Day 82

We arrived in Buenos Aires airport at 730am and jumped into a taxi. We arrived at our hostel in the middle of the city, in a suburb called San Telmo. The hostel was large and very modern, wifi, common rooms with flatscreens and a reasonable kitchen. We were shown to our shared dorm room, which had 4 beds in 2 sets of bunk beds. Kelly and I were sharing a room with a Spanish couple whom didn't speak any English, and our Spanish is appalling….the conversation was gripping. We decided to explore the city centre in the morning. We walked around the business district on a Saturday, and so it was empty, and everywhere seemed to be closed. We needed to stop for lunch, and in the end, the only place we found that had food was a newsagents, that sold small Cornish pasty type snacks….not the best culinary experience. After lunch we headed back to the hostel and got ready for dinner. We were starving and asked the reception where might be open for dinner at 6pm. The guy behind the front desk roared with laughter, and told us that restaurants don't open until 8pm, and most people eat dinner at 10pm, and go out at 12am until 7am…..this was our turn to laugh…..that evening we would be in bed by 1030pm. We went for dinner at a local restaurant and had a giant steak and chicken kebab with weird crisps/chips. Kelly tried her first bit of beef for 17 years, she didn't mind it. Home and to bed.

Day 83

After breakfast we walked down to a local antiques market and browsed the old posters, plates and other ancient items. We then got a bus to Caminito, in the suburb of Boca. Boca is a pretty rough and dodgy area, and it is advised that you don't walk around there at any time. However the tourist area in the centre is pretty safe, hence the reason we got a bus directly to the centre. In Caminito there is a bizarre residential area with brightly coloured houses and shops. The houses are painted various colours, and it is a strange yet pleasant sight. After strolling around the area, we walked to the Boca football stadium. Boca Juniors is a world famous football club, that Diego Maradona played for. The area of Boca is noticeably poor, and the Maradona stereotype of short, fat, dark shaggy mullet like hair, tracksuit wearing, arrogant men is common here. Everywhere I looked I saw a Maradona look alike waddling around aggressively wearing various tracksuits. We got a bus back to the hostel. After lunch we were picked up by a tour company and began a journey to watch Independiente versus Boca Juniors. The game was being held at Intependiente stadium, 30 minutes outside of the city. Boca Junior's fans are reknowned for their passion, noise, but mostly there hooligans/Barra Bravas…the 12th man! As a result, we paid to join a tour, so that we wouldn't be mugged or worse on the way. We had heard stories of people being robbed of their cameras around stadiums and being assaulted in the stadium by the local hooligans. On the coach, we were told that we would be sat in the independiente home fans and that we should not leave the side of our tour guide. After a briefing on safety and hiding your belongings, we left the coach. We walked to the stadium, and you felt the buzz as soon as you stepped off the bus. The stadium is all standing and did not have seats, which is better for the atmosphere. We walked to our stand and the tour guide suggested that we stand further up the stand, so that the stand above us protected us from the elements. This advice would prove priceless later in the game. I had heard many stories about Boca fans and how they would urinate and defecate into bags and throw them at opposition fans, but I was unsure how much of it was urban legend. 20 minutes into the game, the Boca fans above us began throwing items off the top tier at the fans beneath us, and instantly I felt relieved that we had moved. The independiente fans were reprimanded by the referee for racist chants at the Boca fans, labelling them as immigrants. The referee threatened to cancel the game, if it continued. During the second half Kelly screamed long with 20 other nearby fans as liquid began pouring through the stand above, and they scattered in all directions. The local fans concluded it was urine or maybe water, Kelly and I didn't hang around to discover its contents, and moved 20 feet to our right. The game ended 1-0 to Boca and the atmosphere was amazing. The drums, trumpets, and singing was phenomenal. Back to a pub, a few beers, dinner and then to bed.

Day 84

We spent the morning organising our trip to South America and went to the post office to post some documents to the UK. That evening we were picked up by a mini bus that would take us to a Tango evening in the city. The guys from my work had bought us a Tango package as part of leaving present and this consisted of Tango lessons, dinner and a Tango show. We were given a tango lesson for an hour or so, and then headed upstairs to a restaurant/theatre. We had dinner and watched a fantastic Tango show, that described the evolution of Tango over the years. I was served Steak, which was the best piece of steak I have ever had. I had heard that Argentinian steak was the best in the world, but I wasn't prepared for the quality of meat. It makes you wonder what they feed British and Aussie cows to make the meat so much poorer than Argie meat.

Day 85

We got the bus down to Recoletta cemetery, where many of Argentinas aristocracy have been buried. This includes presidents and Evita. The tombs and crypts were beautifully crafted and it was a beautiful place. On the way home, I walked into a barbers to get a hair cut. With my poor grasp of the Spanish language I had a "conversation" with the hairdresser. Within a minute I had burst out laughing, when the hairdresser asked me in Spanish what I was doing for my "vacaciones", and I realised it was the same as the English hairdresser stereotype question "going anywhere nice for your holidays?" Otherside of the world, and things don't change!!! We walked back to the hostel and commandeered the television to watch the England versus Wales euro qualifier. 1-0….nice. We made dinner at the hostel, that night, as Buenos Aires is quite expensive.

Day 86

We ran around the city trying to find a safety deposit box to deposit Kellys engagement ring and other valuables, as we didn't want to carry them around South America. We then made our way to the bus terminal and caught our 19 hour bus journey south to Puerto Madryn in Patagonia. While at the terminal, our basic Spanish was tested, as no one spoke English. This included the mad, drunk and stinking trampete that sat next to Kelly. She then began to speak at a hundred miles an hour in crazy Spanish. We managed to pick out a few key words and sentences, and deduced that her ramblings were that men should never hit women, all she wants is a drink and something about English people….which I guessed wasn't complementary. We spent the night on the bus, on a Cama (bed) seat. The seat reclined to 150degrees and became a makeshift bed. The bed was very comfortable and we slept most of the way. We woke at 4am, to be asked whether we would like to play bingo, to which we answered, yes. We were given a piece of paper with printed numbers and a small hair pin. The steward then began to call out the numbers at a rapid rate and obviously in Spanish. It was hard enough understanding which numbers were being announced, to make things worse, the hair pin was almost impossible to puncture the paper with. Predictably, we did not win. On the coach we were served food and booze, much like a flight. We arrived at 9am in Puerto Madryn and caught a taxi to our hostel.

Day 87

We spent the day walking around the town, shopping and booked a tour to a local national park.

Day 88

We were up early and embarked on our tour. The tour guide squeezed us into his small car along side 2 spanish girls. The Tour guide was great fun, if not a bit crazy. He tried to get us free tickets into the national park, by pretending we were disabled. When the lady in the ticket office asked what our disabilities were, he replied that we had food intolerances. Luckily she laughed this suggestion off, and we paid and were allowed to enter. The tour was amazing, and we saw southern right whales on a boat trip. The whales swam up to the boat, around it and underneath it. We later saw another group of whales from the beach, where they swam 20m from the shore, incredible. We also saw penguins, elephant seals and sea lions. On the journey home, we were invited to try a Argentinian tea, called Matte. Matte is like a cross between tea and tobacco, and is a herb, with a caffeine like ingredient. Back home, dinner and to bed.

Day 89

I woke up and watched the England versus Argentina world cup rugby match. This was the perfect place to watch us beat the argies, in Argentina, and 1 hour from the Falkland islands. We rented bikes and cycled around the town, and along the coast. The country side around the coast is baron and grey, and looks like something out of mad max. We bought extra cold weather clothes for our upcoming trip to a giant glacier 19 hours south of Puerto Madryn. When we returned to our hostel, we met our new room mates. This was an incredibly aggressive German economics tutor and her weird boss eyed bearded boyfriend. That night I fell asleep listening to the calming sounds of a german matriarch screaming orders at her manslave, at one point I woke up and thought I was in the Somme.

Day 90

Woke up and prepared for another long bus journey. Our bus journey was 21 hours, heading southfrom Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos. At Rio Gallegos, we changed and travelled west to Calafete. We were now in Tierra del Fuego (translated as land of fire). The area got its name from Spanish sailors who noticed indigenous people's camp fires all along the coast. Our bus journey was long, but it was a fun one. I sat next to a large Argentinian truck driver called Jose, who spoke a little English, and by now, I can speak a little Spanish, and so we managed to converse quite freely. The conversation took its normal course, "are you on holiday? Where do you live? What is your job? What football team do you support?", and then descended into exchanging slang and rude words in our different languages. I am now fairly fluent in various Spanish/Argentinian insults and slang. We were joined by the coach crew/hostess bloke, and both of them found my mispronunciation of words amusing. They were tickled especially by my inability to roll my r's efficiently. I was able to gain my revenge, when I discovered that Argies and Spanish can not pronounce the letter V or B. The two letters merge into a drunken "BR" sound. Words such as Ventilate become Brentilate and the football Victor Valdes, became brictor braldes. It reminded me of the phone jacker character, brian. Every word brian says he replaces the first letter with a b. So "hello I am very happy", becomes "bello Bi bam berry bappy".

Day 91

We arrived at our hostel and after dumping our stuff, went food shopping. We had decided to cook most meals at home in the hostel to reduce our spending….and its quite fun to cook your own food. We booked a tour for the following day and after picking the brains of other travellers, went to bed.

Day 92

We were up at 7am for breakfast and then jumped on a tour bus. The bus took us to a huge glacier called Perito Moreno. This glacier is a 250 km2 ice formation, and 30 km in length, and is the world's third largest reserve of fresh water. After stunning views, we jumped on a boat that took us within 100m of the glacier, and its size and mass was breath taking. We spent the whole day there and came back to the hostel knackered, dinner and then bed.

Day 93

Kelly booked herself a horse riding trip through the mountains of Calafete and I stayed at home and caught up on the champions league football highlights. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and went for a walk down to a large lake in the town. The lake wa pretty but it was surrounded by construction which ruined the view.

Day 94

We caught a bus from Calafate to Rio Gallegos and then onto Bariloche. This was a long bus, 26 hours in total.