Ten Steps to Mendoza

Can anyone explain how me and Jenny have managed not to kill one another? (*) We´ve spent every waking minute of the past 14 months in one anothers pockets, grubby pockets at that. Surely pychologists would advise against such close proximity between humans, explaining that absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. I'm at a loss and so's Jenny, so it was no surprie that we grew ludicrously excited by the prospect of a seeing some some familiar faces from home. First we would visit Katherine (Jen´s mate from home) and Ed, her fella, temporary residents of BA and then, a year a month and a week after leaving Blighty, the visit of Pads and Gabbi to Buenos Aires. 10 whole days with other people to babble at, 10 days with the potential for exciting new conversations, 10 whole days with an excuse to go for a drink every night...

Arriving in this big city might be daunting, but with the prospect of welcoming hosts equipped with beer and wine and a nice safe, comfy sofa to sleep on, Buenos Aires held no fear. This was just the welcome we needed, and with such essential advice as where the nearest laundrette and hairdressers were, they steered us safely into life in the big smoke. Now this may come as a shock to some, but please, don´t worry too much. In need of a haircut and a good scrub after far too many long bus journeys, we both went for haircuts and...well, ahem...there´s no real way of putting this. Erm, I got a bit of a mullet. I know, I know...but when in Rome and all that... It looks alright according to Jen, but then she has to say that doesn´t she? I think that in the long run it´s okay for people to experiment, as long as they don´t let the haircut get the better of them. I think I can handle this stage in my life and I'll look back on it and realise that it made me stronger. Some great actors (Mel Gibson, Jason Donovan) and footballers (Chris Waddle) have gone down this same path and some have come out of it with their reputations in tact, and that's something I hope I can do too. More people than you think have experimented with mullets and live perfectly normal lives.

And so, wearing clean clothes and unclean haircuts, we found ourselves at Buenos Aires airport, facing the arrivals door, home made sign in hand, a full hour before their flight landed. We were so excited that we were virtually crying every time we saw complete strangers reunited with other complete strangers, possibly a result of watching too many episodes of Airport back home. Emotions were high and when dithering old dears or dippy mares blocked the door, we had to control our temptation to wrestle them out of the way lest they deny us one second of time in someone else´s company.... er I mean with Pads and Gabbi. Finally they arrived and two became four.

Jen and I had been planning an itinerary for weeks, so thrilled were we about their visit, starting with a few days in BA, where we had only arrived a couple of days before.

So, not getting too carried away we found ourselves a cheap and dirty hotel opposite a nice boutiquey hotel where Pads and Gabbi could stay without having to sink to our depths. We stayed in San Telmo which is now my favourite place in the world. It's no exaggeration to say that I looked into house prices and jobs during our stay in San Telmo. It´s an old area full of beautiful traditional buildings with marble floors and swirling staircases, Tango music coming from every shop, all of which sell intruiging trinkets and antiques and records and just stuff, the kind of stuff that makes the place ooze character. Of course, it wasn´t long before we sought out a Tango show, a must in these parts. And after extensive research and planning, we managed to find the most spectaclurly, impressively and astonishingly unimpressive Tango show in town. Not satisfied with staying in the area which is home to Tango, we actually chose to cab it right across town to a show where performers outnumbered the audience. Arriving early to ensure a table, we sat in awe as a further three couples positively crowded the front row nearest the stage. The performance, to be fair, was impressive. The dancers have come in and not been put off by the low attendence and given it their best shot. They commanded the stage, pulled off some tricky moves and backed up by a big lad singing, gave the crowd something to cheer about. All 10 of us in the crowd were probably just relieved that it wasn´t us up on the stage throwing shapes, as we all hid behind hidiously overpriced platters of food. It´s a tricky toss up getting your tango show right. None of us wanted to go through the ritual humiliation of trying to dance, nor did we want a cruise ship style ball room with bells on which would have cost a small fortune. However, our no bells, no frills show still felt like a bloody rip off and left us feeling a smidge robbed, although highly amused. Hey ho, such is the world of tourist shows.

A much better and more rewarding experience altogether was a bike tour round town, not least because it combined all the elements of a thoroughly thorough tour with the utter fear of a white knuckle ride amongst the masachists behind the wheels of cars and lorries. I´m not sure what the rules are for driving in BA, if any, but you're hard pushed to find a car that doesn´t carry the scars of many a bump. Any misplaced expectation that there might be cycle lanes were quickly dashed as we wobbled across 5 lane roads, frantically ringing our bells in the hope the gnarley truckers would hear them over the sound of sweat dripping from their hirsute shoulders. But somehow we made it, from the middle of town to La Boca (home of the Juniors), and back in 3 pieces (the fourth piece, Jenny, was laid up in bed with a terrible dose of 'Marie Clare-and-Grazia', a rare condition thought to be brought on by the arrival of magazines and newspapers brought from your home country).

With a few days acclimatisation achieved for Pads and Gabbi, and Jenny thoroughly updated on Posh´s latest surgery scars, we packed our bags again for a visit to Uruguay. This particular border crossing is about as complex as crossing the Severn Bridge, and after a short ferry ride, we found ourselves in the sleepy old town of Colonia del Sacramento. Ten minutes later we'd seen the whole town and duly parked our arses in a sunny spot to read our books for the next 36 hours before returning to BA.

After our hectic adventures in Uruguay we really spiced things up by hiring a car to take us south of BA and out onto the famous Pampas, where cowboys roam on ranches growing some of the finest nappies in the world. It´s probably fair to say that the first few minutes of driving a hire car in BA are up there with moon landings and firing squads for setting the heart racing, but somehow we made it safely out of town and into the great big open countryside. The countryside in Argentina really is jolly big, it can´t be overstated just how big it is. Really jolly, bloody, rather jolly bloody big. Our destinantion was, after a couple of days, an Estancia. Estancias are big, posh houses where people who have made a lot of money in wine production, farming or being able to wear jodpurs and riding boots about the house without going near a horse, live. Think lesbian-vet-off-Emmerdale meets Penelope Keith. This was a chance to lord it for a night, where we were welcomed with a gigantic lunch which involved several barbequeued animals and flaggons of wine, followed by a horseride out into the fields. Such was the toughness of this existance that many of us struggled with the prospect of lolloping on horseback whilst keeping down our wine and desserts. Fortunately the horses came from a walk-slow eat-hard school of thought, and most of us spent the afternoon trying not to slide down the necks of our steeds as they ate their way slowly around the track. Jenny´s horse looked like it might not make the distance as it brought up the tail by an impressive 64 lengths, while Pads appeared the only person in any kind of imminent danger. His horse (which I think was called Brown Beauty), had a mischivous look in its eye and there were moments when it looked like it might tell him to buck off and run to the hills. Fortunately, none of these fears were realised and we all made it back safe enough to resume our gout inducing lifestyle amongst the fine surroundings of the Estancia.

Too soon we had to leave, me and Jen realising that we had experienced our first and last taste of fine living for a very long time. Still, a good feed and a good scrub meant we were ready to move on, refreshed and reinvigorated. We headed beachwards for our final night out in the countryside, finding a suitable beach with about 11 minutes of sunbathing time remaining. Not that this was an eventful sujourn, other than to say it was the place where Jen finally did nearly kill me (*) (you may have noticed a * earlier. This was to point out that my earlier bold statement was in fact totally wrong.) A side story to this adventure is that Jen had been told by her bank that they were issuing her with a new card. This posed many problems in terms of getting it to us, due to being abroad, of no fixed abode etc etc. Anyhoo, we finally came up with the cunning plan that IF the card should be despatched in time, Linda (Jen´s mum) would send it to Patrick who would bring it with him to BA. The plan worked perfectly, that is until Ant took the card to get some cash out - for the first time - and left it in the machine... So there you go. Jen killed Ant and that´s that.) (Actually we all know that that´s not that, because I´m still here, writing the blog in the third person for some reason.)

So....anyway...we went back to BA, just about avoiding being rammed up the arse by another trucker on the way into town. (Not literally. We were trying to turn left and he was coming up behind us....oh nevermind). We got back anyway, somehow delivered the car back with no damage and made plans to go and watch Boca Juniors play River Plate at the famous Bombasomethingorother stadium. The funny thing about going to a Boca game, or La Boca at all is that all the guidebooks warn you that it´s incredibly dangerous and whatever you do, you should pay 100 times more than the going rate for a ticket to avoid almost certain death at the hands of hoodlums. So, like good little tourists we did just that, arriving at the ground 2 hours before kick off, ensuring that we were just about the only people anywhere near the stadium at the time. Still, other people did eventually turn up and a smashing night was had by all. Naturally, we waited until about 20 minutes after the game before leaving too... though to be fair we did all make it in and out alive. Howver, I would suggest that anyone with their wits about them and not flashing the cash should just about negoitate watching a game without being hung drawn and quartered. It´s not as bad as Millwall away.

And so entering the lions den (not Millwall, god this is getting confusing) was to be the final flurry of activity with Pads and Gabbi. Sadly, they left us the following day to return to normality, leaving us cast adrift once more, floating like used condoms on the canal of filthy fate. This would be a good place for this blog to take a natural pause, but since I´m about a month behind, I´ll continue.

Abandoned by Pads and Gabbi, we wandered the streets of Buenos Aires for weeks in search of food and water. We both contracted vile intestinal diseases. When we weren´t spewing pus we scraped enough money to buy food by whoring ourselves to bus drivers and mechanics, sometimes up to nine at a time. It´s not true what they say...you can get better than a quickfit fitter. Still, what doesn´t kill you makes you stronger. In spite of such hard times, we found it a terrible hardship allowing ourselves to leave Buenos Aires, but leave we must (have).

With plenty of time still at our disposal we decided to head to Mendoza, north and west a bit. We didn´t really have a plan when we got there, other than to try some vino and maybe think about doing something active for a change. We succeeded in the former... To be fair, the activities on offer in Mendoza were lacking. Ant was in need of an adrenaline kick, and decided that mountain biking was the way forward. However, the most extreme of two not very extreme options was 25km over 7 hours. Now, do the maths, I could have pushed the bike quicker than that, uphill. And predictably enough, the mountain biking, fun though it was, lasted little over 2 hours and the other 5 were spent waiting for a group of canoers to finish up and cadge a lift back. Meanwhile Jenny was abseiling, hiking and bathing with a group of nubile young men in some other valley. Some kind of payback for the card incident, no doubt. And yes, we did tour some more vineyards, we were afterall in Mendoza, home of a very popular wine. Much more entertaining though, was the olive oil factory that we visted where everyone that worked there was HUUUUGE! It was hilarious noticing that whilst the people who worked at wineries all had happy smiles and red noses, the olive lot had enourmous bellies and terrifying colestoral issues . There´s a lesson to be learnt there, and a very good excuse for cracking into a bottle of wine instead of olive oil.

And then we headed further north. But I expect you need the toilet/to do some work/or put the kettle on by now, so we´ll save that for next time.

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