I'm a Gaucha!

The 6 hour bus ride from El Calafatte was real boodiful. Stamped out of Argey and into Chile (yey another badly applied stamp!) in desolate border towns surrounded by rolling scrubby hills and dark lakes. Every once in a while in Chile the driver honked his horn to alert what looked like dopey Llamas (but may also be Guanacos, the local equivalent) and large birds of prey, sunning themselves on the toasty tarmac.

Eventually the bus heads down a deserty highway with the mighty Torres Del Pine mountain range spiking the background to our right. A grand set of dark granite towers piecing the clouds. This national park is the main reason folk visit Puerto Natales. Although watching dawn turn the towers a firey red was pretty much in my top three things to see in the American Subcontinent, 'logistical complications' (read Argey monkeys cocking up my plans) left me with only two half days before the departure of the Navimag ferry I'm booked aboard.

Dropped by the Church in Puerto Natales, Val, myself and James, a new addition Brit fellow with a geetar and a plum accent, make our way downtown to the recommended Erratic Rock hostel. We plod on down trying to figure out how this new currency works (still Pesos, but everything is now in thousands) and roll up at the ER to find an enthused yank inform us they're unfortunately rammed. But he sends us on up the road to a 'cute' place called 'Alma Gaucha', run by a cowboy mate called Johnny Callaghan. This should be interesting.

Outside an innocuous looking corrugated metal house stood the Alma Gaucha sign. Johnny answers and lets us in, a rotund Chilean donning a beret, cowboy booitz and sporting an impressive moustache - the archetypal 'Gaucho' (the name for South American cowboys). It's common practice for Gauchos and wannabes to rename themselves with something more fitting to their cowboy status. Their mothers may call them Sanchez, Julio and Carlos but their boys call them Johnny Callaghan, Tom Wayne and Wild Bill Westford. All these names sound better if you slur them in Texan drawl. Puerto Natales has loads of 'em knocking about, and I bet there's a Clint in town.

The walls inside this mainly one window lit establishment are dressed in a definite 'Gaucho' theme. Saddles, ponchos, lassos stirrups, Marlborough posters and random strips of leather. A tin shed in the corner houses the kitchen area, next to portable a gas heater and a long heavy wooden table set with doilies and a carved wooden duck. Four quid a night. Done. We fill our mismatched floral sheeted empty 4 bed dorm with bags and hit the town for some meat.

Opposite the church again, we wander into an equally bizarre establishment for lunch. A pokey little restaurant that resembled the bastard child of a Victorian dining room mating with a wild west ranch, with records & covers nailed up all over the walls. A record called 'Nasty Sex' sits on a gramophone ready to spin. But instead they have a badly compiled 80s and 90s megaamix playing, dropping no more than 20 seconds of each 'hit'. Michael Jackson, Peter Gabriel, Wham, Queen, Madonna, Hot Chocolate. A veritable overdose of 80s pop. A short fellow in a tiny bow tie brings us 3 hits of the local Austral beer. An old ornate standalone cast-iron stoves warms a blackened kettle and its immediate area in the corner.

Over tortillas and steaks con fritas we find out Jimbo's been cheffing a couple of months at a Gaucho restaurant and hotel in the back of beyond down the end of some Argey dirt road. He found a cheffing position on the net somehow and pretended he had experience ('I've worked in a restaurant... just as a waiter') and with his GCSE Spanish he jumped aboard, armed only with a good knife. From what I can gather he spent the next 3 months learning how to kill and carve up animals for Gaucho consumption. His Spanish is mint too - though he confesses he speaks kitchen Spanish; which is pretty much a knowledge of different food stuffs, swearing and saying 'Bueno' at the end of every sentence (sometimes twice). He worked long days with only one westerner in town (a dutchy) and spent late evenings chilling with the Gauchos over red wine and coke. When he finally got fired (!) one of the Gauchos hand-made him a knife sheath out of fresh cow hide.

Sounds cool eh readers? An authentic travel experience. That ain't in the Lonely Planet. Though to keep his head straight he had a Mac iBook full of music & movies. He kindly transferred a full series of Family Guy, 7 hours of the latest season of 24, Anchorman & The Big Lebowski all onto my 80gig media player gadget. Looks like I ain't gonna be the most sociable fella on the Navimag ferry.

That night the Valerie, Jim & myself make our own chorizo and mozzarella pizzas and park a few bottle of Chilean vino tinto over some suspect Argey card games and a few too many Marlborough reds (or 'Cowboy Killers' as James calls em). Rumours spread around the hostel campfire was that ol' Johnny C has never in fact ridden a horse, and that he's actually a 'Pseudo-Gaucho' (GASP)!!

Happy days.


Wild Barn

Perito Moreno

(NB: If you wish to read of my experiences with chronalogical authenticity, ensure you have read the El Chalten Supertrekking blogs first, then read this after...)

So! Francisco Pascacio Moreno (AKA: El Perito Moreno, as perito means “specialist”): Argentine explorer and Pategonian pioneer. A learned explorer who spent what seems to be the majority of his life searching out the last remaining untouched extremities of South America, and seemingly naming them all after himself. He discovered lakes, mountains, glaciers and rivers, and left a his legacy in uncreative titles. He was even taken prisoner by a Pehuelche aboriginal tribe and condemned to death, but managed to escape. A generous benefactor, he donated some land given to him to create the Nahuel Huapi National Park in Bariloche. Director of the anthropological museum of Buenos Aires, chief of the Argentine exploring commission of the southern territories, and member of numerous European scientific societies, he somehow ended up dying a poor man. Which goes to show the benefits of being tight. But his name endures, confusing backpackers as to where exactly this glacier of his is. Cos it ain't in Perito Moreno, or in the Parque National de Perito Moreno.

The Perito Morano Glacier is in fact in the Parque National de los Glaciares, and is pretty much Calafatte's one trick pony (if that's the correct saying). But it is a trick any pimp would flaunt with pride. This glacier, a good hour's taxi away from town, is rather grand.

The stats: at 257km square, 60m high and between 4 and 5km wide at it's front, it's a glacier with girth. I don't mean to patronise but lets get this in real terms: 5km is just over 3 miles and that's how far I lived from town when I was a kid and it took a good 15 minutes on the bus. Not only is it proper wide but 60m high is the hight of ten men or my block of flats in Leeds City Centre.

And if you think Moreno's big, it's actually just a fraction of the same Southern Pategonian Ice field that feeds the El Chalten glacier we never climbed on the Supertrek. This ice field looks vast on a map. Cos it is - it's 13,000km square of heaving blue ice, slowly plaining the valley and turning solid rock to powder.

Moreno itself is one of the world's few advancing glaciers and the blue ice apparently moves down the valley at an astonishing 2m per day. At its end and under it's own weight, massive chunks of ice drop off into the aquamarine Largo Argentino below. Sometimes in blocks as big as a double decker bus, which are so big they seem to fall in slow motion and bob around the lake as giant icebergs.

It's a noisy old beast too. You can hear it crunching and cracking as it moves. It sounds like a factory of heavy machinery. When it breaks off, the sound resembles explosives going off. I read that the glacier has claimed 38 lives from the days when folk on the bank next to the glacier would get sucked in and under by the waves created from falling ice off the glacial face. Not entirely surprisingly you can't get that close now.

Shame.

I bet the pictures would take the piscuit.

B Dog

Supertrekking ii: Blown Out

At 6am on day 2 of the Fitz Roy trek, our guide Loressa sadly traipses around our tents informing us that the glacier stomp & ice climbing have had to be cancelled due to bad winds. In my world I've grown used to battling on with bad wind, but that's me. The weak sliver-linings are a sleep-in and not needing to carry crampons today, but we're all a bit 'winded' by the news (Arf arf - I'm resisting making a 'blown off' joke). 'Super'trekking just became trekking, which doesn't justify the costs so well. Though the weather today is clearer, I can't imagine the sunnies or suncream are gonna be required.

After watching dawn light up one of the clear mountains a fruity pink we huddle together in everything we brought for breaky, huddled round like penguins in't t'ant t'arctic. The glorious spread includes cereal with no milk, powdery squash and stale toast with the omnipresent dolche de leiche (gooey toffee spread from boiled condensed milk) and hard toast tearing butter. Mmm. ''Recommended'' said Mr Coco...

Spirits rather low, we plod on to the glacier for a better view. It's clearer today, and most of the snow-capped mountains wear only a cloud necklace (though Fitz Roy sadly dons a full cloudy balaclava). Wild horses graze, Flamingos paddle and Condors soar loftily above; with their impressive 6 foot wingspans & wattly turkey bonces.

The raging winds have freshly torn several trees across our path, and when we reach the icy glacial lake the wind literally blows our guide and a fellow German lady off their feet. The lashing wind carries a fine gritty sediment that scratched the hell out of my spectacles. It's estimated to be a blowin' at about 100km/hr. Lordy. The gang take to walking like crabs. Watching everyone stumble about for a group photo on the moraine ridge at the end of an icy lake I think it was probably a wise not to have been blown down a crevasse. I've seen 'Touching the Void'...

The day cleared and the wind eventually let up as we leisurely strolled a different trail back to El Chalten, passing through lush valleys on the turn of Autumn. Fitz Roy himself was even kind enough to give us an appearance and tipped his cloudy hat our way. A grey alluvial river churned down deep gorges and rumbled away quietly in the background. I learned the fascinating history of East Germany from Christoph, who'd lived there under the Soviet occupation and at the fall of the wall, and shared witty banter with the gang.

Just outside town we passed a few tethered Guanacos, the local white hairy Llamas, and made the Austin Powers joke 'Well baby, which is it, spits or swallows?' Back in the small town of El Chalten, the springboard for the Parque National de los Glaciares, it's obvious even in sunshine that the place was thrown together with passing thought for the aesthetic. However, being tad heavy on the concrete and corrugated metal, it's redeemed by a fine drinking hole that brews its' own tasty beer.

Inside you'll find the full motley crew of wandering extremes, and everything in between. On the one table will be the cluelessly cheery jeans and flipflop backpacker, who's lumped hired heavy gear and tinned food for 3 days and now sports a bad knee. On the other are the lightweight, gortex, ski-pole & show-shades collective, splitting their time between bitching about 'tourists' and telling grandiose tales of hanging from their fingers on a freeclimb up the north face of Cerro Torre in a hundred KM/hr blizzard. With a few hours to kill awaiting the bus back to El Calafatte, we banter away over 16 pints of cloudy homebrew and a stack of salty popcorn. Aside from the lack of hitting stuff with a sharp axe, it was a super adventure with super folk...


Barnister

Supertrekking i: Pass the Fitz, Roy...

El Chalten Ranger station, Parque National de los Glaciares. The lady Ranger rounds us into Spanish and English speaking rooms. Out of the rain the excitable trekers peruse cheaply framed photos of the local stars, the jagged granite Fitz Roy Mountain Massive, defaced with dotted marker lines to depict routes mental climbers have ascended (or attempted) the various summits. Out comes the flip chart and telescopic pointer and class begins. Todays lesson: National Park and generic treking etiquette...

In short: Stick to the paths, don't burn down the forest and no defacating in the rivers. Short and informative, the way I like my women.

Piled back on the bus for a poin tless 100m shuttle we're suddenly off again in the really rather ugly hamlet of El Chalten. Digging around for jackets and scarves, our trecking collective huddle together against the brisk windy rain awaiting our guide. A long ten minutes later we're rounded up by the gortex-clad Martin and Lorena and shuffled though town for briefing. At this stage, under the gloomy sky, I'm sure more than one of the 8 of us secretly hoped the trip might be cancelled so we could spend two days in a warm bar drinking Chocolate Caliente by a blazing fire.

Lorena hands us a medical questionnaire (read: liability form) and our packed lunches and we are told a check list of things we should have. Sunglasses, waterproof, suncream, gloves and so forth. I've heard here also the weather also likes to deliver a randomly selected part of all four seasons in a single day - a Patgonian theme. I'm just hoping my grandmothers' leather driving gloves won't let me down. Also, the night previous I also accidently cut my big toe nail painfully short and hope I don't have to amputate.

The questionnaire asks: ''Are you on a diet? Do you need it?'' Oh how we chuckled.

This is the SUPERTREK! The red cape and spandex wearing trek! The Superted of treks! The Supercalafragalistic trek. A two-day trek extravaganza bigged up by the LP & Footprint guides (''highly recommended!''); promising panoramic vistas, a rope bridge river crossing, ice treking and ice climbing, with ropes and manly ICE AXES!! And this is (borderline) luxurious treking! Tents, sleepingbags and hot meals await us and all we have to carry is our lunch... and 7 kilos of photographic equipment.

Without as much time as to introduce ourselves, we're stomping out of town, into the drizzle under a thick bank of cloud. We climb steeply, at an impressive and unrelenting pace up rugged hillside. The old heart ticks over double-time and reminds me where it lives. Apparently, there's an early steep part of the Inca Trail called 'Dead woman's pass', and it seems a bit of training is in order. No respectable male would want 'died on dead woman's pass' on his headstone.

Mist floats about in clearly glacial U-shaped valleys, over trees painted with the first strokes of Autumn. Apparently on a clear day the Fitz Roy would be right in view, up the valley flexing his rock hard muscles. Mr Thrustle, my A-level Geography teacher, would shit his pants here with all this terminal moraine, drumlin action and truncated spur stuff.

Out of breath we start to get to know one other, exchanging tales of Argentinian airline incompetence and stopping sporadically for rainswept photos. Over the crest we pull into a mini campsite marquee for shelter and lunch. Mini cornish pasties, fruit and triple-stacked chocolate-covered biscuits. Choice. Apart from the fruit. So far we'd only seen one season. Winter. Possibly, with a literal splash of April showers.

Back on the trail we plod on, through marsh, scrub and a forest graveyard. It seems this new soil lets trees grow real tall, but only in shallow soil, so the harsh winds just bowl them over. 20% of the trees are white and dead and a good 50% lie on their sides, but yet they keep trying. Silly old trees.

We stroll round varous reedy lakes, all the while being told the hidden location of the mighty Fitz Roy, where occasionally the cloud is blown aside to reveal a fat snowy base. It's cold, in the mid one digits, and a bitter wind whips our cheeks red. My kingdom for a hot cuppa tea... and a sherpa to carry my hefty lenses.

We finally roll into base camp, are fitted for crampons and shown our tents. We cower from the weather in a communal tent over powdered coffee. The excellently named Aussy, Joe Cocco, keeps quoting the Footprint guide: ''Highly recommended'' with more than a trace of irony. His lady, Christian, gelled up with Deep Heat to counter the cold. 'Get the gell on!' became the catchphrase. There's nothing like a bit of adversity to bring a group together. We share a warm meal (still in gloves), good banter and join over a few games of candle-lit 'Tuti-fruti', in which Christoph the witty German (with a bizarre Germanic-Anglo-Irish accent) makes up cheaty German words.

We realise all our decks of cards are back at the hostel, toy with the idea of chopping napkins into 52 handwritten cards, but end up opting to hit the four-seasons sleepingbags for an early start the following day. In the dark I search using mobile phone screen-light for the (apparently) brown-roofed toilet, and sincerely hope I didn't pinch a loaf in the green-roofed store cupboard.

Tonight the temperature is in the low one digits, but factoring in wind chill, it is likely to feel like minus 3 C. Under the patter of the rain I settle into a chilly, lumpy bedbag in combat trousers & T-shirt. I optimistically think to myself that the weather will rain itself out tonight and today's viewless day'll be rendered irrelevant after climbing sheer walls of ice with MAN AXES!


Barnstaple

Contingencies

When I went to collect the bus ticket from the ticket booking place it turned out they hadn't booked them. For all Argentina's strengths, one thing one learns here is that you can plan a logical doable route from A to D, via B & C, and somewhere along the way an Argentinean ticket agency will cock everything reet up. Bus companies cancel your booked bus with no reason, domestic flights traditionally leave late (and sometimes, I've heard, hours early) and other times the tickets given are just wrong. Today though, the ticket agency just straight hadn't booked the bus. And it was now full.

Yey.

You've got to keep contingency plans up the old sleveses. It's a factor of travel world-wide, but seemingly more important here than other places I've mosied through. Apparently, one day recently, of five flights leaving Ushuia three were cancelled. So instead of wait a day for the bus V & I book a flight from Ushuia to El Calafatte the same day.

Having thought Lady Luck had other things on, she glanced on and helped us aboard our flight for a punctual departure. Sat in possibly the nosiest tristar ever (engines attatched just behind my window), I reflected on the fact that for an extra 25 of my meaty sterling poundses, I'd turned an evil 20 hour nightbus into a 1 hour flight. There's the silver line. Plus once airborne, and flying the whole journey at low altitude, Valerie and I get to spy the dark Andean giant mountains turn to crazy red and blue lakeland, then to sea, an odd pockmarked moonscape & finally to open brushy desert. Choice.

Two disappointingly dry queso y jamon sangas and a half cup a coke and we're in a shared taxi to El Calafatte town with two randoms. The taxi has the seemingly compulsory cracked windscreen and an amusing old driver keen on laying out the facts in his breast English. 'El Calafatte is equidistant latitude to London, in the South'. No surprise really, it looks pretty similar. Apart from all the desert, the brush & tumbleweed, the ridiculously big sky and huge lake, the 80km/h winds and the town itself, which on first inspection resembles a makeshift refugee camp. It's a 45 minute ride from the airport to the town, and the less-than-busy tourist information sits alone, slap-bang half-way between. Good tinkin. The place is so unforgiving & desolate, thry could just put up an A-board outside saying 'There's nothing to see here'.

The town itself is completely bent on tourism, dressed in rodeo-chic ('faux-dio'?). Wood-fronted restaurant after souvenir shop after restaurant after bar after souvenir shop line one long and overpriced main strip. You want a stuffed penguin? A cowfoot mug? A 12-inch hunting knife? A full horse hide poncho? You got it.

Though be warned, although possibly twenty ATM's are dotted along the drag, they are merely for show. You'll have to try at least 5 cajeho automatico's before finding one that dispenses wonga. More often than not they'll have a hand-written sheet of A4 taped over the screen saying 'Out of Order' in Espanol. But when you find one that works, you'll be allowed to withdraw a daily maximum of 50 whole quid in crispy 100 Peso notes. Should you have to buy anything with such a denomination, your shop assistant will deliver a look like you just ate their favourite child. Furthermore, should you try and get smart and, after withdrawing cash, duck inside the bank to break the notes (if the bank is even open) they won't have change. I jest not. It's hill-hairy-arse...

El Calafatte is a spendy one track town, pimping the hell out of a massive great glacier called Perito Moreno. We decide to check that on our way back through in a frew days and sign up with a group of 6 to head a few hours North the following morning to got 'SUPERTREKKING' in El Chalten. Before dorming down we hit the supermarket for ravioli & tomato goo and settle in with fellow backpackers over cheap plonk. Valerie has got to know me well enough at this stage to take several steps back before I open any tin, sachet or drink.

Right - time to flush this blog! Check the shortness! A mere slip at seven hundred words! It's all about your reading pleasure...

Adios muchachos,


Barnacle

20 degrees go South

As we sink though patchy cloud and are thrown teasing glimpses of the Southern Andes, Sebastian (a random, next to me, in 18A) informs me that the ''Ushuia runway very short. Very difficult.'' He smilingly mimes that I should pray. ''After runway, sea! Splash!!'' As we gently touch down and slam on the reverse thrusters, he mockingly touches the four points and kisses his cross necklace. We laugh & when the doors open bid fare well. Valerie, my Swiss traveling comrade and personal translator, & I disembark to a dramatic smokey mountainous sunset. Buenos Aires, 30 degrees C. Ushuia, officially most southerly city in the world, 10 degrees. 20 degrees have disappeared. I'm the only person in a t-shirt. And it's not too bad (the temperature not the T-shirt). Brisk, but fresh. Jolly English, wot. Bravo. Etc.

Ushuia sits at the bottom of the black snow-capped Patagonian Andes, pushing straight out of the sea. The 'Gateway to Antarctica' bordering a fantastically mountainous national park, skirted by the Beagle Channel (containing sealions and penguins a plenty) and in the winter it becomes a ski resort. It is also 'famous' for its changeable weather, proudly claiming that you can enjoy all four seasons weather in a single day. Sometimes twice over.

My first impression from the taxi is that it looks alot like Switzerland, but with no style. Second impression: this is the end of the world and it's warmer than England. Third impression: the town appears to be ruled by dogs (there may even be more dogs that people) Fouth impression: this place has roundabouts! The first I've seen in all South America. The fourth impression should't have been as exciting as it was.

We settle into a dorm head for grub. Our fellow dormies aren't interested in joining us. It seems Zennon, a shy and retiring fellow after an early night, is infinitely duller that his name would suggest. Later we stomp down the hilly town to a recommended restaurant, an Asado buffet, and sample some bbq'd Patagonian lamb with a full bodied Malbec. A chef behind a hatch aranges full, splayed animals around a log fire and over a charcole griddle. You go up and using the international language of pointing, he hacks off and sends you a wedge of succulent, smokey meat roughly the size you'd share with a nuclear family on a Sunday back home. After't bufit I sleep like a full & tired log, irrespective of feeling each and every plank in through the ropey matress.

Originally one of Spain's penal colonies (hands up if you'd prefer to be sent to Australia?) after tut Europeans took over. Sadly when they wandered in, their gift to the underdressed, long-armed Yamana indians was measles, pneumonia and TB. 50 years later the 1000-strong tribe were down to 45. These days the ancient prison makes for a fascinating museum, with info on the prison, local maritime history and crazy local fauna.

All of a sudden we realise we're late for the Beagle Chanel catamarang tour we booked yesterday, so we dash, are given the tickets and hop aboard, seating with a sigh of relief as we cast off. An elderly Argentinian lady (that more than reminded me of my late Nana) informs us we're on the 2 hour non-penguin tour, not the 6 hour penguin tour after all. Pretty gutted and too late to turn back, we settle into the short tour and see a lighthouse, a load of cormorants wot look a bit like penguins but ain't and some impressive sealions that looked a resemble Barry White, my mate Rich Marsh and everything in between. (Fortunately, the cruise company realised their mistake with tickets and we got a free penguin cruise later that week and a free hot chocolate and some vouchers for a glass of Champers each. Happy days...)

Did you know the lucky 300kg Bull Sealion has up to 10 wives? Well you do now. Every day's a school day folks.

The next day we took a national park trek and canoe trip with Ash, a young Brit doctor, and and 4 Argeys. The uninhabited coastal forest was very Lord of the Rings, and I kept expecting a stack of Urukhai to scream past. Our guide, the spitting image of Jude Law (see photo when I get it up, it's uncanny), pointed out crazy trees allergic to mushrooms, how to get your vitamin C off tut land (for when you run out of vitamin pills) and which eidble leaves taste of Salami.

The canadian canoe paddle was ridiculously tranquil. The only people on the still lake, we splashed past big geese and birds under clear blue sunny skies and surrounded by a crystal clear mountain panorama. Apparently, Ushuia only has 10 still, sunny days per year, and it seemed the three we were there were some of them.

Lady luck smiles on again. She and I have got on well thus far.

In other news: My spanish is coming along a little. Today I discovered that tired (cansada) and married (casada) are ironically similar. Arf arf. Forgive the cynicism.

Asta luego amigos,


Barns

BA in BA, foo

My dorm in Hostel Inn Buenos Aires was branded the 'Party Room'. Not really cos it was where the party was at (on the contrary it was dingy and smelt of socks) but because it was immediately adjacent to where the nightly party happened. Restocked daily by the three cheerful 18 year-olds who seemed to run the place, the hostel beer fridge was drunk dry nightly. Backpackers fall into the local habit of getting some meat in, seeing a cover band and/or putting a few litre bottles of Quilmes cervesa away and then after midnight getting dressed up to head out on the town to play.

Between 5 and 9am they fall back in to the hostel, settle down outside my door and noisily empty the fridge of booze, generally accompanied by an unskilled guitarist. For the duration of my stay there were four nocturnal Irish ladies who'd come in daily from a solid night on the sauce at 9am for the free breakfast then hit the fart sack until the following evening, when they'd do exactly the same. Not the most cultural experience, but hey. While they are reinforcing the Irish stereotype, to be sure, there are indeed different courses for different horses. And being in Argentina's capital continually getting pissed ain't the worst course going.

Now while 'If you can't beat them, bite them' is a perfectly sound policy I chose to join them. I generally hooked up with all sorts of fine folk for drinks in squares, drinks in bars, and drinks in hostels. One night we even managed to round up a table of 25 for a 6 course T-bone & vino tinto extravaganza downtown followed by a mass exodus to a square for late night outdoor drinking (all good when it's 20+ degrees C at 2am) and nipple flashing (from Canadian men anyways).

For me though, one of the best evenings in BA was lounging on hostel beanbags with a crew of random travellers. Two most excellent Canadians, a linguistically flamboyant French chica, an attractive (if vacuous) Kiwi and a San Fran Yank. We sat around chugging on dubious Isenbeck beers (punctuated by compulsory shots of Scotch from Forest and Karsten, the Canadians) and exchanged animated and inflated travel tales. Forest and Karsten had impressively travelled overland all the way from Vancouver Island to BA, with many an entertaining anecdote en route. The deceptively mild-mannered looking French lady had got up to all sorts of mentalism, aboard full hammock laden amazonian local boats and camping with Bolivian families when her bus got rained in. And pretty much everyone, including San Fran Jack, seemed to have fallen big time for Nicaragua. Put it on your places to see list peeps.

Buenos Aires, 'the Latin Paris' is a funny old place. A massive city with a European café culture feel, filled with squares, markets and hidden bars and eateries. I found it surprisingly easy to get run down by 'professional' dog walkers, dragging along eight dogs (complete with a small dog literally skidding along behind, leaving a trail of poo). There always feels like there's something cool to do. So even if you're only there to book a ticket out it draws you in. Anyone staying a two days ends up staying a week; a week becomes two and folk staying for a month 'to learn Spanish' (read: get wrecked lots) may as well get an apartment.

I decided, less by choice and more by the noise of the free breakfast being served outside my door at 9am, to burn the candle at both ends. And why not, by day BA is a fantastic city, embracing both the new and the old, optimistically emerged from a politically turbulent history with plenty to offer. Absolutely potty about footy and so vainly bent on looking good that apparently one in ten adolescent girls suffer from an eating disorder.

From the crumbling colonial grandeur of San Telmo & colourful exuberance of La Boca, to the 19th Century European downtown and flashy harbour development round Puerto Madero, there's a buzz in the air. They love to eat and drink here. The range of tasty Argey wines is wide (though the star is the Mendozan Malbecs), the Quilmes goes down smoothly and champs is cheap. Empenadas make for excellent mini pasty snacks, cheese and ham sarnies are served without crusts and pretty much all other snacks and deserts contain super sweet dolche de leche (boiled condensed milk).

Locals of all ages pull on ornate omnipresent mate cups (local herbal tea cups with a metal straw) irrespective of being on a bus, sat on a street corner or operating heavy machinery. The Portenos (resident Buenos Airians) love that stuff so much (mainly cos it's more addictive than caffeine) that they carry full thermos flasks and massive bags of Yerba Matte everywhere they go. That's a lot of love for the brew.

But in BA it's all about meat. It's the wrong place to be veggie. The smell of BBQing meat wafts from Parrilladas and Cantinas. Asado's have whole lambs and chickens splayed round smoky log fires. Sirloin and rump steaks are cut clearly too big for one and pretty much however you ask for it, it's served bloody. Every bit of the cow is used. A Swiss girl, Valerie and I shared a Parillada Brochettes for lunch one day: a veritable meat injection, featuring some seriously suspect cuts of meat. The chorizo sausage and ribs were great, but the black pudding contained hot runny blood and fatty chunks, the sliced lumpy kidneys were strangely crunchy and the intestines filled will with tripe were just wrong. I'll try anything once, twice if it's nice, but no more ranky mixed grills for me, ta. Praise the guy in the sky for the free bread!

However, bitter stimulants and protein-heavy meals aside, all play and no sleep makes Jack a tired boy. So when I finally board the night train to nod each night my subconscious has been up to most strange things. One night I apparently engaged in a most entertaining bout of sleeptalking. Actually, I'm informed by amused dormies that it was more 'sleep negotiation', as for some time I tried to negotiate a character of my dreams down to $20 cos it clearly wasn't white. Or something. I had a sleep sneezing show on one night, but another evening, less to the dormsters amusement, I took to snoring in a big way. 'Like a man possessed' I'm told. I only remember once, but apparently I was shaken awake several times only to promptly return to a deep contented rumbling snore.

Generally I hate that guy, but when he's you what can you do?

So from Buenos Aires, the city with the most unnecessarily high doorways in the world, I bid thees to fare well,

Barns