We arrived in Ushuaia to be met at the bus stop by people from the apart hotel we were staying at for the next five nights. A good and unexpected start. The hotel was a mere three blocks from the seafront - three uphill blocks, but they got easier with repetition. First evening we just went out for a drink and bumped into a Brazilian couple we had seen on our day trip to Peninsula Valdez. Back then we had hardly exchanged a few greetings , here we had a good chat. For those of you suffering the dark winter evenings at home you probably do not want to know that it was light until nearly midnight. The first full day here happened to be Susan's birthday. It also happened to have beautiful blue skies to ... read more

The trip from Tandil to Bahia Blanca was uneventful. No bus breakdowns. For the first couple of hours there are actually some minor undulations and even the odd hill with huge fields of sunflowers. Listened to some Devo on the IPod, that was a bit different. Arrived at the rather ramshackle Bahia Blanca bus station (new much bigger station being bult next door) and immediately went to find some tickets for the next night to take us on to Puerto Madryn and Patagonia proper. Managed to get the front two seats upstairs for the 8.30pm departure. After finding our hotel and checking in we went for a bit of a wander. Bahia Blanca has three multi screen cinemas but not much of a choice of viewing. For some reason I had had a flick through the ... read more

Arrived here in Buenos Aires for five nights in an apartment in Barrio Norte. I think the esate agents would call it Recolata border. Close to the Subte (two minutes) and a 20 minute or so walk from Recoleta cemetery and less than 30mins from real downtown. Nice to have our own space complete with living room and the opportunity to cook in. Which we actually did twice. First thing was to tramp the streets between the various Nikon Service Centers. None of which had a charger to fit, the guy in the second Center had the nerve to tell me that as my camera was a model from 2003 I should not expect to be able to get parts.....luckily or unluckily my Castellano was not yet good enough to tell him what I thought of ... read more

We left Puerto Iguazu on the Expreso Singer overnight bus, leaving about 90 minutes late. Explanation was that the guys had been fixing the air conditioning - so probably worth the wait given the temperatures here. A fairly uneventful 14 hours later with decent amounts of sleep, particularly after the blankets were given out, we found ourselves at the roadside outside Concepcion del Uruguay. Not quite sure which direction to head in but a minute later the local gendarmes wandered across the road to ask us where we had come from, and where we were going. Having established that we did not want to walk into town, next thing we knew the policeman was on his radio getting a cab to take us the 7km into town. The taxi driver then gave us a running commentary ... read more

The overnight trip from Corrientes turned out to be even longer than planned. The rain started about an hour after we left Salta and was torrential at times, when you woke up in the night you could hear it hammering on the bus roof and the swishing of the wheels. Awoke in the morning to see a very green and lush landscape - with lots of water. Arrived in Corrientes a couple of hours late but by the time we had checked into our hotel and had showers we felt re-humanised. It doesn´t seem that many European tourists come this way but the city has got some really nice early 20th century buidings and a scenic river front. We did the usual which included walking to find the cinema (the usual horror movies are still on), ... read more