Our first look at the never-ending, rustically concreted city of Buenos Aires came through the windows of our tour bus on a freeway 5 stories above the pavement. It wasn't until our connecting taxi ("taksee") whisked us away that we actually felt a part of it all. The small vehicle threw itself into the hectic traffic with amusing abandon amid a sea of smoky trucks and nimble cars all seemingly unaware of anything around them. At some traffic lights 5 lanes across (lane in the loose sense of the word) a raggedy dog ran half way across the road before the lights went green, it stopped, panicked, and dashed back to the safety of the sidewalk. We knew exactly how it felt.

A few hours later we were well and truly back on the "sidewalk" feeling very much at home in a small apartment somewhere deep in Buenos Aires. Our hosts Anna and Hugo (courtesy of our tireless contact Veronica) were serving up Brahma beer as if on tap and offering up t-shirts for swappsies.

Phil: As though we had just finished a hard fought football match I swapped my Wayne Anderson tee with his self-printed masterpiece featuring Diego Maradonna's latest official rant: "Que La Sigan Chupando"; he was telling the media haters to "keep on Sucking" his you know what.

So after a late night drinking cervesa with the locals of Buenos Aires we said goodbye to the already startling city and skipped on the plane to Santiago de Chile. We desperately look forward to return to BA with a much greater understanding of Spanish so we can talk more easily with our new friends.

Santiago is a clash of multicoloured crumbling history with the monocromatic bordom of industry and business. The town is in parts incredibly rich with cultural reference, while in others appears as though it could be any city in the world. While it is often negatively compared to cities such as Rio de Janiero and Buenos Aires as not nearly as spectacular or exciting, meandering through the barrios that surround the inner-city was an experience i would not want to miss. It felt like a lovely slow introduction to the South American experience, a slow immersion rather then throwing ourselves into the deep end headfirst.

Barrio Brasil is a great place to stay, even though the noisy main streets roar at all hours and charge through your dreams (we had a room right on the street with an open balcony which may explain this). Walking the streets at night you find glorious urban scenary that begs to be photographed although never seems to be captured with the same startling effect as it has in the flesh. Our first night in Barrio Brasil we dined at the candelit Peperone, a empanadas cafe that has more 20 varieties of the cheap but delicious pie-y meal. The tables are made from coverted iron Singer sewing machine stands, and the walls are cluttered with images from Dali to Charlie Chaplin. The softly spoken hostess patiently smiled her way through our stumbling Spanish and kindly recommended choices as we struggled to recognise foods.

Barrio Bella Vista, on the other side of town, has a cobweb of skinny graffitti covered streets to wander through imagining the history of houses which are now crumbling and often split into numerous living quarters. You can imagine the wealth that once ran rampant through Santiago, although it is definitely still present in some areas.

We stayed in a dusky green converted house of a hostel, and treated ourselves to our own room in expensive Santiago to recover from jetlag. We learnt the hard way that you can't flush toilet paper in most of South America as the pipes can't handle it. Ella hid red faced and furious in the toilet while the nonchalent hostel host stood outside disdainfully, cigarette in mouth, explaining the rules as though to idiots. After confirming he knew nothing of the whereabouts of a plunger he removed himself to the patio to smoke and drink coffee. Plunger was eventually found and the gruesome problem solved, but the humilation lives on. How could this have been left out of the guidebooks??

Ella: Walking through the balmy late night air on our first night in Santiago we paused outside the chipped blue door of a local Barrio Brasil butcher. The display meat had been long removed from the fridge but the door stayed open, Spanish music wafting into the streets. The butchers walls were cluttered with a jumble of a lifetimes memorbilia. Jesus and Mary iconography lay surrounded by millions of eclectic trinkets; small plastic animals wandered along shelves in front of weathered family photos, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck dangled from florescents and the Popes smiling face sat above yellowing empty meat containers.

Ella: The butchers greying hair was combed back and his apron red pinstriped, his crinkled face was dignifed. He seemed to have little secrets in the corner of his smiles, but maybe this was because we couldn't understand his words. After attempts to communicate we promised to return "manana", with a phrasebook and come money for meat. Again we stood outside in the shops glow when suddenly the butcher turned the music louder and waltzed a jig into the center of the butchery floor. He called me inside and invited me to dance. I did with pleasure, but was as ignorant of the steps as I was of the Italian that began to spill from his lips. I stood on his elegant shoes as I expressed my lack of understanding. He named the dance for us, and posed for a photo.

In this moment, we felt how truely amazing this trip promised to be.

Phil: Like that stray dog in Buenos Aires (they're everywhere!) 'lost' (perdido) has popped up a few times in my vocab..
1. I lost my prescription glasses at the apartment in Buenos Aires and only realised on the way to the airport. Luckily Argentinian Veronica raced off and grabbed them just in time.
2. I got myself lost after scaling Cerra San Cristobel on a bike to take in the sights and sounds of Santiago from on high. On the way down while rushing to get back for a Kapa Haka meeting (strange but true) I rode a few hundred metres in the wrong direction and took 10 scary minutes to relocate my general whereabouts.
3. I lost the contents of my stomach a few times over courtesy of some dodgy chicken and/or unwashed fruit. I have only just recovered and discovered that life on the road isn't so bad after all.