I’m sitting in a dusty Bar in the northern city of Correnties and I’m watching the mosquito at work. He’s hovering amid my vein lined foot, going from vein to vein inspecting each vessel as if it was a human being inspecting bottles of wine, he pauses at each vein, then pops over to the next one. I smush him before he gets too comfortable and have that rush of confidence and power that it only derived when you heroically conquer a creature that’s probably 1/10000 your size. We decided to stay in a town called Corrientes and the decision was a poor one, Correnties aside from a pretty central square is devoid of anything interesting and extremely expensive by Argentinean standards. The lonely planet has a section on Correnties that simply reads "Fuck Correnties, its ... read more

Iguassu is a different beast entirely to Rio. While technically a city it comes across more as a sleepy little town, Iguassu nevertheless is an important urban centre as it straddles the borders of neighbouring Argentina and Paraguay. It is also within spitting distance of the Iguassu falls which I will get to shortly. As Rio took both our wallets and steadily drank them dry we decided to economise and get dorms, Niamh staying in the girl’s dorm the other side of the complex from me which means each of us is sharing with six strangers. Being the ladies dorm, Niamh has informed me that each bed has the occupants clothing folded neatly upon clean sheets and the room smells slightly of perfume. My dorm in the boys section in stark contrast has a generous scattering ... read more

Have any of you had the pleasure of watching Robocop? Aside from being one of the stellar sci fi actioners of the 1980’s it has aged remarkably well. There is a scene towards the end that has specific meaning to me at the present time. In the penultimate battle Robocop is battling a heavily armed criminal gang around a steel mill and during the course of this fight one unfortunate baddie crashes his car into a tank full of toxic waste(what this was doing at a steelworks is anyone’s guess) baddie emerges, his skin now grapefruit pink and hanging in stripes, smoke rising from his exposed flesh unable to talk coherently and making pained guttural noises. Here is the scene in question. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjEdLuqK1RQ After my day in the sun I feel like that baddie. Aftersun no ... read more

Niamh was felling particularly holy today and suggested we go see the Redeemer statue, a massive thirty metre tall statue of Jesus, 30 metres doesn’t sound like much but that’s the equivalent of 5 T Rexs in Jurassic park standing on there heads (My non denominational schooling in my youth is thinking how 5 tyrannosaurus Rexs standing on their heads would be far more impressive then the current setup but lets not get sacrilegious, a Kevin smith still buddy Christ would have been nice though) Aside from the fact that he is 30 metres, 6 Tyrannosaurs or 2/3 of Godzilla tall JC’s 1000 metric tonnes on a mountain that looms far above the city, my ears popped twice on the ride up. Considering Jesus, or “Cristo” as the Brazilians call him, is to Rio what the ... read more

We arrived. Eleven hours on a flight after a 4 hour layover in London. Flight itself was a nightmare as we were sitting in close proximity to a family that must have been some sort of on the road guerrilla marketing scheme for Durex. Their little bundle of joy roared like bull for the entire duration of the flight and whenever Pavarotti junior went to sleep his loving parents would inexplicably tickle him awake to perform another party piece. Naturally, the sound on my in flight entertainment was broken so I couldn’t escape from it all by watching movies on max volume, a real shame as the selection was brilliant. Brazilian customs took 2 hours to clear. The first 30 people in the queue got grilled with questions but eventually they began to let everyone go ... read more