Foz do Iguaçu

Sunday 15th May 1988

I crammed down a couple of corned beef sandwiches as we packed up our gear. At the Bus Terminal we took the bus to Brazil for ₳5 Australes. Buses left every twenty minutes from 07:00 hrs. We had to get off the bus at Argentine Customs to get our exit stamp, take the next bus to Brazilian Immigration, which was very relaxed, for our entry stamp, and then take a third bus into town.

A young hotel tout took us to a few expensive hotels before we took a triple room at the San Remo Hotel for 1,500 Cruzados. The cruzado was the currency of Brazil from 1986 to 1989. It replaced the second cruzeiro (at first called the "cruzeiro novo") in 1986, at a rate of 1 cruzado = 1000 cruzeiros (novos) and was replaced in 1989 by the cruzado novo at a rate of 1000 cruzados = 1 cruzado novo. This currency was subdivided in 100 centavos and it had the symbol and the ISO 4217 code BRC.

Above: Hotel San Remo.

Everything in the town of Foz do Iguaçu was closed but luckily Hugo had a load of Brazilian money to pay for us today. We took a bus to the falls which cost 50 Cruzados plus 160 Cruzados for entry to the park. The Brazilian side offers a fine, panoramic view of the whole range of waterfalls.

We walked along the narrow path adding to our already significant collection of waterfall photographs. Several brown furry animals with long striped tails (coatis) foraged by the path, another target for photographers.

The final catwalk led through wind-blown spray to the Devil’s Throat which hurtled, roared and tumbled into the mist below. Solid looking rainbows spanned the river between the cliffs.

Above: Steve and Hugo at the Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil.

We took a bus back to town and I went back to the hotel for a kip (sleep) while the Swiss boys tried in vain to get a bus to the huge Itaipú Hydroelectric Dam Project. The Itaipu Dam (Portuguese: Barragem de Itaipu, Spanish: Represa de Itaipú) is a hydroelectric dam on the Paraná River located on the border between Brazil and Paraguay.

They got back at 17:00 hrs. after a long chat with a German migrant in the town centre. We lay about and wrote while listening to Paraguayan Radio Stroessner on the transistor radio. At 20:00 hrs. we went out to get something to eat.

We went to a churrascaria on Avenida Brasil which offered as much as you could eat for about $4 US dollars. We took a table in a vast wooden hall while a local trio of musicians played live music. It was set up as a serve-yourself carvery and we got stuck in with a vengeance.

Plates of beef, chicken, pork, exotic salad and rice was swept down our gullets with red wine. A night of overindulgence that had us tottering back to the hotel to lay on our beds with stomachs gurgling and struggling to digest the unexpected excessive volume of food and drink.

Iguazú Falls

Saturday 14th May 1988

We laid in bed for a bit and got the 10:00 hrs. bus to the Cataratas. This cost ₳13 Australes for a return ticket and ₳7 Australes for entrance to the national park. We met Hugo, another Swiss guy, on the bus. The bus stopped outside the exclusive hotel by the falls and we got our first sight of the waterfalls from what looked like a lighthouse on it’s plush lawns.

Iguazú Falls or Iguaçu Falls (Guarani: Chororõ Yguasu, Spanish: Cataratas del Iguazú; Portuguese: Cataratas do Iguaçu) are waterfalls of the Iguazu River on the border of the Argentine province of Misiones and the Brazilian state of Paraná.

Together, they make up the largest waterfall system in the world. The falls divide the river into the upper and lower Iguazu. The Iguazu River rises near the heart of the city of Curitiba. For most of its course, the river flows through Brazil; however, most of the falls are on the Argentine side. Below its confluence with the San Antonio River, the Iguazu River forms the border between Argentina and Brazil.

The name Iguazú comes from the Guarani or Tupi words "y", meaning "water", and "ûasú ", meaning "big". Legend has it that a deity planned to marry a beautiful woman named Naipí, who fled with her mortal lover Tarobá in a canoe. In a rage, the deity sliced the river, creating the waterfalls and condemning the lovers to an eternal fall. The first European to record the existence of the falls was the Spanish Conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1541.

We had coffee by the two sisters, two waterfalls which on their own would attract tourists in Europe but here were only a minor side show. We got an overall view of the massive line of waterfalls which spanned the Iguazú river. Rainbows appeared and disappeared in the spray around the bottom and our cameras worked overtime.

The staircase character of the falls consists of a two-step waterfall formed by three layers of basalt. The steps are 35 and 40 metres (115 and 131 feet) in height. The columnar basalt rock sequences are part of the 1,000-metre-thick (3,300 ft) Serra Geral Formation within the Paleozoic-Mesozoic Paraná Basin. The tops of these sequences are characterized by 8–10 metres (26–33 feet) of highly resistant vesicular basalt and the contact between these layers controls the shape of the falls. Headwater erosion rates are estimated at 1.4–2.1 cm/year (0.55–0.83 inches/year).

Numerous islands along the 2.7-kilometre-long (1.7 mi) edge divide the falls into many separate waterfalls and cataracts, varying between 60 and 82 metres (197 and 269 feet) high. The number of these smaller waterfalls fluctuates from 150 to 300, depending on the water level. About half of the river's flow falls into a long and narrow chasm called the Devil's Throat (Garganta del Diablo in Spanish or Garganta do Diabo in Portuguese).

The Devil's Throat canyon is 80–90 metres (260–300 feet) wide and 70–80 m (230–260 feet) deep. Left of this canyon, another part of the river forms 160–200 individual falls, which merge into a single front during flood stage. The largest falls are named San Martín, Adam and Eva, Penoni, and Bergano.

About 900 metres (2,950 feet) of the 2.7 kilometres (1.7 miles) length does not have water flowing over it. The water of the lower Iguazu collects in a canyon that drains into the Paraná River, a short distance downstream from the Itaipu Dam. The junction of the water flows marks the border between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Some points in the cities of Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, and Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, have access to the Iguazu River, where the borders of all three nations may be seen, a popular tourist attraction for visitors to the three cities.

We took a boat across to the beach on San Martin Island for ₳9 Australes and ascended to get closer to the roaring falls on the spray showered south side. We also got a distant view of the turbulent horseshoe of the Devil’s Throat (Garganta del Diablo).

Next, we walked along walkways along the top of the falls disturbing basking lizards and being swooped upon by multicoloured butterflies which would settle on your hand. A wealth of photographs later we stopped for a liquid lunch of white wine and then took the bus to Puerto Canoas (inclusive ticket).

From here a walkway led out to the Devil’s Throat. Spray obscured the bottom of this U-shaped turmoil of churning brown water. An awesome, powerful, roaring cascade. Cameras clicked and groups posed all around us. Sightseeing helicopters chuntered about above us.

We returned to the town and Hugo booked into Residential Arco Iris where we were staying. I was starving so I nipped into town and returned with a tin of corned beef (only ₳3.5 Australes) and a loaf of bread for a snack.

We ate dinner later, a handsome steak dinner with red wine in a nice parrilla. A parrilla is a simple iron grill barbecue and they’re everywhere. Now that spring has sprung in Argentina, you can literally smell the chargrilled chorizo smoke rising from the terraces, whether from local restaurants or home-cooked asados.

After a hearty meal we drank coffee and watched Tom and Jerry cartoons on the television. I stopped for a Pepsi Cola on the way back home, at a kiosk where the owner was fiddling with a dodgy radio to try and get a sensible volume of sound between really loud and distorted or off.

San Ignacio Miní

Friday 13th May 1988

Steve shook me awake to a dingy grey dawn. The bus made a quick stop to drop us off at San Ignacio, site of the old Jesuit mission ruins. San Ignacio Miní was one of the many missions founded in 1610 in Argentina, by the Jesuits in what the colonial Spaniards called the Province of Paraguay of the Americas during the Spanish colonial period. It is located near present-day San Ignacio valley, some 60 km north of Posadas, Misiones Province, Argentina.

The original mission was erected near the year 1610 by Jesuit priests José Cataldino and Simón Maceta in the region called Guayrá by the natives and La Pinería by the Spanish conquistadores in present Paraná State, Brazil. Because of the constant attacks of the Bandeirantes, the mission moved in 1632, and did not settle in its current location until 1696. It was called San Ignacio Miní (minor in Guaraní) to distinguish it from the larger mission, San Ignacio Guazú (great), in Paraguay.

It was 07:00 hrs. and barely light so we expected to have a long wait for anything to happen. We were pleasantly surprised when a tourist restaurant cum souvenir/gimmick store opposite the ruins opened and invited us in for breakfast.

We had coffee with unlimited toast for the princely sum of ₳4 Australes each. We could use the toilet and leave our bags there while we went out exploring. We went across the road into the ruins. It was free to enter but a gateman gave us a card of rules to read before we went in. No writing on walls, no nicking bits of stone etc.

We walked around the old living quarters, square brown stone solid basic constructions. Each house had a pillar out front which probably once supported a roofed arcade. Everywhere there was a pleasant scent from coniferous trees and in one Vivienda there was a tree root that looked like a human body sitting astride a crumbling wall.

We walked across to the more ornate and extensive religious buildings. There was a huge grassy plaza surrounded by big buildings (churches etc.) with tiled floors and carved arches. There were Jesuit graves from the 1700’s around the main altar.

It was nice and peaceful at the ruins. Too early for the tour buses. We looked at the small collection of iron implements and bone utensils in the museo before going out to investigate the sleepy town of San Ignacio.

Red dirt roads led away from the few tarmacked roads in the centre, cutting swathes into rich green woodland. We passed a school where girls were playing baseball and continued down to the big army base.

Here we followed yellow signs to the house of a famous writer cum naturalist. Horacio Quiroga's house was the home of the author of the famous book “Jungle Tales” who lived in Misiones, amidst his madness, his passion for literature and, of course, his love for the magic of this nook in Misiones.

Here we were shown around by a friendly guide who was surprised to see tourists who had walked the substantial distance from the town. He thought that we must be avid fans of the “great” man, but in fact, we had never heard of him before. We paid ₳2 Australes to go in.

We saw his carpentry work, shop, snake pit, house and garden. Among the special details that stand out from the rest, some rarities can be found: for instance, an important collection of dissected butterflies and the skin of a large snake the writer himself killed, skinned and dissected to show it as a trophy and to leave track of how life and death are part of the jungle’s routine.

Back in town we picked up our bags and Swiss Steve talked our way onto a tourist bus with a few German-speaking Argentines on board. We stopped for a huge grilled chicken lunch washed down with red wine, which went down a treat.

I slept for most of the afternoon as the modern coach thundered through extensive wooded terrain with red dirt roads and a few lumber camps dotted here and there. Trees stretched into the distance over low rolling hills for as far as you could see.

The coach stopped at a posh hotel outside of Puerto Iguazú which is a border city in the province of Misiones, Argentina. It is the fourth largest city in the Province, after Posadas, Oberá, and Eldorado. The world-renowned Iguazú Falls are only 18 kilometres (11 miles) away from the city, and as a result the city has developed much of its infrastructure around tourism.

We “tipped” the drivers mate ₳10 Australes each for the ride and set off in failing light to walk into the town. We picked up a town map in a tourist agency and a room in the Residential Arco Iris on Calle Curupy with a bathroom for ₳20 Australes each.

Our friendly host ran around the room with a spray gun (insecticide? Disinfectant?) before we took residence. We used the dodgy looking shower with exposed wires into the water unit and then walked out down to the town centre.

A blazing mound of car tyres attracted our attention, and we joined a crowd of locals watching the firemen working out. Spraying each other with water they crawled through a tunnel through the flames to the cheers and encouragement of the onlookers. One particularly fat fireman got most barracking.

Illuminated signs flashed around the plaza attracting the tourist to expensive restaurants and shops selling leather clothes and perfume. We had a huge pizza and two bottles of red wine in a café with a very attractive waitress until we were practically falling asleep at 23:00 hrs.

A drunk talked incomprehensibly to us and offered to buy us some more wine. Other customers played guitars and sang along to the accordion, but we were too tired to appreciate the merriment.

La Boca

Thursday 12th May 1988

I got up early as I wanted to see the Boca Dock district of Buenos Aires before leaving the city. La Boca is a neighbourhood, or barrio of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. It retains a strong Italian flavour, with many of its early settlers being from the city of Genoa.

I walked down Necochea, up and down the undulating, stepped sidewalk to the dock front. This was an old dock with some rusting derelict hulks of old ships and a grand old tall ship sailing vessel. I had to wait about fifteen minutes to get a photograph of this sailing boat without the view being blocked by people or buses.

There were a lot of brightly coloured houses, many of them made from wood and corrugated zinc sheets, and mostly in an Italian style. A party of grey uniformed schoolkids ran around the artists displaying their work on the caminito, a multicoloured lane of brightly painted houses and statues.

I took a load of photographs, which would have been a lot better if it had been sunny, and walked back to the Youth Hostel on the bleak Avenida Irala alongside the railway track. I packed my gear up and sat with the other diary writers in the hostel comedor.

At midday I joined Steve, the Swiss guy who I was travelling to the Iguaçu Falls with, the Japanese bloke and a quiet Belgian guy for a steak meal in a parrillo (grill) just down the road from the Youth Hostel.

We had a good cheap bottle of red wine to aid our digestion! Next it was off to the Retiro Bus Terminal on the rickety SUBTE. We checked in our luggage, just like at an airport, and sat down to wait. We ate chocolate until the bus left promptly at 15:00 hrs.

The scenery was monotonous flat pampas and it got dark early on this cloudy afternoon so we could see nothing at all. We concentrated on trying to sleep, which was made easier by the fact that the bus was not full and we had a double seat each.

I sat handily by the orange juice dispenser. We stopped once during the night for a meal of spaghetti Bolognese and more wine to help us sleep!

Lots of pictures of La Boca!

River Plate

Above: Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Wednesday 11th May 1988

I got up at 09:00 hrs. for breakfast and after a couple of coffees went out to change money and buy tickets to Iguazú Falls with a Swiss bloke called Steve. We rumbled across town on the rickety old SUBTE and spent a while amongst the shoppers on Florida looking for a Cambio which would change travellers cheques.

The price of bus tickets were high in the super new airport-like Bus Terminal. We eventually settled on a ticket to San Ignacio, which is a town and municipality in Misiones Province in north-eastern Argentina, for a bus tomorrow for ₳227 Australes.

We then walked up the busy smoggy Avenida del Libertador which was designed for traffic only, no pedestrians, to El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA) is one of the most important public art institutions in Argentina. It houses an extremely diverse heritage, which includes more than 12,000 pieces, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, engravings, textiles and objects. Its collection is made up of pre-Columbian, colonial, Argentinean and international art, in a temporal range that goes from the third century A.C. to the present.

Here there were a couple of nice paintings and a lot of crappy ones. There were also quite a few sculptures of men grappling with mythical beasts. There were a few wanky works by famous artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Édouard Manet, which looked like the ones which nobody else wanted!

I walked back to the obelisk via the affluent fashion shops and top hotels on Callao and Santa Fe. Beautiful girls. I took the SUBTE back to Constitucion Station and picked up my washing from the laundry at 16:30 hrs.

A new sign had appeared on the door of the Youth Hostel kitchen saying that nobody was allowed to use it before 19:00 hrs. Thus stymied I went and bought a hunk of cheese, onion, red pepper, bread and wine for a European meal.

The dining room was lively as usual and everybody chatted and shared wine around. I boiled some eggs for tomorrows breakfast. Six eggs was the minimum that you could buy. I then joined eight Aussie and New Zealanders for a trip to the River Plate Stadium to see the River Plate Side play a Brazilian team.

It took two long bus trips to get to the Estadio "Monumental" Antonio Vespucio Liberti, also referred to as River Plate Stadium, Monumental de Nuñez, or simply El Monumental It is a stadium in the Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina (although popular belief wrongly states that the stadium is in the Núñez district), home of the football club River Plate.

The buses hurtled around corners and hacked across crossroads with a “he who hesitates is lost” attitude. The game had already started when we got to the huge concrete stadium at 22:10 hrs. All the cheap ₳20 Australes tickets were sold out, but we were told that we could get in for free at half time.

This we did, sitting in an almost empty section of the huge amphitheatre while the home team kept most of the action around the Brazilian goal. No one (of us) was quite sure what the final score was, but the home team won, and the fans were happy and singing as the packed onto the buses back to the city centre.

We went into a posh bar/pub and had a few beers while the crowds dispersed. Bow tied waiters kept us supplied with peanuts, crisps and cocktail sausages while we drank. Many of the bus services had packed up at midnight so it took us two bus trips to get back to the Youth Hostel, arriving at 02:00 hrs.

Avenida Independencia

Tuesday 10th May 1988

I had the Youth Hostel breakfast of coffee and two cakes while looking up places of interest in the South American Handbook 1988. There were supposed to be some interesting buildings on Avenida Independencia but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

I walked along the massive main drag and along the pedestrian shopping street of Florida. Florida Street (Spanish: Calle Florida) is a popular shopping street in Downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina. A pedestrian street since 1971, some stretches have been pedestrianized since 1913. I enquired about trains to Posadas in the Railway Enquiry and Booking Office at Florida 729 and found out that it would cost ₳127 Australes and went into the VARIG office at Florida 630.

Here I found out that I couldn’t get an Air Pass unless I flew to São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro which would cost ₳240 Australes! I bought some postcards and got them franked in a small Post Office where I met Robert “The Hippy” and I went back with him to the apartment where he was staying, overlooking the plazas along San Martín.

Ciudad del Libertador General Don José de San Martín, more commonly known as San Martín, is the administrative seat of General San Martín Partido in the urban agglomeration of Greater Buenos Aires. The area is heavily urbanised and is home to numerous food processing industries, as well as to a large Peugeot-Citroën auto factory. The city is bordered to the north-east by the autonomous city of Buenos Aires.

He cooked up a pasta meal, which was welcome, and he played a Grateful Dead music cassette. I walked back and stopped off at a café for a steak and mashed potato dinner. Back at the Youth Hostel I slept for a while on my top bunk until the evening.

I cooked up a vegetable and oxtail soup concoction in the kitchen and sat talking to a group of New Zealanders and Australians while drinking red wine. We ended up playing cards and I had the luck of the Devil, winning both games. This went on until gone midnight and we went to bed when the wine ran out.

Buenos Aires

Monday 9th May 1988

Dawn had trouble breaking through a heavy grey fog on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. It was cold outside but the train was well heated. Juan started to get excited and said that we could travel together through Brasil and stay together in a hotel that he knew in the city. I was getting sick of his hyperactivity and told him that I was staying with friends.

Buenos Aires, officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (Spanish: Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and largest city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South America's southeastern coast. "Buenos Aires" can be translated as "fair winds" or "good airs", but the former was the meaning intended by the founders in the 16th century, by the use of the original name "Real de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre", named after the Madonna of Bonaria in Sardinia, Italy.

The city of Buenos Aires is neither part of Buenos Aires Province nor the Province's capital; rather, it is an autonomous district. In 1880, after decades of political infighting, Buenos Aires was federalized and removed from Buenos Aires Province.

I left Juan at the station and took bus number 7 to the International Youth Hostel at Calle José Mármol 1555. The bus driver told me where to get off and I walked two blocks to find that the Youth Hostel had moved and was now at Avenida Brasil 675, some thirty blocks away.

I trudged across town and soon after crossing the busy Plaza de la Constitución I found the new Youth Hostel, bedecked with flags. I checked in for ₳21 Australes per night, which included a roll and coffee for breakfast. I was given a bed in a crowded dormitory full of bunk beds.

I dumped my kit and took a delightful hot shower. Then it was time for a preliminary look at the city. I walked along the Calle Bolívar browsing in a second-hand bookshop along the way. I bought “The Old Man and the Sea” in Spanish to try and read to improve my understanding of the language.

The Old Man and the Sea is a novella written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cayo Blanco (Cuba) and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction written by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it tells the story of Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Cuba.

The old woman serving in the shop tried to interest me in a huge 1920 illustrated dictionary which was like a door stop. I walked across the Plaza de Mayo with pigeons whizzing about. The Plaza de Mayo (English: May Square) is a city square and main foundational site of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It was formed in 1884 after the demolition of the Recova building, unifying the city's Plaza Mayor and Plaza de Armas, by that time known as Plaza de la Victoria and Plaza 25 de Mayo, respectively.

The city centre of Buenos Aires, Plaza de Mayo has been the scene of the most momentous events in Argentine history, as well as the largest popular demonstrations in the country. On the occasion of the first anniversary of the May Revolution in 1811, the Pirámide de Mayo (English: May Pyramid) was inaugurated in the square's hub, becoming Buenos Aires' first national monument.

It is located in the financial district known as microcentro, within the barrio (English: neighborhood) of Monserrat. It is bounded by Bolívar, Hipólito Yrigoyen, Balcarce and Avenida Rivadavia streets; and from its west side three important avenues are born: Avenida Presidente Julio Argentino Roca, Avenida Roque Sáenz Peña and Avenida de Mayo.

In the square's surroundings are several significant monuments and points of interest: the Cabildo, the Casa Rosada (seat of the President of Argentina), the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Buenos Aires City Hall, and the Bank of the Argentine Nation's headquarters. Underneath its lands are the Underground stations of Plaza de Mayo (Line A), Catedral (Line D), and Bolívar (Line E).

There were a number of plazas about, dotted with the usual statues of horses, winged beings, guns, soldiers, etc. in abundance. The Argentinian women where very stylish and attractive, walking with an animal grace and such tight trousers!

I walked along the busy Florida pedestrian shopping mall to the Tourist Office at Santa Fe 883. Avenida Santa Fe is one of the principal thoroughfares in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The artery is essential to the imaginary axis of Barrio Norte in Buenos Aires, comprising the areas influenced by the route of the avenue through Retiro, Recoleta and Palermo neighbourhoods, it is considered one of the main shopping and strolling areas of the city, its many boutiques range from elegant to edgy, which has led it to be dubbed the 'Avenue of Fashion'.

Upscale Alto Palermo, at Avenida Coronel Díaz, is one of the city's best-known vertical malls. Avenida Santa Fe is also an attraction for its architecture, strongly reminiscent of Paris. Its name pays homage to the eponymous province in Argentina.

At the Tourist Office I got a bunch of maps of the city and the country and walked back along the wide multi-laned Avenida 9 de Julio lined with tower blocks a Piccadilly Circus-style illuminated advertisements.

July 9 Avenue (Spanish: Avenida 9 de Julio) is a major thoroughfare in the city centre of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Its name honours Argentina's Independence Day, 9th July 1816.

The avenue runs around 3 kilometres (1.9 miles) to the west of the Río de la Plata waterfront, from the Retiro district in the north to Constitución station in the south. The avenue has up to seven lanes in each direction and is flanked on either side by parallel streets of two lanes each. Through the centre of the avenue runs one of the city's Metrobus (Bus rapid transit) corridors, which stretches 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) and was inaugurated in July 2013. There are two wide medians between the side streets and the main road.

There was a huge central obelisk and lots of traffic with associated exhaust fumes. The Obelisco de Buenos Aires (Obelisk of Buenos Aires) is a national historic monument and icon of Buenos Aires. Located in the Plaza de la República in the intersection of avenues Corrientes and 9 de Julio, it was erected in 1936 to commemorate the quadricentennial of the first foundation of the city.

I got the subway (SUBTE) back, paying ₳1.20 Australes for a token to get through the turnstiles at the station. The trains were old and dimly lit, as were the stations. The Buenos Aires Underground (Spanish: Subterráneo de Buenos Aires), locally known as Subte (from subterráneo – 'underground' or 'subterranean'), is a rapid transit system that serves the area of the city of Buenos Aires.

I bought some onions and tomatoes to liven us some powdered chicken soup which I brewed up in the Youth Hostel kitchen. I ate the broth eagerly and chatted to an Australian group. I wrote up my daily diary as several others around me studied Spanish books. Music blared and the dining room got quite busy. Girls giggled and shrieked around the end table.

I sat next to a Japanese guy who was studying Spanish. He was trying to learn some useful phrases such as “I love you” and “you are so sweet” in case he got lucky with the girls. I talked to John, American who seemed to be revelling in the Buenos Aires nightlife, and Gerrard, the Brazilian hostel helper.

A group of us sat around and tried to understand Gerrard’s jokes, told in Spanish, until gone midnight when we finally went to bed.