We arrived in Argentina just in time to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War. Every map of Argentina there includes Las Malvinas as Argentine territory, which is nice. Senor Diego Armando Maradona actually has worshippers who are part of an officially recognized religion.  It's definitely a little bit loco.

Bariloche

 

After nearly getting stuck in the snow on the mountain pass from Chile we arrived at the beautiful lakeside town. The nearby ski resort was full of Brazilians who'd never seen snow before.  At least that made it less embarrassing when we tried snow-boarding and spent a painful day on our backsides.

 

We had a long trip to Trelew.  Bizarrely the town was founded by Welsh settlers in the 1860s so there are plenty of Pedro Joneses to keep up with.  We went to a Welsh tea room where I attempted to eat them out of cake.

 

We moved on to the Patagonian Atlantic coast and Puerto Madryn where we were privileged to see whales from the town seafront. So it was Wales and then whales.  Southern Right Whales for the interested. It sounds bleedin obvious but these creatures are massive.  We took a boat trip from the Peninsula Valdes to see more but got more than we bargained for when one of the beasts surfaced pretty much underneath us to give us a "gentle" nudge. I thought we were going to finish up in the drink.

 

In the harbour the next day, there were 3 whales mating.  I wasn't sure about the mathematics of that one.  Not a pretty sight either! (Got photographs if anyone's interested. Not sure Boots will develop those ...)

 

After a crazily long bus journey we made it to Buenos Aires. It's such an enormous place: 12 million people, and always busy.  We had a day trip to Uruguay - just because it was there - to the quaint town of Colonia.  The choppy hovercraft crossing over the Rio Plata was interesting - involved playing a game of dodge the vomit.

 

We chatted to a gay couple from Washington DC, one of Polish origin. Their names: Marion and Geoff.  Bet Rob Brydon didn't have that in mind.  Superb.  (one for the BBC 2 comedy fans out there).

 

It was ace to see my sister Emma and 2 mates from London, Simon and Alan, in Buenos Aires. They then travelled around with us for the next 3 weeks.

 

The atmosphere at La Bombonera, Boca Juniors' stadium was like nothing I've ever seen - even more exciting than Monday night 6-a-side footie.  It was the first game of the season and the crowd were baying and braying for the full 90 minutes. The volume was intense - and all for a dull 0-0 draw.

 

The 5 of us stayed a night on an Estancia, a ranch, about an hour out of BA to do some horse-riding.  The problem was that our collective horse-riding experience largely amounted to a round zero.  Mr Reliable, Santiago, a former real estate agent with a tenuous grip on the real world, made certain, with a few quick flicks of his whip, that zero experience shouldn't stand in the way of us galloping within the first 5 minutes. Even the grizzled gaucho, Don Juan, who was literally made of leather, couldn't help laughing at our comedic attempts to stay in the saddle.

A marathon bus journey took us to the Brazilian/Paraguayan border in the far north and the Iguazu Falls.  Just a load of water right?  Right. But, probably the most impressive, awesome load of water anyone could ever see. I won't go on about it, but you should all go there right now.

 

To dispel any doubts that Argentina is one big country we had a 27 hour bus trip to Salta.  Arguably the best preparation for such a journey was to get steaming drunk on caiprinhas the night before. Simon and Emma in particular were A-students of that school of thought.  We had to haul S Taylor from the bathroom floor and on to the bus, muttering that this would be the worst day of his life.

 

We hired a car in Salta for a couple of days to visit Purmamarca and the excellent multi-coloured desert hills, and later some impressive salt flats.  On the way back the lovely smooth tarmac road turned to gravel, followed by a track with potholes, followed by potholes with a track, followed by a mountain stream.   We returned to Salta broken men and women, with a shell of a car.  Great fun.

 

Having at least a miniscule amount of energy left, the following morning we had a go at white-water rafting which gave us the requisite soaking and daft grins on our faces.

 

Our final overnight journey in South America, from Salta to Mendoza was memorable for the wrong reasons. While we slept some prick stole our cameras, travellers cheques, my ipod and my mobile phone. The worst loss was the memory card containing about 100 photos. I can't recommend Argentinian police stations as being enjoyable places to spend more than 3 seconds. 

 

Was this Argentina's revenge for my attempt to eat the nation out of cheap prime steak and wine?  We stood tall and carried on drinking, enjoying a tour of Mendoza's vinyards. C'est la vie.

 

Adios Argentina. Gday New Zealand.

 

How are things anyway?

 

James.