Kerry from Derry

After a couple of days puzzling where to go next I settled on Rosario, a mere 4 hours away (one of the main draws - didn´t fancy another 18 - 24hrs bus journey).

Rosario is north of BsAs and is on the banks of the Rio Plato (the same river that runs from Buenos Aires to Colonia) - the River Plate and is considered the 3rd city of Argentina after Buenos Aires and Cordoba. According to many it is home to the most beautiful women in Argentina and the guys from the hostel certainly seemed to agree! Can´t say I was looking myself - there did however seem to be an abundance of heavily pregnant women....wierd eh?

It is also home to one of the largest road bridges in Argentina if not South America and the National Flag monument - Monument de la Bandera. General Belgrano designed the Argentine flag in Rosario about 180 years ago. This is an impressive edifice with a nice museum to Latin America inside (on the right, half way up as you face the tall front of the monument). This monument has many sculptures on the walls and statues behind it with a reflecting pool. The locals tend to hang out here and chew the fat with their friends and its also the venue for major events in the city, unfortunately I had just missed a major opera event the day before I arrived - you can´t win them all eh?

The city is clean and modern and a nice place to walk around, there are several beaches to choose from. Our beach of choice was over on Isla Verde - the Green Island being the literal translation and very nice it was too. Basically involved getting on a bus for 30mins and then grabbing a boat across the river - headed over with Sarith from Alaska, Amelia from Paris and Silar from India, a good day had by all and definitely worth a visit. Also better than La Florida on the opposite side of the river as its less crowded and much cleaner.

A word about the weather.....my good god - how hot??? The humidity was a complete killer and made sleeping nigh on impossible although I guess a 10 person dorm is going to be pretty warm anyway! It was here that my heat rash on the old hands reappeared and made life pretty miserable for the next 2 weeks but if that´s the height of my worries I can´t really complain eh?

That was Rosario - again a good place to chill out for a while. Next stop: Salta.

Time for a new country and a break from the city and to hit the beach - yippee! And this time not a conventional beach, the beach here is on the riverbank not the ocean. It seems kind of strange to think that people would want to go swimming in what essentially looks like a brown dirty huge river (its the silt that gives it the colour). And the destination - what the locals simply call Colonia (in Uruguay). It´s a short 3 hr ferry ride across to Colonia from Buenos Aires or if you are willing to splash out the extra money you can take the fast ferry and be there in just over an hour.

For me this trip was going to be extra special - it meant that I got to stay in a hotel for 2 nights! Yes - that´s right - a hotel! And I only had to share the room with 1 other person rather than the usual 6 to 8 others.....and it had 2 swimming pools, luxury or what?

Colonia itself is a charming little town with a rather tumultulous history. Colonia was founded in 1680 by the Portuguese and has served as a port for contraband for years. Now Colonia is a quiet resort town that is cultural jewel and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995. It was fought over for centuries by the Spanish and Portuguese and later the British, but the spanish won the day when Uruguay was declared independent from Brazil in 1828. So now you know!

So what is there to do? The truth is not a lot - there´s a few musuems covering the local history as well as a smattering of restaurants and the obligatory tourist shops but that´s about it. The charm of the place is the old style architecture with both Portuguese and Spanish influences and the cobbled streets running throughout the old town - and for me it was the nearly complete lack of traffic and the silent chilled atmostphere - that´s not to say that we didn´t try to find somewhere to have a bit of a big night, we did - there just wasn´t anything happening! We did however have an amusing conversation with an Italian guy whilst having dinner with me acting as translator - hard work it has to be said when spanish wasn´t completely natural to either of us and Lena and Shilpa not having a clue! I think I did ok though - and we did manage to shake him off later due to him being a little bit wierd and having the worst mullet I´ve seen in a long time! Still - not a bad little diversion.

The rest of the time was spent relaxing by the pool and attempting not to get too sunburnt and that aim was pretty well achieved. This was the first time since I started out nearly a year and a half ago that it felt like a resort holiday and I have to say it wasn´t that unpleasant!

All too soon it was back to BsAs and a couple of days later to say goodbye to the girls as they headed back to London - and time for me to decide on the next destination and get moving before the party atmosphere of BsAs sucked me in again. It was great having people from back over the water to visit and to live a relatively normal life for a few days - hope I get to experience it again before I have to head back and grow up. Just in case you didn´t get that - that´s an open invitation for any of you to get off your asses and come visit. I should be in Australia around the beginning of April!

Sadly it came time to leave Ushuaisa and the good times had there (and the dream of sailing off to Antartica) to head back to Buenos Aires to meet up with Lena and Shilpa and again sample some fine BsAs nightlife - its a hard life but someone has to do it!

So after 50hrs on a bus and experiencing cramp in ever part of my body I arrived back in BsAs - a few days before the girls arrived from Brazil. I rocked back up to the Portal del Sur hostel where I had stayed before and immediatley bumped into friends I had met before, Ewan, Graham &, Kate so was just like coming home in a strange kind of way. Also had the chance to catch up with Carola - a BsAs girl I had met in Bariloche - first night back was a case of catching up and meeting some of the new residents as well as reaccquianting myself with the roof top bar.

After a few hours recuperation and wandering around aimlessly it was time to once again hit the town, and in true Kerry style it was hit hard! Went out with Kate and Ben to a salsa club and danced the night away with my newfound dance skills (at least in my head it was skill.....). At first it was a bit puzzling - we went in to the club and there were 4 men on the stage in various stages of undress and dancing a very VERY camp routine - had we stumbled into a gay club by mistake? Nope - apparently this little routine is put on for the ladies and judging by the hordes crowded around the stage they certainly seemed to appreciate it. Think of The Full Monty and you might have an idea of the scene - hugely amusing and I have to say one of the muscle men was particularly attractive and not at all hard to lust after!

Anyway they finished their little act and the real action started - SALLLLLSAAAAAAA! Hot, sweaty and full of passion - the latin spirit in its true form. Oh yeah - and I got to dance with the latino muscle man too, not an altogether unpleasant experience it has to be said! Turned out to be one of the best nights out I had in Argentina - lots of laughs, lots of dancing and way way way too late to bed - 8 in the morning if memory serves me correctly although by BsAs standards that´s pretty normal.

It took a a couple of days to fully recover from that particular night and then the girls arrived. Can´t say how nice it was to not have to go over the same conversation with everyone you meet - What´s your name, where do you come from, where have you been, where are you going, yadda, yadda, yadda. I think I could run a good business printing t-shirts with those particular details on them for the travel weary - what do ya reckon?? I know I´d buy one!

We took a few days to see some of the sights and experience some of the nightlife....again (by the way is it me or is Drum & Bass not the most boring music ever????). By this stage I had lost my voice almost completely which was highly amusing for everyone else but obviously not for me - meant I couldn´t do the pubs/clubs thing as too much ciggie smoke really got to me - a good reason you would think for giving up you would think eh? But that certainly didn´t stop Lena - I swear I don´t know where you get your energy from my friend! We also took in a polo game, the second last of the season and got to see 2 of the top teams in the business as well as the top player in the world who´s name escapes me just now so you´ll have to take my word for it. Not a bad day out but extremely hot sitting in the stands with no shade and surrounded by people crammed in like sardines to get the best views - still I´d recommend it if you find yourself in BsAs when the polo season is on. Get to see how the other half live and all that.

So that was BsAs this time around - next stop Colonia in Uruguay for a few days by the beach!

Moving on from the mighty Los Glaciers then to the End of the World - Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, next stop Antartica. So now I can say I´ve been to the end of the world on 2 different continents! (the other being Stewart Island in NZ).

So why did I come here then? Well I guess the draw was it being the literal end of the world but there´s much more to it than just that. The drive in involved crossing over into Chile and then back into Argentina and then through the mountains of Tierra del Fuego which means Land of Fire. Tierra del Fuego is the name of an archipelago shared between Argentina and Chile. It was "discovered" by Fernando de Magallanes in 1520, and he named the place as "land of smoke" or "land of fire", because of the campfires of the natives Selk'Nam or Ona (tribes).....so now you know!

As generally happens when you move South (once you´re over the equator of course) things start to get a little colder.....in fact so cold that it was snowing, somewhat unexpected it has to be said. Although it did make everything look just that little bit better - snow always does eh? So anyway got there and it was snowing and hence fricking freezing - time to hotleg to a hostel, have to say the first one I went too wasn´t that impressive....very small, dark and dingy and with a wierd group of people in it so, after 1 night it was time to suss out some new digs! Suss out I did and ended up in a little place calle Cruz del Sur pretty much right in the town centre. Undoubtably one of the friendliest hostel I have had the pleasure of staying in - of course it always helps when the people are good too. I just happened to be staying there when a couple (Carrie & Abran) I met on the flight from New York to Buenos Aires rocked up. The other memorable people for me was Troy the Ozzie bloke (I would swear he was a caracature if I hadn´t met him in the flesh - true blue ozzie bloke to fit all the stereotypes) who was one of the funniest people I have met in a long time and then there was Emily from England.

So anyway the 5 of us got along like a house on fire and basically drank the town dry while playing numerous games of that old traveller favourite - Shithead. Troy left a couple of days later on his Antartic voyage and the rest of us did some exercise - went hiking into the mountains with the intention of climbing up to see the glacier, I got half way there and turned back due to my granny knees and the exhausting effects of climbing uphill in snow, still, pretty good views from as far as I got and the short chairlift ride was a unique mode of transport for me in this leg of my travels.
The next day was a so called flat walk.....yeah right! Along the coast just out of town there is a track that´s suppose to follow the beach.....may just do that if you can negioate the treachous path to get there in the first place and then when you do the beach runs out after 50m and you have to go up to come back down again - Jesus! The bulls were also looking slightly hacked off at the interruption to their chewing the cud and all that so it was a quick wander through them and back towards town again. (When I say quick its approx a 16km walk....)

The next day after a true attack of the town`s red wine supply it was a trip out to Estancia Haberton, world famous apparently....to be honest by the time we got there (and the most amusing car conversation I have possibly ever had the joy to participate in) the hangovers were truly setting in and the weather was starting to look really ugggggggly so we headed back to lick our wounds in peace and quiet.

I had to leave the next day so it was a sad farewell wishing the others a truly horrible time on their 10 day trip to Antartica and leaving them extremely jealous of the 50 hour bus journey back to Buenos Aires (my how much fun does that sound eh????).

Have to say this was one of my favourite places in Argentina - both because of the people and the place, a truly chilled out place with a lot for you to do if you´re that way inclined! My only regret is not getting out on the water or doing the trip to Antartica - but then again I can always come back can´t I!

Yep - what could be the worst thing to happen (after theft, personal injury and assault of course) when you´re on your travels?

I lost 2 months of photos whilst attempting to download them from a memory card reader in an internet cafe - one minute they were there and the next it was telling me my memory card was blank! God damn bloody computers (or should that be people who can´t use them properly......). Can honestly say I have no idea what happened - but let this be a cautionary tale - if you´re not sure get a professional to do it for you!

But as I said not the worst thing that could happen - I have the memories and now it means I won´t be able to bore you all to death when I finally make it home with photos from this leg of the journey.