The End of an (occasionally literary) Adventure

So... Keira's Argentine sojourn is drawing to an end. This time next week I will be back in the UK. For the last 2 weeks the trip had been feeling like it has all been winding down and so as well as letting you in on a glimpse of the last couple of stops of the trip, I have also in mind for a bit of a reflection on the past 3 months.

Bariloche and San Martin de los Andes were close enough together to be rolled into one... although I only really spent a day in Bariloche, a place most famous for the skiing and the chocolate, being summer meant that the slopes were out of the question however luckily the chocolate is continually in season. Rapa Nui was my cafe of choice for a 'submarino', a hot chocolate whereby one is presented with a glass of hot milk and a hunk of chocolate for DIY mixing. Then San Martin was a small town (more chocolate) that we got to by a very rickety bus through the 7 Lakes Route and indeed the next day.... (drum-roll please) .....Keira got to ride a horsey! The woods and hills which I got to ride through were incredibly beautiful however the highlight was watching my gaucho-guide herd a few of his unruly cattle in and out of trees and up and down improbable slopes, altogether very impressive horsemanship.

Mendoza is the heart of the wine region and no trip to this (incredibly leafy and beautiful) town would be complete without a day-trip at least to one winery. So we got a bus then hired bicycles to pedal about the small satellite town of Maipu, taking in a wine museum with its own vineyard and a couple more wineries. All I can say it than now I am in the big grizly city of Cordoba, I wish I had stayed in Mendoza longer. Mendoza had a very relaxed feel with plenty of small parks including Plaza Espana, a small square which has fabulous blue-tiled fountains and benches on which I read for hours.

As for a round-up what have I seen and done, and what have been the highlights, my best steak was probably at a really ordinary place outside of BsAs whilst I was at the Feria de Mataderos, an incredibly touristy place where they put on dancing shows and have stalls of local crafts etc. Here I ate my slab of meat whilst dipping into Letters to a Young Novelist a book by a Peruvian writer that I picked up in a lovely little bookshop in the leafy Buenos Aires suburb of Palermo.

My holiday reading started with Flowers for Algernon while I was in Buenos Aires. There is the most wonderful old theatre which has been converted into a huge bookshop but has still retained all of the original features (and the stage is now a cafe where there a classical musician plays) I spent a long time here however its only let down was its terrible English Language collection made up almost entirely of books called things like 'Wild Rose', 'The Shy Highlander' or 'Diamond Blade'. Amongst these I did find Algernon which I whizzed through on accounting for adoring it.

Next was Portrait of a Lady my introduction to Henry James which I picked up in the cellar of a damp old second hand bookshop which was on my road. I also picked up a Spanish Agatha Christie which I have yet to tackle. As for the Portrait... This took me from the end of my time in BsAs, through lazy days of outstanding heat in Sierra de la Ventana - book in one hand, ice cream in the other - through to Puerto Madryn and the whale-free trips around Peninsula Valdes and further on to the Welsh town of Gaiman and the campsite set up by the volunteer firemen. It was a long book but I have to admit to being pretty bored most of the way through it which was probably why it took me so long. I waited an hour for the bus out of Gaiman and stood at the bus stop determined to get through the last 50 pages before the bus came. The novel was left for its next reader on that very bus along with my scratched-to-death Gucci sunglasses.

The light relief of Nature Girl, a crime comedy that Robin had brought with him entertained me long enough for him to finish reading Captain Corelli's Mandolin somewhere around Ushuaia and the log-cabin of a hostel with the views from my bed of the southernmost Andes and the small but perfectly formed Glacier Martial. This latter part of this exquisite novel was mostly read in the aforementioned Plaza Espana in Mendoza and certainly some of the most pleasant time that I have passed was whiling those hours away.

Gulliver will undoubtedly out-travel me since I have only just started him. Ideally it would have taken me up to all the places I regret to being out of time to visit, in particular Salta, Iguazu, the Jesuit Ruins in Missiones and Jujuy way up in the Bolivian border, although the latter mostly for its great name.

Here in Cordoba these last two days of drizzle have been my call for home and as my tan fades I will spend the remaining days in Buenos Aires saying goodbye to some of the good friends I have made here. I am most certainly looking forward to being back with you chaps my splendid friends and family so will hope to do a few trips about the country visiting people with the last of my savings. These 30 hour bus journeys will certainly put a Virgin train up to the Lakes into perspective.

One thing that I came to me unexpectedly was my changed perspective and thoughts of England. A country which I always intended to leave eventually and settle in a warmer clime now seems that bit more quaint, just and appealing, although I am sure that is much easier said having not spent the past couple of months battling through snowstorms! I am missing all the best of things Anglo: excellent cheese, the Post Office, Sunday roasts, London bus maps, crusty old pubs and of course a certain Mr E Morello.

If I had to pick out one thing which for me was the highlight from my travel here in Argentina it would have to be climbing on the Glacier Perito Moreno in El Calafate. The phenomenal creaks, bangs and groans that this giant river of ice makes as it advances are out of this world and I would be back to see it in a heartbeat. The wonderful people, so sociable and always ready to have a good time together with their fabulous asados really put the cherry on the cake, or should that be the steak on the parrilla?

Right this is getting long so I will leave this here.
Chau, Keira