For this, I’m sad to be packing up my rucksack, as quickly as possible while Ben and Jag sleep into the afternoon. But, for the same reason, I have a deep feeling of satisfaction: I’ve achieved what I set out to do, and after three months travelling alone the thought of going home to everything that is familiar is comforting.

After squeezing, for the last time, my knackered running shoes into the top of my rucksack, I reflect on the ground covered since I touched down in Mexico City on February 12th.

me

Over 5500 miles on the ground and 2000 miles in the air; twenty long distance bus journeys (between seven and 18 hours); 40 hostels and hotels; three flights, three in-bus Jean-Claude Van Damme films and two bouts of travellers diarrhea. Oh, and 96 blogs.

I could have taken the taxi, but it seemed much more appropriate to take the bus to Ezeiza, the international airport 35k outside Buenos Aires. Nico helps me with my bags to the bus stop on Independencia. It’s 1.15pm and my flight leaves at 5.05pm. I’ve been told to leave two hours for the bus, as it’s a long, long journey. So when we find ourselves stuck in a traffic jam, at a junction where the lights have gone, for about half an hour, I start getting nervous. I consider jumping off the bus and flagging a taxi, but I’m stuck in some pretty rough-looking suburbs. The worst thing with these types of journeys is that you have no reference point to judge how you are getting on – except for the driver, who doesn’t take kindly to my repeated questions about how far it is to the airport.

But we get there about one hour 15 minutes before the flight. I get checked in straight away – it’s quiet, and most people have already gone through security – and do some last-minute shopping for presents.

I feel like I’m supposed to sign off this blog with some words of wisdom, distilled after three months “finding myself” while travelling across Central and South America. I found lots of things, none of which were actually me. What am I going to do when I go back? At this moment, I haven’t a clue, though one or two doors may be opening. Am I suddenly gripped by panic over not having a job? No.

And have I had a fantastic time, creating what seems like years of memories into what were after all only a few weeks. What do you think?…

Buenas noches y buena suerte x

I decided to listen to the woman running the hostel: make sure you go early in the day and keep your camera out of sight.

So I wandered about twenty minutes south, down Defensa, across a park with steps covered in colourful graffiti, and into the grittiest barrio in Buenos Aires.

Mindful of the wisdom of not looking too much like a clueless tourist, I tried to keep the stopping and looking at my map to a minimum. Which meant that I often had no idea where I was. My plan was to go to the Boca Juniors stadium, but as hemmed in among tight residential streets, its often hard to see.

Alarm bells started to ring as I walked passed a hospital. A man with one leg, being pushed in a wheelchair, tried to grab my shirt as I walked past. If the one-legged wheelchair-bound locals are having a go at me, how am I going to fair against the able-bodied locals?

Mural welcoming you to La Boca

I quickened my pace, caught a glimpse of a vibrant blue and yellow football stand, and turned up a corner in that direction. Sometimes the quickest way to football grounds can take you through the dodgiest areas. I suddenly became aware just how run down everything was in this street. Parked cars had no wheels. Old women were pushing shopping trolleys that appeared to be empty.

And then, across the street, I saw a commotion. Three men were being pinned against the wall by plain-clothed policemen. What, exactly, were they looking for? I zipped my jacket, which was hiding my camera, further up, and pressed on.

Soon enough, I was at the stadium. Apart from a haggard looking woman selling old Boca flags, there was no-one around. The season had finished at the weekend and Boca fans had little to celebrate.

Shop selling tops outside stadium

I made my way round to the front and saw a knot of Japanese tourists. This must be where the museum is. On the ground were a series of footprints in bronze casts, Hollywood style. I looked for Maradona’s. It was the only so worn out that you could not actually make out a footprint.

After a quick look around stadium, I checked out Boca merchandise shops across the road, on the hunt for a Maradona DVD. He’s a lunatic, but the best footballer I’ve ever seen and I wouldn’t be upset if Argentina win the World Cup. (I’m not English).

One corner away from the ground

From the stadium, I walked the few streets to the Caminito, a street that leads down to the water’s edge full of wooden houses painted in bright colours. By this point the light was starting to dim. I didn’t really fancy walking back, passed the hospital where by this time the one-legged crazy guy may have  found some equally bold mates. I caught the bus to downtown and bought a few DVDs, including one about the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War, from the perspective of the home side.

Tonight’s my last night, and so I decided that, in the words of that bloody Black Eyed Peas song, it’s gonna be a good night. I got back to the hostel quite late and found Laura, the Frenchie, and Will, her young Ozzie beau, getting drunk on my behalf. “Miguelito!” they shouted.

I couldn’t bail out of my leaving party, although I was ready to collapse in bed and sleep for three days, so we went out. (Cue recollection of our taxi drivers dancing in their cars at the lights across four lanes on the way home…) Yup, it was a good night.

Living the dream

Does calling a day by the, er, day mean I’m running out of themes? I’ve only got a couple of days left before flying home, and while I want to enjoy Buenos Aires to the full, I don’t really feel like I need to do anything much. Three months on the road have given me plenty of amazing experiences and memories.

But today really was a Sunday kinda day. Not just because it was actually Sunday, but because, well, I went for a stroll with Ben and Nico, to the nature reserve on the other side of the docks. Strolls are fine but should be reserved only for Sundays. I feel another day-by-pictures coming on…

Cranes remain along the old docks, now gentrified.

Folkoric dance going off

Across the reeds at the nature reserve

I realised it was just me that wasn’t very good at tango.

But I had a burning desire to see some tango in its spiritual home. I spoke to a few people, tried to decipher a tango city map in German that the tourist office gave me, and identified a couple of hotspots where couples go to make dancefloor love.

One of the best, and oldest, is called Confiteria Ideal. Its tucked down a narrow street off Diagonal North, in the centre of town. I knew I was close as suddenly I was surrounded by tango shops. These are almost as interesting as the venues – full of elegant heels in bright red, green and purple, and more sequined dresses.

Tango dancers at Plaza Dorrego...get your change out.

I walked up the old wooden staircase at Ideal and watched a tango couple doing some moves for a professional photographer. They were probably posing for photographs sold to tourists around town. I took my own sneaky photo and headed on up to the dancefloor, where lots of middle aged couple were slowly spinning their way around to some very old crackly music.

A woman behind a counter told me I would have to pay 18 pesos to get in. I thought about it, and decided a quick peak from the other side of the counter was enough. I took a couple of photos and headed off.

Later I headed back to San Telmo and watched some tango dancers performer for tourists at an outdoor cafe in Plaza Dorrego. It was all beginning to look a bit one-dimensional.

“They are always drunk and that’s why the music is very sad, very tragic,” said Nico, later on. “This is why I don’t like tango.” It’s very much geared for tourists, although aficionados can certainly spend many an hour dancing to their heart’s content at a milonga, or dance.

I decided that, like Nico, tango didn’t really do very much for me. Too touristy, too dreary. Nothing to do with that failed beginner’s class with my old flatmate, obviously.

Anyway, why am I getting up at 3pm?

As Bo-Selecta would say, Rewind! Last night! (she said). So, we’re at the table outside on the patio and the American guys, Marcos and Matt, have got the guitars out. You know, the usual traveller standards: Bob, Bob (Dylan, Marley), Simon and Garfunkel (possibly). There’s a good crowd of us, all up for a party.

Ben comes along and starts to up the Andian quota, with a few Scottish tunes on the quena, that beautiful indigenous flute. This becomes a bit of a joke as Ben tries to jam along with every song that gets played, usually in the wrong key.

San Telmo Collective giving it max

Then it’s my turn. The drugs don’t work. Yes, that Verve classic about cancer is just the ticket for a knees-up (it’s about the only song I can play).

The wine is starting to run out, along with the canon of tunes. And then a guy walks into the hostel, carrying a rucksack and guitar. Five minutes later, Leo, from Colombia, is at the table, serenading us with traditional Colombian guitar music and improvised lyrics about all the people sat around. He is hilarious, a trained singer and the complete showman.

The next day I would find out, bizarrely, that he is also a scarf vendor. He came into my dormitory, I assumed just to chat, only to pull out a selection of scarves – “20 pesos each, very nice.” I assume he is joking, laugh and slap his back. He gives me a puzzled look – he is serious.

Anyway, back to the night before. Before long, Leo’s strumming some salsa-infused tune, and we all take up the baton on percussion. The loose tiles on the table make a great rattly noise when hit with force, as I discover, while the forks and knives played by everyone else, along with the occasional off-beat clap, also sound great.

Within seconds we have our own samba rythme in full-swing.

Leo, singer...guitarist...scarf-seller

It’s about 1am and time to…go out. First stop is the Gibraltar bar, up the road on Peru. It’s a British style pub which, remarkably, is all the better for it. The room out the back, with a pool table, is our hang out.  It’s here that two old faces suddenly appear – Jimmy and Phil, the Australian dudes I went on the pampas tour with in Bolvia. Wow! Little did I know they were in Argentina, never mind Buenos Aires, never mind heading to the very same bar I was in.

Leo wants to go salsa-ing, and so we (Leo, Jag, Max and myself) head up town in a taxi to Azucar and shake our…you know, do the salsa thing. Well, we try. After an hour or so,  we give up and head round the block to Konex, a huge old warehouse which stages a huge samba party every Monday night. Tonight is just a big old house disco, and the Ozzie guys have already headed there.

It’s 20 pesos but the bouncer won’t let us in because the ticket office is closed. It’s 5am and all looks lost. One last throw of the dice – lies. “Acabamos de caminar una hora y media a venir aqui” I tell him with my best sad puppy face. (“We just walked an hour and a half to come here”) He looks at me and hesitates before waving us all in, for nothing.  Then we bump into a very drink Jimmy who puts an arm around my shoulder and thrusts a wad of paper slips into my pocket. He somehow managed to steal a bunch of free ticket vouchers, so now we’re on vodka and speed for the rest of the night, on the house.

The Banghra Boys

Two hours of mad dancing later, we get a taxi as far as the nearest all-night McDonalds, somehow aquiring a large straw sombrero, a pink top hat and deeleeboppers on the way. Various happy meals later, we start our walk home. It’s 8am and people are out and about heading to work.

In amongst the crowd are four grown men wearing silly hats, attemping to beat-box banghra-style. Booooyyyyzzzzzzzzz.

Its also where the remains of the great of the good of society are laid to rest, in the mini-city of the dead that is El Cemetario de Recoleta.

And there is one grave that everyone who comes here wants to see – that of Eva Peron. But trying to find it, without a guide, in this maze of imposing granite shrines is easier said than done. I went there with Jag, from the hostel, and a German woman called Birgid who we met on the number 10 bus. (Yes, we managed to find some change for the bus. It’s not as bad as I thought, and was kinda hoping, it would be..)

Fuelled by a few empanadas in the nearby park, we began wandering around the streets – that’s what it looks like – of this fascinating cemetery. Writers, generals, political leaders, singers – they are all here. But unless you’re particular versed in Argentinian history, the names frankly meant nothing to me. Not that their graves, house-like with as much granite to withstand whatever may pass in the coming centuries, are unimpressive. Quite the opposite.

Looking along one of the avenues in the cemetery

After a half hour wander, inspecting the both lavish and sombre tributes – physical and written – to the great and the good and wondering whether their actual bodies were transfered to this above-ground graveyard upon death, we managed to find Evita’s tomb. This was after going down a number of blind alleys after other tourists who looked like they knew where they were going but didn’t have a clue.

Her grave itself is, in this place of grandeur, fairly modest. But the number of bronze plaques dedicated to this heroine of Argentinian society attests to her popular, well, popularity.

For over 30 years, mothers of these unfortunate souls have campaigned to have their loved ones returned. Every Thursday, at 3pm, a group of these determined people march on the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the presidential palace, to seek justice for their families.

One 'madre' on the march

They have been marching, week in week out, for decades now, and today they marched once again.

I made my way to the Plaza de Mayo, a twenty minute walk from San Telmo, to witness this sombre spectacle in the bright autumn sunshine.

About 40 people, mainly women but a few older men and younger supporters, steadfastly made their way around a fountain in the square, repeatedly calling for full crimes of the government to be exposed. Many of the women carried boards around their necks with pictures of their sons. Meanwhile, names of the dead were read out by a woman on a loud speaker. Joining them was a smaller knot of older people marching seperately round the fountain. I presumed these to be “abuelos”, or grandparents, of the disappeared.

Meanwhile, I joined a small group ofinterested tourists trying to get good shots of the protesters as they performed their weekly demonstration. Clearly used to the attention, they didn’t seem to mind out cameras snapping away. Publicity seems to be their main weapon in their fight against what they see as a continuing injustice.

Here’s a wiki link that explains the background to the movement. It’s a fascinating and moving story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers_of_the_Plaza_de_Mayo#Origins_of_the_movement

I wake up to the sight and sound of Latin American pop videos on the bus TV – all synthasised Reggaeton beats and tanned flesh. For once, I can’t see any signs of poverty. Highways snake from one side to the next, flanked by skyscrapers. Occasionally, a gleaming football stadium passes by. Down below, life spills onto the streets as Buenos Aires comes to life for another day. I would soon find it never really falls asleep.

About 50 minutes later, we finally make it through the choked roads to the bus terminal at Retiro. A few minutes later, rucksack once again firmly attached, I’m dodging street vendors hawking sunglasses, cheap books, clothes and DVDs on my way south to the bohemian and stylish barrio of San Telmo.

I had been recommended a stay at the Hostel of San Telmo, supposedly Buenos Aires’ original. It takes a good hour to make my way through downtown, stopping off for a rest in the sun-kissed Plaza de Mayo, and into San Telmo. Its full of elegant restaurants and crumbling colonial edifices, and is a popular spot for backpackers.

I check out a few other hostels but finally plump on the recommended one, as its said to be one of the friendliest in town. Its nothing special to look at, but the welcome from the staff is genuine and disarming. We’ll give it a whirl – the boutique hostel I saw a few streets away can wait until another night.

Its pretty quiet, and my dormitory seems empty. Then I meet Jag, a guy from Birmingham with Punjabi roots who has also just arrived.

Little did I know in a few days time I would be beat-boxing with him through downtown at 8am in the morning.

I cook up some pasta and there a few more guys milling around. The weekly game of football is kicking off in an hour and my name is on the team sheet. It’s been more than four months since the last game of five a sides, in Madrid, and I can’t wait to have a kick around. The fact it’s in Buenos Aires, the home of Boca Juniors and River Plate, with a cosmopolitan mixture of players from Argentina, Chile and elsewhere, only makes it better. And one of them is a spitting image of (latter day) Maradona.

It’s an indoor game with a small football – proper Latin American style. I manage to grab an early goal and then disaster strikes – the sole of my trainer, which has made it through the jungle of Bolivia and across the volcanos of Guatemala, comes off completely. I change into my walking boots in the hostel and make it back for the last half hour.

After taking a shower I take a walk around San Telmo, which by now is getting dark, so I duck into that institution of overseas drinking – Molly Malone’s – for a pint. Later that night I cook up some steak from a nearby “Chino” (Chinese-run store), where I get into a very confused conversation about whether there is still a coin shortage in Buenos Aires. Whether its my faltering Spanish, or the Chinese guy’s understanding of the language, I don’t know, but before long I’m trying to make myself understood before a whole crowd of puzzled looking people.

Then its time to taste the legendary Buenos Aires nightlife. A crowd of us from the hostel kick off with a bottle of whisky and some wine in nearby Plaza Dorrego. I get talking to a Colombian, who asks me, straight faced: “Que piensas de la muerte?” Hmm, did he just me what I think about death? After some prevaracation, I turn to Max, the German, and bounced the question onto him. His look of complete bewilderment and shock has us all in stitches. It’s an expression that I would see on Max’s face often – he does befuddlement very well. Maybe it was just the whisky.

And for me, three months is a perfect amount of time to travel. You are fresh and up for the experiences, most of the time, while being happy to come back home at the end. You can always come back again, and I’m sure I will.

So, I booked my last long distance bus ticket at the terminal in Mendoza and looked forward, for the last time, to the bingo *It didn’t happen*.

The journey across the interior of Argentina, from west to east, passed me by as I was sound asleep almost the whole way.  It was a mere 14 hours, long enough to cover maybe one sixth of the length of the country. That was another reason I didn’t fancy Patagonia in the end …. the distances and the amount of time required on your arse in a bus are massive.

Tomorrow, I’ll wake up in one of the most celebrated cities of the world, the Paris of the South. And the final stop. I canna wait.

We had planned to move from La Puerta because there were so few people. But after a day or two, this became a definite plus point. Ben, Natalie and Alan (the English couple) and myself have been here for three days yet and, apart from when we arrived and found a couple eating on the patio, we haven´t seen any other travellers.

It has taken on the ambience of a student flat (a tidy one) for the four of us. The kitchen is getting regular use, partly thanks to Ben´s determination to eat meat – huge, juicy cuts of prime Argentinian beef – at every opportunity. He´s a dab hand in the kitchen, rustling up some fine puddings with thick, sugary chocolate sauce.

Mendoza is becoming a place where we like to say we´re going to things, but end up hanging about the hostel. Las noches largas don´t make it any easier to get out and about. But, for me, this is fine. After nearly three long months on the road, it´s nice to kick back and take it easy. I´ve been moving around pretty quickly, covering some vast distances, so I reckon I can afford to do very little for a while. If travelling was a sport, and I was a veteran sportsman being interviewed before a game, I´d probably say something like “Well I don´t feel like I have to prove myself to anyone”.

I´m sleeping more than at any point on the trip, thanks largely to the fact there is no-one else to wake us up in the morning.

The one aspect about this hostel that makes it feel a little different to a flat are the staff. Ivan, the older guy from Chile who seems to work the night shift, and his colleague, whose name I don´t know, are more parental than staff-like. We´ve been gently told off for taking over the kitchen on occasions. Which was puzzling to us as we were the ones paying to stay here. And we´ve been relegated to watching the tiny television outside the kitchen because Ivan is constantly watching football on the flatscreen in the lounge area.

But really we´re all one big happy family. And today, Alan was the happiest – we watched his team, Chelsea, win the Premiership by beating Wigan 8-0.