Argentina - lomo erotic

We like to travel slow, take our time, soak in the ambiance in street side cafes and bars. Even so we are moving too fast for this blog. It's been abut four weeks and in that time we've been to Buenos Aires, down south to the Lake District, Bariloche, deliciously laid back El Bolson for New Year, Los Alerces national park with its huge larch trees and lakes set against the Andes backdrop; and Trevelin - a cutesy Welsh-created Patagonian town where loads of Argentineans speak Welsh and totally out-Welshed an embarrassed Jenks. I think it was over an enormously sugary Welsh tea in cafe Nain Maggie that she threatened to kill me if I told one more person that she came from Wales.

Now we are in upwardly mobile Mendoza, the heart of Argentina's most prolific wine country - and once again the awesome Andes provides the backcloth - as it has for the entirety of our South American adventure outside Buenos Aires.

Including two overnight buses, that's eight different beds in just under four weeks. In idle moments we like to do the stats - the number of different modes of transport, towns, beds etc since we left London last July. We are up to about 69 beds now (adding in overnight trains and buses). As I say we like to travel slowly,but it's still too fast for the blog.

So it's catch up time again - hopefully with the aid of some pix - if they don't take to long to load.

Buenos Aires

The highlight here of course was hooking up with Ana. For those who don't know, Ana did her PhD (on Tony Blair) with me at the LSE, is now teaching at Glasgow University but she is from Buenos Aires and together with Orien they come back for Christmas pretty much every year. So they showed us around town, took us to a cool tango club, hosted us for the Christmas Eve bash,while Ana's dad barbecued the meat feast when we watched Liverpool draw with Arsenal one Sunday afternoon.


(Pic: Ana and the hand of God - showing us around La Boca, home to Boca Juniors footie team, once a poor area, still blue collar but now an artsie place and tourist magnet.


(Pic; The tradition of multi-coloured houses began with workers taking leftover paint from the docks and splashing the corrugated metal walls of their homes with whatever was available. This one has Argie heroes Maradona, Evita and tango singer Gardel on the balcony.



Walking thru the streets around San Telmo - gorgeously liveable part of BA and close to the centre, came across this mural. It says: for the love of Che, wear a condom. You might not see it but Che has a tatoo of Maradona on his arm - Diego famously had Che's image on his.



Pic shows the Casa Rosada and its balconies which have witnessed impassioned oratory from Evita, husband Juan Peron and countless others. It's in famous Plaza de Mayo the scene for countless demonstrations and occasional bombings in the various military coups in the 50 years up to 1983. Casa Rosada hosted a 25 years of democracy photographic exhibition with pix of its various presidents in that time.



Big thanks to Ana, her dad, her mum also Ana and Orien for looking after us so well.