Rosario

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Unfortunately we´re having lots trouble with our camera at the moment, and without being able to transfer our photos to a computer, haven´t been blogging. We only had one photo for this location, though, so you´re not missing much! That photo and more to come when we reach a country where we can either speak the language in order to get the camera fixed or buy a new one for less than twice the price they cost at home (electrical goods are an absolute fortune here).

After spending 5 nights in Uruguay (as I´ve said, a country that´s famous for its beaches) in some of the greyest, wettest weather you´d find outside of summer in Northern Ireland, we woke up on our last morning to glorious sunshine. Not the best day to pick to spend 12 hours on a bus! Still, we got to appreciate Uruguay in much conditions from the window on the journey, and the parts of the coast and countryside we passed through really were gorgeous.

We arrived in the Argentinian town of Rosario, the birthplace of Che Guevara, at 11 that night and headed straight to a hotel that our guidebook described as spotless and new. Now, we know that our guidebook is 2 or 3 years old, but it must be at least 50 years since this dump could have been called 'new'. We´ve stayed in some basic little places on this trip and rarely had a problem, but this was the worst by far, by a long way. It was late though, so we agreed to stick it out for the night, as it at least seemed to be clean, although everything was ridiculously threadbare it was hard to tell. And it´s also hard to describe what was just so awful about the place, although the fact that the room had no exterior walls, meaning that the 'windows' only opened into internal corridors, definitely contributed. So, after a very disturbed night´s sleep, where we were both convinced we were being eaten alive by bed bugs all night long, and a 'shower' under the tap on the bathroom wall, we cut our losses and left. As it turned out anyway, the bus to our next intended destination had no weekend service, so it was either leave at 5 that night, Friday, or wait till Monday. So, it was just a very brief stopover in Rosario, just enough time for a quick picture of Neil outside Che´s birthplace and a McDonald´s to set us up for the 20 hr bus journey ahead.

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