Massive, manic, by turns charming and frustrating, Buenos Aires is one of the world's great cities. Broad boulevards, a great deal of neoclassical architecture, high-rise offices, dangerous barrios: it's all here and all superlatives apply. Florida Street, a pedestrian shopping street so dense with people it's impossible to walk down it in a straight line during the day, or at a steady pace. Avenidas 25 Mayo and 9 Julio, broad avenues busy with traffic, so broad you had better skip quickly to get to the other side before your light turns red. Casa Rosada (the Pink House, the Argentine equivale [View Full Entry]

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You KNOW I hadda go in. They wouldn't let me take pictures but there was a great selection. Something for everyone. [View Full Entry]

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As you move south from Brazil into Uruguay the land changes from verdant, hilly country to gently rolling land of dry, brown grass that's been grazed short. A few islands of dark, green trees, occasional groups of cattle nosing the ground - this is the pampas. Apparently they're having a very dry year, with dead livestock (now there's an oxymoron) lying here and there in the fields. Punta del Este is an international destination, like Marbella in Spain, or Ibiza or Cannes. Magazine people (not journalists but those who wind up as the subjects of articles in the scream sheets) - [View Full Entry]

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I took a 20-hour bus ride - one of those eternally monotonous journeys from late afternoon, night and into rain the following morning - from Rio to Florianopolis on the island of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil. Motels along the highway on the outskirts of Rio had Swiss names: Motel St. Moritz, Motel Lugano. Curiously out of place at first in this tropical setting, but really no more curious than, say, the Flamingo Club in Thunder Bay (long since closed), or the Tropicana in Berlin. We drove through shabby districts where dozens of kites fluttered in the sky like moths, past [View Full Entry]

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High-test, please...and don't forget to fill the case of empties in the trunk. [View Full Entry]

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A blue bay, a strip of beach, a village with no cars, green hills as backdrop...reminds me of Perhentian Kecil and little of Gili T. The community here is larger than the first yet there are no horses and carts here as on the second. It's also a much bigger island than either of them. It's a couple of hours south of Rio. I spent three days here, hanging out with some of the gang from Arraial: Joaquin, Guillermo, Francisco, Fernando and Ruben. There are lots of other Argentinians here, too. Brazil seems to be where people from Argentina love to [View Full Entry]

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The person who was subletting my apartment has found someone to replace her for the final month of the agreement, so the world tour continues. Instead of returning to Geneva early, I'll be going to Argentina after all, although it's very unlikely that I'll retrace my steps toward Bolivia. [View Full Entry]

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Being in Brazil is like being in a country full of Fernando Botero's work come to life: plenty of amazingly big, fat people. And at the seaside they're not reticent about putting it all on display. Sides of beef in bikinis and speedos. Clearly, this is informed by a point of view that values a slim figure and health and it's just an observation; it's not meant pejoratively. But it's beach life, it's their beach and they grew up beside it or have earned a vacation here and deserve it. Brazilians come in an vast range of shapes, sizes and colours [View Full Entry]

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I returned to Cuzco and spent a few days getting ready for the next part of my trip. I'd planned to go through Bolivia and then on to Argentina before heading for Brazil and the end of my voyage. Che Guevara had joined me in China, had been with me every step of the way since then and I wanted to bring him home to Argentina. I'd sublet my apartment to someone and we'd each made a commitment to the other: I not to return before mid-February 2009 and her not to leave before then. In mid-November she sent me an [View Full Entry]

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The heart of the former Inca empire, Cuzco sits in a valley and you could call it the terra-cotta town. Seen from the hills, it's all red tile roofs and red adobe walls. At night the lights spread up on the hills like electric amber. The main square, Plaza de Armas, is large with a cathedral and a church. The former is massive, of yellowish stone - a real colonial construction. The streets in the historic San Blas district are very narrow with lumpy cobblestones that are round, not flat, so they're uneven and difficult to walk on. As Cuzco is [View Full Entry]

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