One thing I really like to do when I’m waiting for public transport is to read the names of the other stops on my bus route and find the English translation for the Italian words I don’t know. I do this before I get on the bus, and then if the journey is boring, at each stop I can imagine why it was given a certain name, so for example one stop was called ‘mille passavanti’ which in English means ‘’a thousand passages.’ Then, when the bus stopped at ‘mille passavanti’, although the place was very non-descript I could imagine a thousand different coloured passages, some going up to the sky, some on ground level, and some going down into tunnels. I did this with every stop, and I managed to turn a 30 minute dull ... read more

EVENING It was 7pm when I’d had some rehydration sachets and felt well enough to finally go looking for a newspaper. I must have searched in twenty different places for one, where each owner had directed me to another place. I’d tried sweet shops, book shops, kiosks and magazine shops but not one had a newspaper. After one hour I found a kiosk with a couple of tabloids. I was curious about the shortage of newspapers. The owner explained: ‘First thing in the morning all the unbiased newspapers were selling out quickly and by midday they had all gone. The second set of newspapers to sell were the less objective left-wing, socialist ones in support of Cristina. By 7pm the only ones left unsold were the right-wing tabloids which were against Cristina, the socialist president.' Well ... read more

EVENING After today's excitement I decided that from now on I would adopt the pacifist Bolivian attitude of doing nothing and waiting for an act of God or the Gods to decide my fate and send me in a specific direction. This way I wouldn't have to look for adventure, it would come to me as easily as it did yesterday in the form of the presidents' speech. One week ago I had dreamed of spending the unadventurous last week of my trip on a beach with palm trees reading my Swedish crime novel about a girl who went missing, relaxing knowing that it hadn’t happened to me. I had survived South America. I was here. I was alive, well and fit to face the UK. This was my big dream. At 8pm my adventure was ... read more

The weather was bad in Salta and my flight had been delayed by one hour. Planes weren’t able to land in the airport and my plane was one of the many circling around in the air waiting for the storm to clear to be able to land. There was no mention of this in the airport. On the screens it read ‘ask the flight team’ but by word of mouth I got to hear why the flight had been delayed. I was furious and feeling ready to stage a revolution against ‘poor air services’ there and then , especially after my recent experiences. I’d paid a small fortune for this flight as I had done for my last flight. The least I expect when a flight is delayed by so long is a clear explanation and ... read more

PART TWO Once I’d arrived in Buenos Aires airport I found that none of the cash machines in the entire airport had cash in them after spending 4o minutes walking around with my luggage trying them all. I wanted to make sure I had more than enough money for the taxi to my hostel in case a taxi would take me round the longest routes possible, which one did. I managed to change some dollars for a poor rate but I had enough for the taxi, just. Once I got to the taxi a porter was waiting by the taxis lifted my rucksack and put it in the back of a taxi for me. Of course as it is the custom I had to tip him money. Grrrr. Three minutes it took for me to realise ... read more