel's bar for the familiar dosing of caipirinhas, accompanied by a certain amount of card games (not, for once, Ring of Fire, which would be a very bad thing to play on the caipirinhas here! - the alcohol content of one of them is probably enough to make me a binge drinker by our government's estimations...). There was a bit of a diversion later on in the night, when we made the interesting decision of following some Colombians from the hostel off in search of a bar they'd heard about in the area, involving flagging down a whole heap of taxis and trying to mime "follow that cab!" so that we didn't lose track of the people who supposedly knew where we were going. And then it turned out to be closed. So we had to get more cabs to get us back, and ours decided he didn't want to use the meter and was trying to scalp us, until he was routed by a five-foot-nothing little Colombian lass who told him where he could stick his claims. Very funny.

Unsurprisingly after all this excitement, I slept in late yesterday, and then headed off in the afternoon to make my delayed trip to Sugarloaf. This time I had no trouble finding my bus, and made it remarkably easily to the famous mountain. Although I should add at this point that Brasilian buses have a system whereby you pay a conductor behind the driver your fare as you get on and then have to push through a turnstile. And it can get a wee bit tight. Luckily it's a flat fare on each bus, which is shown in the front window, so there's no confusion from having to comprehend numbers or anything. The cable-car ride up to Sugarloaf is spectacular - it's done in two parts, the first up to Morro do Urca, and then a second one up to the top of Pao de Acucar itself. At the middle level, there are the usual facilities - cafe, toilets, etc - but also a little move theatre which tells you the story of the cable car (with helpful English subtitles), amusingly including the cable car's brief role in the Bond film Moonraker, where Bond fights it out with Jaws on there, and also a landing pad for helicopter tours. The day was gorgeous (bright sunshine and clear skies to start with, although it clouded over a little bit later), and it was all good fun.

After getting down from the mountain, I hung on the bus back a little longer and went on to the next beach over, at Ipanema, where I watched a beautiful sunset. Ipanema is a thinner beach than Copacabana, without all the volleyball and football courts of the latter, and comes right up to the promenade, so it feels a bit closer in. I had a nice couple of Brasilian dark beers from the Brahma brewing company (yes, I'm trying new beers as usual...) and a Brasilian meal called a Pocadinho Carioca (I think), which involved beef in a red wine sauce, rice, farofa (which is a kind of ground manioc flour, seasoned in this case with garlic) and, for some reason, deep-fried bananas. Reminded me a bit of Cape Curry in that fashion, but all very nice. Having showed my pictures from the sunset to some of the guys here at the hostel, they've headed over there this evening.

I haven't, as I've spent the day doing a favela tour around the district of Rocinha and then making my way up to the statue of Cristo Redentor, Christ the Redeemer, up on the Corcovado hill this afternoon. But my hour's about up, so that will have to wait for later.

Take care and have fun,

Pat

Hola de Brasil!

2009-01-11T12:00:00.000Z

Hello,

Right, just a quick update at the moment, as it´s hot and sunny outside and it´d be a waste to spend too much of the day indoors on the internet!

Made it to Brasil fairly uneventfully, decent enough flights with TAP although Lisbon airport isn´t the most fun to transit though as they shuttle you everywhere in buses rather than use jetways, and seem quite happy to leave you on said buses for ages. Spent quite a bit of the Lisbon-Rio flight (which is longer than I thought, about 10 hours or so) playing puzzle games, and much of the rest frantically mugging up on Portuguese. Needless to say, mine is still hopeless, but I seem to get kudos for at least making an effort. I have Yes, No, Please, Thankyou, Where are the toilets? and Can I have a beer/caipirinha? down already.

First impressions of Rio (once my pickup for the hostel arrived and found me at Rio Internacional airport) were the smell coming over the bay - I think some of the areas we went through were favelas, and the sanitation didn´t seem brilliant - and the sheer lunacy of Brasilian traffic. A taxi ride in Rio has got to rank right up there with a moto ride in Saigon as one of those experiences where public transport verges on an extreme sport. Numerous lanes, everyone drifting in and out of them overtaking on the inside and outside at will, indicator light use strictly optional and separation that could be measured in feet even when doing over 100 km/h, all done over a landscape of urban motorways and tunnels as you cross the city. If there isn´t a computer driving game out there based around surviving Rio, someone´s missing an opportunity!

On arrival at the hostel, immediate reaction is that it´s busy, it´s loud and fairly casual. Pretty indicative of Rio as a whole. They seem to go in for triple-decker bunks in a big way here, which isn´t great (as the last one into my dorm, I understandably got one of the top ones and crashed my head a couple of times on the ceiling!), but the free breakfast this morning out on the veranda/patio area was pretty nice. I got moved to a different dorm today, which actually has more people but seems rather airier, and I´m now in a middle bunk, which is an improvement. Also, the barmaid there makes a pretty mean caipirinha (though these changed to caipiroskas part way through the evening, as the hostel had drunk the entire supply of cachaca so she had to switch to using vodka...). A lot of people were heading out on the town for a big Saturday night (most headed to the district of Lapa), but I had a quiet one in after a seriously long day, and just hung around chatting and having a few drinks.

Anyways, this morning I´ve been for a wander along the beach here at Copacabana. Or rather, I´ve been along the section of the promenade next to it, as I didn´t feel like braving the crossing of the futebol and volleyball courts to get to the area where people were clustered in their deckchairs and the like in masses. It´s really busy, so much so that they close off the seaward side of the Avenida Atlantica, the main road by the beach, on a Sunday for people to walk, skate, or cycle along. And everyone is at the beach. I mean everyone. This is where the Brasilian beach stereotypes start to break down as, whilst those on the sports courts are in pretty good shape, many of those along the promenade are not the kind of people you want to see in their swimwear (especially given the Brasilian fashion trends when it comes to these things - yes, the budgie-smugglers are alive and well in Rio). I´m no artwork myself, but then again I´m not wandering along in my speedos...

Think I may head off and try and make my way over to Sugarloaf Mtn as it´s a gorgeous day and hopefully would be a good view.

Take care and have fun,

Pat

"Donde son los Banos por favor?" OR "What I did on my holidays in Cuba... (Part 1)"

2008-04-03T22:50:00.005+01:00

So, the story of my Caribbean sojourn begins on Thursday 6th March, as I awaken from a guest-house near Gatwick Airport and head off with my Mum to get our flight. Yes, in a major departure from my usual lone-wolf type approach to travelling (possibly influenced by having watched too much Knight Rider as a child), I was heading off with a travel buddy, in this case my Mum. Bit of a radical departure, I know, but you never learn if you don't try, and I'd been informed that were I to go off on my own to Cuba without offering her the chance to come along I would most certainly NOT be Favourite Child (not that I am implying that either Mum or Dad might ever have favourites amongst us, obviously).

The tone of Day 1 was largely set when we discovered that our flight was due to depart Gate 13. Not an auspicious sign. As a result, it should not have been a surprise when we got to the gate and found that all pre-boarding checks had been suspended. Over the course of the next half an hour or so, we discovered that the plane was apparently missing a part, and that they might have found a replacement in Gatwick but were checking to see if it was compatible. Words, as I'm sure you'll all agree, to cheer up any journey. Eventually, over an hour late, we were able to board the plane. To find we still couldn't leave quite yet, but that the replacement part had been found, it's just that it was caught up in traffic on the way around from Heathrow. We were also reassured that it was some kind of card for one of the computers which we could theoretically fly without but was required for certification reasons. Whilst as an Aero Engineering graduate I could kind of grasp the logic of this, I did feel that the airline had swung from too little info early in the morning ("Sorry, the flight's delayed, there's a technical issue") to perhaps too much now.

On arrival in Havana, I made an elementary mistake when choosing my queue to go through Immigration and ended up in one of those designated as suitable for wheelchairs and parents with children - I had not gathered this meant that they were able to jump straight to the front of the queue (and were indeed escorted there by staff) such that we waited longer than wee otherwise would have before getting scowled at and told to look at the camera by the immigration people. Not that it actually delayed us, as Mum's bag was slightly delayed, along with many of the others, navigating the baggage belts - we were directed to about 3 different ones before finally both being reunited with our luggage (although my flag-bedecked monster of a pack was, as ever, at least easy to pick out).

We then proceeded to the currency exchange which, it must be said, worked remarkably well and allowed me a small fuzzy glow at actually having managed already to do something uselful in my elementary Spanish without any resort to Pidgin English. We then caught a cab into our town to our Casa Particular. Now these are something of a Cuban institution, being one of the few allowed examples of private enterprise and also the nearest thing to the backpacker/budget traveller experience in Cuba. Oh, and also a chance to get some good Cuban home cooking, which is frequently much better than what you get in the official restaurants. Unfortunately, it turned out the mother of our hostess was ill and so we would not be able to stay there, and so we were passed on to a friend of the family to stay in their spare room.

At the time, this seemed relatively reasonable, but we were to find throughout our trip that the "Oh, very sorry, we are full now but we have booked you with our friends/neighbours/relatives!" response was very common. In fact, we only had one casa we went to where we weren't passed on, and that one we weren't sure if we would have preferred to have been! The first one in Havana was also notable because there had been a bit of a mix-up and they'd gotten us into somewhere with a double room, rather than a twin. Which ain't exactly ideal when travelling with your mother. We learned from this to be very specific about wanting somewhere with two beds, and chalked it up to experience... The other thing we found was that our casa was up on the 4th floor of the building. Good for the calf muscles and gets the breeze being about the only two positive things to be said about this setup.

That first evening we went to a little restaurant nearby and I acquainted myself with the appropriate Spanish phrases for indicating that Mum was in fact a vegetarian and thus not disposed to Cubans' determination to eat meat whenever possible. I also acquainted myself with the basics of Cuban beers (yes, this entry will feature some of my All The World's Beers research...), namely that Cristal is tolerable but pretty anaemic whereas Bucanero is pretty damned nice. And it has a pirate on the label, so you can't ask for much more than that. Oh, and that almost no Cuban meal (except maybe breakfast) is considered complete without rice and black beans (usually mixed and known as congris).

After a hearty dinner (i.e. I wolfed the strange, breaded roll-type-thing of various types of meat that was mine, along with any of Mum's leftover rice and large quantities of the salad), we headed off to explore the neighbourhood we were in (Centro Habana) by going up to the Malecon, the seawall. This was gorgeous under the moonlight, and got me feeling like I was properly on holiday. And then we went to a little terrace bar place and I got my first Mojito and then I knew I was properly on holiday, and the various frustrations of earlier in the day were largely forgotten.

The next day dawned bright and sunny, and started with a mountain of fruit as part of breakfast. The Cubans have access to lots and lots of fruit and eat plenty of it. Whilst some of it was more to my taste than other parts, I was overjoyed to be somewhere with easy access to loads and loads of lovely pineapple. By the end of my stay I was halfway convinced that I would turn into a pineapple soon, the amounts I'd been eating. At any rate, the fruit (along with lots of flaky Cuban bread) fortified us ready for some exploration and we headed off into Habana Vieja. Literally meaning Old Havan this is, in fact, the old part of Havana. It's funny how things work out like that sometimes.

First main stop (after assuring various friendly Cubans that no, I did not in fact want to buy any cigars or require a taxi to anywhere) was the Capitolio Nacional, the Cuban Capitol building. Which, as one of the displays assures you, resembles somewhat St Peter's in Rome, St Paul's in London, various other buildings around the world with domes and, oh yes, maybe just a teensy bit the US Capitol Building of which it is damned near a copy. Inside, it's an extraordinary place and well worth visiting, and also has a surprisingly good collection of artwork etc available to buy, a fair bit of it of a different level from the usual stuff you find in near-enough every market. After the visit to the Capitolio we headed further into Havana Vieja along Calle Obispo, the central spine of the old town, dodging further amateur tobacconists and enthusiastic vendors of Granma, which is not a Cuban version of the Saga magazine but actually the state newspaper, purveyor of all the news considered fit to print and now helpfully available in English and many other languages. Obispo also contains such sights as the Floridita bar and the Hotel Ambos Mundos, both part of the trail blazed by Hemingway fans in the city where he spent much of his time.

After swinging up to the Plaza de la Catedral and admiring the Cathedral which had been helpfully put in the square of the same name, we decided that the restaurant in the square which we had earmarked for lunch might not be the best idea (insufficient non-meaty options and overly sufficient prices) and continued on, pausing for a brief stop in a nearby cafe for refreshment (during which we were treated to the first of many, many renditions of Cuban classics such as Guantanamera, a tune familiar to almost anybody who's ever watched a football match due to its easy conversion to other uses) and then for a somewhat less brief stop in the nearby market. Here began another of the recurrent themes of the trip, as I had mentioned to Mum that I was on the lookout for a Cuban flag patch to sew alongside the others on my backpack - hence, any time we passed a likely-looking market or souvenir shop we would have a check around for the desired item, often with Mum asking the shop assistants and me cringing with embarrassment as my innate English instinct for "not causing a fuss" was ruthlessly ignored.

Which brings up another of the strange things about this trip - all my life, I've been used to Mum being an expert at languages, yet here for once Mum had hardly a word of the local language and relied upon me for translation duties. It's kind of like finding the Easter Bunny now expects you to bring him chocolate or the Tooth Fairy wants you to recommend a good dentist. And given how rusty (and rudimentary to begin with) my Spanish is, this was often a case of the partially-sighted leading the blind, but we got by pretty well most of the time.

At any rate, by now rather hot and hungry, we headed on to another of the restaurants we had picked out of my Rough Guide as a possible lunch-spot, and were not remotely disappointed by El Templete - despite being sufficiently touristy as to have a menu in English, the food (mostly fish and seafood) there was gorgeous, so much so that we resolved immediately to come back there for our final meal in Cuba, lunch on the Sunday before flying home. After this, we wandered a little more around the streets of Havana Vieja, looking around the Plaza de Simon Bolivar and the Plaza de San Francisco amongst many others before heading along to the Museo del Ron.

And no, for the comedians out there, this isn't a shrine to either the sidekick from Harry Potter or the disgraced former football manager - Ron is the Spanish for Rum. Yes, we had decided to visit the official museum of one of Cuba's more famous product. And given that we had to wait 10 or 15 minutes before an English-language tour went around, I was pretty much forced to sit in the courtyard sipping a Guarabana, the house cocktail, a lovely mixture of rum, orange juice and fresh-crushed sugar-cane juice. It's a hard life.

By now it was getting on for mid-afternoon so we started back up through town, taking in a bizarre impromptu dance-show-cum-fashion-parade on the street, looking around the Casa de Asia (basically a museum showcasing various gifts from the Asian embassies), having a Mojito in the bar on the roof of the Ambos Mundos (nice views, crap mojitos) and then heading up to La Punta, the point at the mouth of the harbour, and back along the Malecon to our casa.

In the evening we went back to our little restaurant from the previous night only to find that our nice waitress from the previous day wasn't working, having been replaced by a far less solicitous colleague, and then that I had a sudden onset of some kind of stomach bug. Sick Pat is not happy Pat (you could tell I was ill, I got nowhere near finishing dinner!), so we headed back to an early night and I resolved to try and sleep it off. And on that somewhat unsavoury note, I shall end for now as this is taking longer to write than I thought and I need my beauty sleep if I am not to doze off on the phone to people tomorrow.

Adios!

Pat

Back in training

2007-03-29T22:57:00.000+01:00

Evening all.

One of my briefer posts I hope. I'm back in paid employment, and actually relishing the prospect of my first UK pay packet in almost 2 years tomorrow. Training at Trailfinders has been going well - nice bunch of fellow trainees, some good teachers, and the material's rather less dry than most other things I've been taught! The systems are proving relatively tractable (perhaps a little less unnerving for me than for some of the group who'd never really used a computer in command-line fashion rather than via windows), and the blizzard of destination information hasn't overwhelmed me yet!

And of course, I've been as sociable as ever - some of the group actually fall into that rarified category of "Bad Influence on Pat" - taking in some unfortunate encounters with tequila, an over-raucous celebration of St Patrick's Eve (gotta love the Irish), a couple of pub quizzes and catching up with various friends. All good fun.

And I've finally sorted out (touch wood) somewhere to live once I'm back in Bristol - still got to sign the contracts, but all agreed to move in on Easter Monday. So I have a job and an abode once more. Almost starting to turn back into a responsible adult.

Hope you're all well! Take care and have fun,

Pat

And in other news...

2007-02-15T11:45:00.000Z

Hello once more, my many and various correspondees.

One more quick note, as various of you asked to be kept informed as to what I was going to do by way of REAL LIFE once I got home. A fair few of you (principally those for whom I have phone numbers) already know this, but my time loafing around at home is soon to end. I have an offer of employment once again. And, as of yesterday, my proposed start date has been brought forward, such that on March 5th I begin work for Trailfinders, the UK's leading independent travel agent (yes, I've already read the corporate literature...). I'll be based out of the Bristol office, so it's farewell to the wilds of southwest Cambridgeshire (praise be) and hello again to my Uni town, delightful old cider-infested Brizzle.

Prior to that, though, I'll be training in London for the first 5 weeks (early March to mid-April), so can hopefully catch up with some of you who are based down there.

Hope all's well wherever you are, and my thoughts are (jealously) with any of you still on the road. Take care and have fun,

Pat

Happy Christmas, and looking forward to 2007

2006-12-26T00:11:00.000Z

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

Don't worry, I'm not about to assault you with another monster posting. This is just a quick note to wish you all a very Happy Christmas, and best wishes for the New Year.

I've spent the former in the bosom of my family (although enlivened somewhat by a friend of the family over visiting from the Czech Republic, which has kept me rather more on my best behaviour than I might have been otherwise), and, in a display of disorganisation quite exemplary even for me, I have no idea what I'm going to do for the latter. All I can tell you is that 2007 will have to go some to be as incident-packed and interesting as 2006 was (and, indeed, 2005 before that). Some of you were involved in making those years so memorable, and for that I thank each of you.

For 2007, my immediate goals are to do all the remaining catching up I planned (somewhat over-optimistically) for December, to give myself a month off the booze to start undoing the excesses I've visited on my poor constitution, and to find a job. Yes, it always keeps coming back to that.

In the meantime, I hope all is well wherever you are, that Santa (if you believe in him...) brought you some nice pressies, and that you have some nice things planned for the New Year. Take care and have fun,

Pat