Tear away

Adrian walked out to me wearing some big dog slippers, which made me smile, we kissed for a long time. Finally we were together again. For the five days we spent every moment together and had a lovely fun time doing regular non-travel things again. We tried to introduce Anelka to the outdoors, she sat wherever she was put and cowered into corners as the frightened puppy that she is. With a bit of patience she began walking around the carpark under Adrian´s flat with caution. Nothing seemed to sway her from being afraid but we played hide and seek with her and it made a slight difference to her confidence. A bit more work and soon she will walk around the car park with ease. Adrian missed a few uni classes to be with me and as usual I went to his work so we could spend every moment together. During our last few hours we watched Jurassic Park at the hostel, we all know it´s not a sad film but I cried for the last hour on and off. Adrian told me I didn´t have to get the bus, I could stay. Imagine how I would be after another few days! He said, no, stay for a month. There was no way of sticking around longer. I´d need a bucket for tears. The taxi arrived and this time we knew it may be the last time we would see eachother. After a long hug and more silent tears later, the taxi man patiently waited for me to get in the car. Looking out of the dirty back window, Adrian held both arms in the air in a slow wave. I wave back at him and as the car turned around the corner his fists clenched together and his head swung down and his chin hit his chest. I had never seen him look so sad. With uncontrollable silent tears rolling down my cheeks I stared blankly out at the road side trying to ignore my compulsion to turn the taxi around. Reminding myself that I still had to continue my dream I sat on the overnight bus to Cordoba. And was woken up at 5am by a girl who wanted to sit in my window seat, there were plenty of available seats but mine was on her ticket. Whoops.

Santiago or Pantiago?

Get your thermal pants on, it´s snowing.

Other than one extra day in Bariloche, working my way up through Chile to Mendoza was easy, until I got to Santiago. Everything I wanted to see happened in one day. It´s a city with city workers, another fantastic Bella de Artes gallery, a great columbian museum, a few pestering beggers and nice views. I wouldn´t live here but it was worth visiting for a day or two.

A plan and ticket in hand to catch the bus back to Mendoza the next day fell in the face of weather. It´s common for the roads to close in the mountains for two or three days. Santiago has become my home since wednesday night, it´s now monday night, hopefully the last night. There are four of us at our hostel waiting for the roads to open. Each day the bus companies tell us to come back in the morning as the bus might leave. Each day we have turned up and gone back to the hostel for an extra night. This is why I have had time to write my blog! Hurrah! We´re lucky we´re staying in a top hostel that has a fantastic breakfast (pitiful in some hostels), a luxious lounge and pool room - makes a big difference when you have a problem like ours. I´ve ended up chilling with a sick girl from Switzerland a lot. Now, I´m off now to find some people to go for dinner with. Catch you later! This is as up to date as we´re going to get... yay, I finally made it to today! Now it´s you´re turn to read it all... hehehe.

Wish me luck for tomorrow! I need it.....

hills, dancing and horsies!

hola! What a pretty neighbourhood. Valparaiso that is. Colourful German influenced houses decorate the hilly landscape in a grimy and arty way. In the day it shines with painted walls and at night it glows of beauty with the lights.

Gimme a girl up for dancing (Julie) a place to dance (on the seashore), some personal lessons in Salsa, a national drink (whiskey sour) and a late night. Whola! Perfect.

Gimme some people to walk with (hostel folk), a nice long road through the cool streets (of Valparaiso), a new friend from Chile to show me Viña Del Mar (Gonzalo) and cards to play games at night (with the hostel crowd). Kebam. Lovely jubbley.

Gimme a new girl (who wants to go horse riding) (with me), some horses, a guacho, hills, sandunes, forest, lakes, streams and a beach to ride down (to gallop and stop to take pictures as we please). Wooohoooooo! Yer. In Concon, thats not too much to ask for. Wonderful.

A perfect few days.

Valdivar & the Schizer climate

Valdivar became my option because transport to Urshauia at the end of civilisation would take days and political problems closed the pretty route through lakes and mountains to Puerto Montt. Hopping off the bus into the cold air, a woman accosts me blabbering on in speedy spanish. Slowly, tired after the three bus rides, I look at this well presented woman and say no entiendo (I dont understand). She hands me a slip of paper and suggests staying at her house for the night. Her appearance told me that her house must be tidy - not be so bad. Telling her I am busy tonight but may stay at hers tomorrow, she was happy.

Its raining, its pouring and the whole house is snoring. My hostel was made of tin FRREEEEEZING! but so are most houses in Valdivar. Lots of Nazi runaways from Germany moved to South Chile and South Argentina after the war to escape the rap. In Bariloche the hostel owner said there are still Nazi gatherings here. That made me angry. Grr. Anyway, there is a lot of German influence in the buildings. It is colourful, full of students and way more expensive than Argentina, yet it looks poor. A recommended cafe on a big square, there are lots of squares in south america, was run by German descendants who make amazing hot dogs and huge cakes. Yes, by now I am using my breakdown from being a vegie to try everything before I stop being a carnivore again.

Seals ate fish given to them by the market fishermen and many birds swooned above the fish market. When buying some non-holey trainers from a sweet gentleman, I paid and handed him my holey ones, trying to explain my thinking; that he would sew them back up and sell them. They were good trainers initially. Appearing as though he understood, in a dazzled way, he took them and wished me a good stay in Chile with a smile. Most Chileans wish you a good stay in Chile and are eager to know where you are from.

Not able to visit parks and beaches or go for walks in the rain, I stopped for lunch. Filled-up, now a new jacket was needed, the one from Uruguay had a rip under the arm. I paid 20,000 pesos for the chosen one and gave my old one to the girl that works in the hostel. She looked overwhelmingly (alarmingly) happy even though there was handy work involved.

Staying another night was a possiblity for the weather might improve. Seriously considering staying at the Chilian ladies house and half-believing that she may be a con woman, I wanted to know the truth. Venturing to the other side of the town I found it within half an hour (small town) and took a picture. The windows were open to air the house, it looked too cold so I jumped on the next bus north to Valparaiso instead.

go go go

The guys call me Leesa Seempson. As Mees Seempson I went skiing with Moka (nick-name means fly), Bart (Simpsons lover. Real name Rojo), Fredo (Frederico), Madeus and Mariah, his girlfriend. Madeus, an experienced skier, took me and Mariah around the difficult parts, speeding. Following the zooming red jacket of Madeus like usual, I lost him for a second when I bounced over a large bump, just about landing on one ski zooming on... finding him at top speed again, he must be testing us, so I matched his speed and daring. At the bottom of the slope, after a bumpy and fast ride I stopped next to him to say you´re crazy but that was great. He turned to look at me, with a face saying what are you doing? It was someone else wearing the same jacket. The guy couldn´t understand why I had followed him and stopped very close. Across the slope I heard Lisa, hola, lets go again! Mariah and Madeus were taking the lift to the highest mountain, I followed like a sheep. These two are brilliantly crazy - I thought it was my spanish misreading ´cerrado´ but the slope really was closed and dangerous. If I didn´t think they were mad I would in a minute when they took me off piste down some ice at a 45 degree angle. Scary but one of the biggest excitements of my life!

Diego kept pretending we were having a proper conversation amidst the other boys. Testing my theory I´d say something really random like the trees are blue and he would say yes. Walking in the snow, amazingly my holey trainers weren´t keeping my feet warm. They have never been so cold that they were stiff before. When we sat down in a log fire restaurant, two of the guys ran back to the car to bring me a spare pair of socks. Off came my trainers and on went their socks. Bless them. It took Frederico a few days to perk up his english but he improved a lot and was able to tell me what they were up to. These Argentinians would mostly speak spanish and Id listen, at this point I can work out what people are talking about generally but revert to trusty english, as if they will understand. We said random words that we´d learnt in eachothers language and it made vague sense when we weren´t laughing. Moka and me had our conversations on a computer most days. Google translate is a great tool but the translations aren´t quite right. At one point it said he was a woman when he is home... maybe he is?

This christmassy snow covered town has a chocolate shop every few doors. Walking into a huge store full of different types of chocolate was a dream come true! The temptation was too much, I bought one of the largest box of assorted chocolates. I had to try everything! Only a few steps away from me was a canteen, I had to look at the menu as it could only mean one thing - a chocolate menu! Almost, it was a six page pudding menu. Heaven. This was heaven. I bought a tiramisu icecream sundae - mmm mmmm. Every thought disappeared and the chill from outside didn´t bother me, this was the meaning of DELICIOUS.

It might be worth noting how forward men are in this country. A few taxi drivers gave me their personal phone numbers and asked me out to dinner, one even played me a song that he had written, and sang to it. Men who are friends all hit on the same woman in front of eachother and in front of the girls boyfriend in a very obvious way. I was told people were friendly here but come on guys.... Apparently Argentinians are jealous men. I´m not suprised. It can also be normal for a man or a woman to be in love with one person and have another partner that they simply like. I heard this story all over the country.

At the bus station, the roads to Chile were snowed in but the bus wanted to go anyway. After five hours we were back at our primery destination, Bariloche. At some point they had decided driving in heavy snow conditions was a bad idea. One more night with the boys was good. We ate chocolate and had a delicious mexican meal with Caipariniah cocktails. Second goodbyes later and even with warnings that the roads may be closed again... I was going to Chile on a different bus which wasn´t going to take me all the way. I would need to swap buses two more times to make it to Valdiviar 9 hours later.

sueño

Waking up sat next to a police officer in full uniform with the gun on her hip leant on me made me jump. Woa! Is this another dream? She finished her shift and jumped on the bus for a 10 hour bus ride to Bariloche to pick up her two children. That night they were doing the same journey back up north to meet her husband, who she also only sees once a month because he`s a cop with awkward hours too. After our broken spanish chat a young Dick and Dom wannabe held a Bingo game. I fully expected to win because the numbers were called out in Spanish and being the only English speaking person it was highly likely, no? I won a bottle of wine (from Mendoza). Talk about ridiculous luck. Other Spanish boys tried to cheat, which made everyone laugh even more when I won. People have a good social sense of humour in Argentina.


Panaramic views of snow covered mountains and large lakes filled the scenery. Beautiful! I chose to stay at El Gaucho hostel in memory of the Ranch. Within minutes of walking in an Argentinian spoke to me, thinking he was saying something about going for a walk around a lake. Another Argentinian poked his head around the door and said we´re going, you too? I said yes assuming it was the lake we could see from the hostel. We went outside and I got in a 4x4 with them, finding two other guys wearing puffa jackets waiting for us. We drove for 30 minutes, me with four spanish speakers. Ok then.

couch potato

Five days later and I´m still on the hostel couch but my cold and my coldsore are gone. Most of the time was spent with Adrian, who works in the hostel. We talked, played games, watched films and cooked eachother dinner. I decided to stick around and organise a spanish course for the next week. Next thing we know I´m living at Adrian´s house.... going parascending, drinking, on walks, have BBQ´s but generally just chatting away his working hours. There was nowhere I´d rather be because I was happy just being with him. Even the two hours I´d spend with my spanish teacher would be spent talking about Adrian. The more time we spent together the more we wanted the other to move to our part of the world. Both big tasks.

About Adrian: He is a romantic, thoughtful, interesting, friendly Argentinian with a good sense of humour who loves to learn about other cultures and likes to do nothing sometimes. Adrian speaks to me in Spanish alot and tells others to do the same just to make me learn, but he can speak English perfectly. He moved to Germany for six months to learn German, which he can speak very well. At uni he studies Hotel management and tourism so that one day he can run his own hotel. Activity wise, he took a bit of convincing to go parascending but loved it once he was up there. Reckon I can get him to do sports on a more dangerous level now.

After two and a half weeks with Adrian and his puppy, Anelka, lots of missing socks and bitten clothes later, it was time to leave. I was at the beginning of my travels, I just had to carry on. Spending time with him was incredible, I had to tear myself away. Both of us were on the down side of up when I departed on an over night bus to Bariloche. Yo quiero Adrian a movar al Inglaterra, el es mi amor. Pero esto es impossible ahora, quizas una dias : (

Change of scenery

There was no room at the hostel for this night so Vicky, Ellie and I carried our goods to it´s linked hostel a few roads away. Adrian welcomed us.

Even though we were staying at the new hostel we spent the day at our old one. We said goodbye to Chris from US, our fellow singer. With hangovers we watched Back to the future 1, 2 and 3 with other hostel stayers. Lots of Aussies were there together, we all pitched in for a BBQ. The night before I vowed that I wouldn´t revert to eating chicken because my friend has pet chickens. I ate a chicken wing for the first time in three years. It was ok.

Following all of this body abuse I was full of cold. Vicky and Ellie had an attempted mugging. The first time for them was in BA; Vicky´s purse was stolen on the Metro. This time they managed to pull their bags back screaming loud enough for the person to run away. They were both in a bit of shock when they caught their bus back to BA.

And then there was one.

Or two....?

Tango, and then there was....

Vicky and Ellie gave me many reasons not to be a vegetarian. Still upset about the no cake incidient, I wanted to be converted. They hadn´t convinced me, yet. For three years my thinking has been that if I couldn´t kill it I can´t eat it, and I can kill fish so I eat them. A random girl at the hostel brought it back to stone age for me. Women back then didn´t need to kill it themselves anyway, the men always did it, and essentially, these jobs have stayed in the man´s hands in the modern world. Oh my I was desperate not to eat another cheese and tomato toastie. It had been difficult to get my hands on fish too. That night I went out and ate mexican with the girls. They took pictures of me eating my first beef fajita. I didn´t like it, it seemed pointless to have killed a cow for a meal like that. But I had started so I may as well try a steak tomorrow, that´s what everyone has passion for over here. The next night we watched a Tango show, dinner came, and I ate steak. I never thought I´d give in but I ate steak. I really did eat steak. It was ok. You can tell in the photos that I´m not enjoying the idea but feel the need to get myself off those toasties and healthier, if that means eating steak then so be it.

After dinner Tango became a dance off between audience members and the show dancers. Vicky was pulled up, she is so gorgeous that everyone in sight always clocks her. Having never seen tango before Vicky still got through it. Then on came karaoki. We were called up by the man with the microphone, he was too loud to ignore and Vicky wanted payback, she pushed me, Ellie and Chris towards the stage. We sang....um... said as many words on the screen as we could before they disappeared... a song that none of us had heard before, in spanish, and I have photographic evidence. The Spanish audience gave us a loving smiley cheer and clap the whole time. Occasionally, not knowing exactly what we were saying, or more how to say it, brought a roar of spanish laughter. Relieved of duty, a band came on playing spanish, english and tango music, we joined the conga line twice and danced with lots of stangers. What a night.

Bike it drunk... walk it cold.

Vicky and Ellie greeted me with huge smiles when I met them in Mendoza. I´d been on an overnight bus ride and had a small cold. Regardless, I went on a vineyard bike ride with them and a couple of guys. We rode to vineyards, tested wine, got drunk and continued the 11k drunken ride on the roads meant for cars. Ace! On the way back we stopped at a chocolate factory, a lady who worked there could see my happiness and gave me a free chocolate bar. Imagine my joy!

Lots of stray dogs were following us. We gained another pet dog that was being bullied by the others. He was safe with us. They followed us for hours. Us three had caught a bus to the middle of nowhere. There are two buses to get there in the morning and two buses leaving in the evening. Climbing rocks and walking showed us an incredible landscape of mountains caped in snow overviewing a large lake and a dangerous no pass area which our innocents Vicky and Ellie wanted to go through even though the danger sign revealed there were probably crocodiles and we might get trapped by the water. After a bit of convincing they changed their minds. not long later we were bored being in the middle of nothing land. The cold forced me to buy red and grey stripey leg warmers from a little stand that was on the corner. The road led to a spa several miles away, dreaming about being in the spa, we walked on. Vicky was completely covered in clothes and I was freezing. Only a few months before I had a conversation with my old house mate, Adam, about swearing. He bet me that I couldn´t swear mid-conversation without people noticing, because it´s so out of the norm of my personality. We were talking about warmth and Vicky was cosy so I said you´re a lucky bitch. Her and Ellie gauped at me open mouthed. Adam was right, it just sounds like an insult when I swear. It could have been my whimpy sniffy half smile cold but even my explanation of why I sweared didn´t loosen them, oops better not do that again. Freezing, we said goodbye to an incredible purple orange sunset and seven dogs.

Meet my double

Angus is me but a boy version, we met at college and have been friends since. He took another route in Argentina and came south to meet me in BA. For the first time us girlies had a boy to hang around with. List of things we did:

- Two of Catherina´s birthday parties, which we were invited to at 7.30 and left at 1am and the Argentinian´s night was just beginning.
- Lessons in tango, Milangue, Salsa and Rock n Roll. We tried the advance lesson in Tango, both Angus and me were given different partners and both of our partners tried and successfully, shamefully found escape routes away from us.
- Ate delicious food at a Harry Krishna restaurant and some (too nice for me looking) places.
- Angus taught me to roller skate backwards ending on a spin.
- Saw many different types of poo on the floor, green, brown, splodgey, black, hard, old, new. It is EVERYWHERE.
- Found great galleries, Bella de Artes was one of them. In it was highly inspirational art and the worst art ever. There was fun art too. Someone had put lots of fake red poo on the floor. Angus looked at me and said, if you smell it I´ll smell it, so we smelt it together: unexpectedly cinnamon.
- Watched Angus have a bongo drum lesson and left him a bit early to look around the shops. I pointed at leggins in the shop window, immediately the assistants took the manican out of the display and gave me the leggins it had been wearing. I bought them for the memory.
- After five days of asking around we came across a small hairdressers that also offers massages. Once I ignored the hairdriers and chitchat noises through the cardboard wall I fell completely asleep.
- Walked around rich area Palermo, tangoed with colourful La Boca and poor yet antiqued San Telmo. Once we had a disagreement directional problemo, Angus thought he was right... guess who is the queen of map reading? Lisa!
- Read a note, Liah disappeared one day and left us a note to say goodbye, I´ve caught a plane to the sun-kissed beaches. Chao bebe.
- Emma at work, emailed a friend in argentina, who gave me another friend´s email address, who introduced me to someone else via email. Angus and I went to the third friend´s house and tried Mate, the South American drink. It´s horrible but socialable so I drink it because I like the idea of sharing a drink.

Cram us in. Say you can!

Clare had already booked a hostel so the rest of us found a hostel to stay together. One room only had six beds, so they gave us a mattress to fit our extra person in. Sadly, day-by-day, each person left to another destination.

Catherina said she would transfer my pictures to cd on her computer. She stuck my memory card too far into her laptop and it refused to bounce out. Technicians in a computer shop said, si tiene un problemo, and laughed. This happened in two shops. Our confidence was not growing. We were left with no choice and went to HP head quarters. The man looked at us and said, is this your only problem? uh yes, isn´t it enough? was Catherina´s reply. He looked at us blonde girls, disappeared and a moment later relieved our agony. We had three weeks of photos in tact and a laptop unharmed, phew!

Give me rum!

Thinking the night was ending after Catherina gave a wine tasting, it was announced that we were going for dinner. Jeez! At 10.30pm? This is normal here Lisa. I argued... but I don´t eat past 9 in England, there are health warnings!! Lisa, the restaurants don´t open til 8.30 or 9 here. Restaurants aren´t busy until 11. What!? Let´s go, I´ve got to see this. No longer thinking about pyjamas and sleeping bags, most of us went out. To a steak house. I ate a salad (lettuce, tomatoes and egg) and everyone else ate the best steak of their lives. Still there was temptation for me, I was simply happy not eating a cheese and tomato toastie. Champers, vodka and wine later, we found ourselves controlling lovely little Ellie. She´s a mental drunk person in the best possible light. She is so small and cute that when she called the bar man ugly with a serious voice he laughed. When she threw the menu at him because he didn´t have rum, he smiled. She thought he didn´t understand her so she tried to write it down for him in BIG letters. He spoke English. She drank a pint in two gulps. It was someone elses. She drank two more pints within three minutes. It is questionable where she puts it. Then we carried her out of the pub and were chased down the road by the bar man. She hadn´t paid. She said, we can still run, go go, it´s only a beer. I turned her around and said, it´s only a beer just pay for it. She went back in and paid for one. The bar man quietly ignored that she had drunk three pints. Then she started running down the road, we could see it all in slow motion, she swurved into the road just as a bus was coming and made it across the road in the nick of time - her near death experience. Safely laid on the bed fully clothed, she snored immediately. The next day she remembered nothing.

At breakfast Liah wandered in, she only got back to the hotel at 8.30am having fallen asleep at a guys house. There had been a band at the pub and the band member had taken a fancy to Ellie. He gave Liah his email address to give to Ellie. Liah went to his house by accident - Spanish translation confusion ?? - and kissed him. Still, Liah tried to give Ellie his email address anyway. Suprise suprise, Ellie didn´t remember the pub let alone the guy.

earth calling lisa

By chance I checked my old email address. Mum and John had sent emails to that address. Ahah no wonder I hadn´t heard from them. Where are you? Are you there? What has happened? Eeek. It had been two weeks and I hadn´t told them anything. They hadn´t received the email that sent mentioning my arrival in Rio. Luckily my brother had told them I am safe. My reply bounced back twice. It took a while for these problems to sort out. Finally I spoke to them last week, a month later. Yeah yeah I know I´ve been lame at writing my blog. It´s easy to do lots of things and internet cafes can be dull but also an experience. They vary alot, this one has loud pumping english trance, music is good for concentration right?

cobblestones and a lighthouse

The pretty town of Colonia has cobblestones, a lighthouse, a few restaurants, some small museums and the oldest church in Uruguay. Some museums are peoples very old houses that the owner shows you around. Leah and me were speaking English as we walked in so the old lady whisked us in for free as if she was hiding us from someone??? ...who knows? bless.

We were all a bit confused about the Uruguan currency, I took out 10,000 pesos which ran out in two days. Trying to balance out our money to last only one more day, Sophia and Eleanor took out quadruple me so we did an exchange, lunch for Argentinian pesos. At lunch, the deal-makers were getting very drunk to spend their money and E revealed that she has things under her bed that she doesnt want her parents to find. Yet they are sleeping in her room while she is away... she refused to give specifics. Watching the purple sunset while drinking wine from our balcony roof terrace was a nice way to end our time in Uruaguay.

Uruguay and toasties

If you have ever seen the Never Ending Story you will know how I feel in this internet cafe. One or two people have been in here today and no one else is here, except one worker mystiquely hidden away in the building. I should have a blanket over my head. There is a long story ahead and I dont know how it is going to end. I love that film, my mum had to hide the video from me because I watched it so many times she was sick of it.

Back to travels.... Montevideo city. Nothing in particular happened here. There was a gaucho museum, a walk with Carla, Eleanor and Sophia to find a good breakfast - incredibly difficult. I ate cheese and tomate, sorry tomato, toasties three times in one day because that was the only vegetarian option. Normally here I eat that toastie once or twice a day. What else? ...everyone went shopping for cheap warm jackets to ditch at some point. Clare and I almost bought identical jackets, we are becoming a literal pair. A walk around the docks passed lots of cool common grafitti which represents Che Gevara. We both wanted to go in completely the opposite directions to a 50s diner/cake restaurant that we passed earlier. Clare said, Im not going back in the other direction when we find you are wrong. Even so, Clare was grateful that we made it directly to the restaurant from my directions and we had a lovely time. I had a toastie and was too bloated to eat cake. Being a vegie sucks. Why do I have morals about this? Please remind me... If I had eaten less stodgy food maybe I could have eaten cake. I started to look for reasons to stop being vegie and struck up many conversations with everyone to find out why they weren´t veggie. Damn I ended up with stronger instincts than before. Anyway, you had to read that ramble because not much happened in Montevideo.

its still July in Guacho land

When Juan discovered badminton, he asked any Chinese tourists due to visit his ranch to bring him a badminton racket. He has a collection now. After our hard day on the field we decided to have a game in his garden, sore legs n all. His court was made of string laid on the grassy ground and two strong wooden posts holding a proper net (a gift from a chinese tourist). He said, thats your side. In the center of my serving square I discovered the biggest piece of horse shit I have ever seen. Juan wouldnt swap sides but did have the grace to come over and kick the shit over the whole court for me. Great! He said, you´re not afraid of a little shit are you? Me, no. I walked, ran and slid all over it, pretending to myself that my trainers don´t have holes in the sides. Juan walked all over me in the game but admitted he didnt expect to sweat. It was still a close game and he didnt have shit in the first round so I should have an extra point really.

I seriously considered leaving the tour and staying at the ranch for the remaining time of my trip. I was having so much fun and Susannahs cooking was the best I had tasted since leaving England. Life is so easy yet strenuous here. NO. I told myself to carry on and thought about how many times I would have to say goodbye to amazing people in the future, this made me sad. Then I thought of how many people I would say hello to, this made me happy.

Shortly after the visit Juan sent me an email. It was like the song from Trainspotting, Choose Life. A lot of advice in short sentences. It was beautiful bless him. He also said that our girls were the hardest working group so far. Get in!

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh awe urgh!

Excitedly Clare and I galloped off to round up a small bunch of sheep. Clare went up the hill and I went down towards a stream losing vision of eachother. My horse awkwardly stepped over the stream and bounced up the small hill on the other side loosening my harness. At the top of this ditch, Thunder patiently stood still while my whole body slid to the right. I reached to my left, grabbing on to the falling saddle which only helped it slide... slowly.... for about two minutes. After trying several launches to my left and looking at my watch, I finally fell off. Riding a black beauty, a guacho appeared from nowhere. The slightly silhouetted guacho smiled at me, took my hand and gracefully helped me stand up. He fixed my saddle and rode off in to the sun. I wish someone had seen that.

Sheep run in the opposite direction as you, with other sheep. They are easy to fool. Once one gets an idea of a direction, they all go that way. With a little persuasion they ran in to the pen for counting, we ignored the sheep and picked up all off the cute kicking lambs with arms strength for Juan. He castrated some males and chopped the tails off the females that he would breed from later. He offered us the option to do the deeds. The brutality was too much, out of the pen I ignored the choppings by chasing the escapee lambs and sheep. One escapee had blood all over it and a big lump the size of a small football in its neck. Juan pierced it with a penknife and squeezed a litre of yellow puss out of it. The poor lamb would have died in a few days but now it is living life, eating grass.

Deep in the dark night, in the middle of no mans land, there was a very loud scream in the ranch house. Everyone heard it and stayed in bed. Safest place, no? The next day Carla told us she openned her eyes to see a black gaping arm surrounding her in the dark, Leah had been leaning over her to get something.

Treading the gaucho ground

Juan didn´t like me because I was too tired to get his carrot joke. He gave me his most jumpy horse. I found out later that he does this to people that he wants to fall off. I´ve been horse riding 7 times - that includes being led on a donkey at the age of eight. You could say Im inexperienced but my experiences on horses have mostly been slightly dangerous ie riding without saddles or reigns or helmets - sorry dad.

Over the days I had three horses, they each showed the level of how much Juan liked me. The first generally got over excited and did what it liked, kicking and screaming. My second horse was known for laying down for a nap while the rider is sat on it. She spiced up as we cantered on the way home. In the evening, most of the girls watched a film for the scarce hours of electricity. In the kitchen four of us sat in candle light, Juan and me shared wine and blunt questions, ending up with an interesting evening. Occassionally quiet travellers stay at his ranch. To make them speak he asks questions about a subject that will make a person angry enough to disagree and put a point across. He does this by pretending he has a small mind, but he doesnt. I like this about him. The next day I had the most attentive and beautiful horse called Thunder.

Give me a life long sentence here and I´ll be happy

There is nothing but animals grazing for miles. People living in this vast area pay taxes for their land but get no bin men, no post office, or schools, nothing. We were staying in Juans family home, he says he was born there but its hard to believe what he says. He has a practical family, someone in his family had decided to keep a side table on the porch and add a sofa, in a small space so they nailed the table to the wall above the sofa, out of heads reach. It could have looked as though it was meant to be there as shelves if they sawed off the table legs, but they didn't.

Juan is a vet when the locals need his help and he farms meat which is traded for other goods like fruit with locals. A walk in storage cupboard has fruit for us all day long. Three delicous meals a day are made by Juan or his lovely Belgian wife Susannah (another vegie aka another strange one). We fill a bucket of water from the well outside to wash our goods down the toilet. A well in your garden is a lucky convenience here. We are told that we can work or not work everyday, it is our choice before the day begins but you cant change your mind when you are out there or it will confuse the animals.

I love being here. After hustling cities, too much to do and traveling through traffic: the natural habitat and personal sufficiency (with 3 hours electricity) is my perfect break. Um, I've just been told I will be castrating animals..... is that another lie?

Hot springs, carrots and a truck

Uruguay, our fourth country in four days. During the dark early hours it dropped us in the middle of nowhere opposite a large supermarket and a garage in a very small town. The girls saw a truck and looked pretty horrified, I looked over and got excited, this must be our lift.

Juan (our Gaucho guide) said to me, you are the vegetarian yes? I nodded. This is your food. He showed me a big bag of carrots. If you don´t go to the supermarket this is all you will eat. He said this seriously. Tired and confused, even seeing he was a joker I felt the need to check with Catherina and she wound me up too. I really did feel like crying. I was that tired. And a wimp. She noticed and laughed at me. Phew!

Juan´s truck had wooden slabs wonkily nailed to the sides in various places and most of the top was covered by a some wood. We wouldn´t get too wet. It looked as though Juan had been making a small effort every week to improve his truck for passengers. He´d made seats from wood then nailed seatbelts (the ones you get in the centre back seat of a car) to the sides. At 5am wearing all of our warmest clothes for our ride we huddled together in silence. Peering at the open view from the back of the truck, people who were mad enough to drive at that time in the morning pointed and laughed at us, then followed these gestures with waving. We looked like illegal immigrants.

After two hours we arrived at another small town with time to eat and spend an hour in the cold weather swimming in hot springs. After a night bus this was LOVELY. With wet hair we sat on the truck for another 5 hour drive to Juan´s ranch. There were horses in his drive way wandering freely. Surely this is heaven!

On the Brazilian side...

We had a pleasant morning, both sides of the falls had cloud in the sky that merged with the spray of the falls making it look even larger - I took millions of photographs. We could walk right up to the falls on a platform that people built without dying.

Just outside of the falls there was a coffee shop. It was cold so I bought a Cordado, my favorite coffee, and transfixed by the view almost dropped the cup off the saucer when I didn´t see a drop step. Someone´s way of kicking me back to reality. After this unexpected excitement I felt the need for an adrenaline sport so when a helicopter ride over the falls was suggested I jumped at the chance. If you ever get the chance to do this , do it. The clouds cleared, our shots of the mouth of the dragon are beautiful. The story of the mouth is; a couple had a tiff, the man god was angry at a women god for loving his brother god so he hit the earth with his gigantic fist and made this great hole where the water continually runs through. Gotta be true right? All I want to know is where the water comes from. Guess all I have to do is look at a map.

A day in Agentina

Iguazu falls lay between Argentina, Brazil and a bit of Paraguay has the river that leads up to the falls. Within two days we had been in all three countries. Our passport stamps look nice & dodgy.

In Argentina...

A small quiet boat trip leading up to the falls that deserves champagne was a great spot for seeing crocodiles and falcons up high. That didn´t cross our minds later.

With macs on and bikini´s under our clothes we walked for hours around the Iguazu falls, another of the seven natural-wonders of the world. It is an astonishingly, massive, beautiful waterfall. At one base of the falls everyone strips to bikini´s & macs and tucks their belongings inside a protective bag, gets on a boat and holds their bags tight underfoot. We took pictures up until we were too close for safety, then the dare devil drivers dip us in and out of the monster waterfall. Another thrill to add to Lisa´s list! Lovely innocents Vicky and Ellie surprised some of us by getting very excited and shouting for the drivers to take us under again, again and again! Patiently waiting to be helped over a mighty step, four slightly pale seventy-something old dears who took the front seats, stared bewildered at everyone clambering off the edge of the boat.

Continuing our walk I took more photos than everone else, lagging behind I followed the group over a long bridge that overlooks the waterfalls. The sound of the falls was so immense that I wanted to experiment. The girls were walking about 10 feet ahead of me and I´d wanted to sing at the top of my lungs for a few weeks but have had been surrounded by people since the beginning of my travels. I burst into song, Whitney Houston´s I will Survive, I think you know it. I got louder and louder. They didn´t hear me once. From then on I was quite enjoying being alone and singing even though the girls probably thought I was strange walking alone. Occassionally a stranger would walk towards me and see my mouth moving but was unable to hear me from their position. I´d stop until they walked past me and continue before they left earshot. I like that they may think I´m crazy but reckon they would try it a few moments later.

Paraguay - fives

In the dodgiest looking official market and shops you look at what they sell, ask for it at counter number one and take a closer look - there are two or three people to help you do this. Attempt to pay for it (me & Clare were buying matching macs for the falls tomorrow), are directed to a desk five feet opposite desk number one, offer to pay one of the two people waiting to help, hand over the items, they put them in bags and hand us a receipt each while refusing to take our money. They point at a third desk a few feet to their left. We take the goods to the third desk forming a small queue. Money is taken and we can walk out. Apparently that is how many shops work here. This country will never be a leader in economy; each stop took 5 minutes.

Becoming twins, Clare and me bought identical speakers for our ipods at another shop. Catherina negotiated the prices pretty damn well. The shop had two pairs of speakers remaining; one dark blue, one bright pink. I gave Clare the option to choose which colour she wanted even though I wanted the blue one. She chose blue. I took my bright pink speakers back to the hostel. They lasted for a 5 minute song and konked out. Clare´s speakers happily worked up until we left eachother two weeks later and probably still are...

We saw a damn. An amazing idea and genius thinking that pulled off but it´s pretty damn ugly. It is one of the seven man-made wonders of the world.

Imagine all you can eat pizza. Please someone, move this most amazing idea from Paraguay to London. Immediately after you choose the ayce option pizzas are dished out. Just point at a slice and they hand it over. Carla realised she had no idea what the waiters looked like because she was so busy gauping at food and pointing cave man style. I´m sure the odd ¨Ugg¨ came out of our mouth s when pointing at food. You had to point quick or you might miss it. Automatic instinct jumped in and I grabbed the white chocolate and strawberry covered pizza. Being full to bursting point, we still fit in ice cream, again ayce in many flavours! As we were walking away from the restaurant, 5 minutes after we arrived, Carla made another acknowledgement that it took us longer to walk to our table than to scoff all of our pizza down (averaging 6-7 slices per girl plus ice cream and beer).

Ok, sooo in Parati... yes, before Illa Grande.... anyone for tea?

Roomy Clare was feeling a tad ill and wanted to stay in. She is funny, off the beat and likes a drink (well she is Irish). Clare loves tea.... I mean reallllllly loves tea. She brought Irish tea bags with her just incase she couldn´t get any while traveling. As she was bed ridden and wanted to share her tea love with me, I was given the mission of going to the coffee shop below our cottagey hostel to purchase two cups of hot water with milk. Speaking absolutely no portugese, I tried to learn a word: Abrigardo (thank you); and can´t spell it.

In the shop two lovely ladies; mother and daughter, nodded at me a lot and tried to understand my broken spanish - all english had failed. Suprisingly bad spanish didn´t work. I touched my tongue with my finger and made a sizzling noise ´tzzzzzz´ as though my tonge was hot. It wasn´t clear so I tried this same action and noise on my arm, this time saying água´. Then positioned my body in a tea pot shape and poured tea out of my spout. They understood my tea pot! However, they thought I wanted tea = Problem. So, no te, agua. Their faces were taught with confusion and half-smiles. There were now two onlookers watching this catastrophe over my shoulder. we were the show for this small village. Mother picked up a jug of water, pointed at it, pointed at her stove and gave me the thumbs up. I returned her thumbs up with a smile, then two fingers that suggested I needed two cups of hot water. Whoops I sweared - turned my fingers around the other way. Blimey this is going well. Getting milk is going to be difficult. Moooo comes out of my mouth. She looks and me and says ´leche´ - oh there was no need for my effort as it´s the same word in spanish. Daughter points at hot water now in two cups and picks up some leche to point at. Thumbs up for both. She picks up tea bags, I waved my arms around frantically with a horrified look on my face - no no no! She looks utterly confused, I mean, why wouldn´t I want a tea bag in my cups of hot water and milk? Again nodding while pointing at the hot water, the milk and then pointing at the tea bag she shakes her head. Yes yes!!! Relief spread throughout the cafe. We had our two cups of hot water and milk in two lovely tea mugs plus two biscuits on the side. Oh bugger, I wanted to take these away. Somehow this is the easiest bit, I show her me walking away and walking back again with the mugs. Asking for two only for me must have given it away. Back in our room, I saw the delight on Clare´s face and it was worth it.