Misadventure on the High Seas Part I - The Hat Back Band

How many disaster stories have started with the words "It seemed like a good idea at the time"?

Well, how many?

You don't know? Fat lot of good you are.

Anyway. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The plan was this. Get to the east coat of Nicaragua, see the Pearl Cays and then travel directly to the Corn Islands, little known gems of the Caribbean (apparently). Most people fly to the Corns from the old pirate town of Bluefields (or, showing little regard for adventure, from Managua itself). Those with limited Cordobas can also take a six hour ferry ride from Bluefields to Great Corn, encountering (allegedly) big waves and vomit explosions along the way.

Reasoning that if we were going to lay out almost $200 dollars to get to Corn any way other than a ferry (and having spent enough hours on Nicaraguan buses to both save the necessary funds and earn the right to eschew another few hours of transport captivity) Michelle and I chose our ambitious path. We both wanted to see Pearl Cays, (mostly) uninhabited islets off the Nicaraguan mainland with the archetypal white sandy beaches and deliciously blue waters, for which we would likely be stung for $200+. Flights from Bluefields to Corn would cost around $150, so we thought anything around $400 for the full tour from Cays to Corn would make a certain amount of sense. That is, a certain amount of sense to a crazy old man with a mercury-poisoned brain who eats chips wrapped in the Fortean Times and licks frogs for fun. And me.

Monsieur Eiffel, eat your coeur out. 

It took two days to get from El Castillo on the Rio San Juan to Bluefields on the Caribbean Sea. It's not terribly far as the Snowy Egret flies,  but since most of the intervening landscape consists of rivers and rainforests, terrestrial bipeds must find another route via San Carlos, the most painful part of which was the evening spent in the awesomely dull environs of Juigalpa,  a rancher town at least illuminated (literally) by an enormous cut-out style statue of a cowboy.  Just getting there was quite an achievement given the tendency of the much rehearsed phrase "¿A qué hora sale el próximo autobús?" to produce about five different answers depending on whom you asked. Since the buses all appear to be run by different operators, all of whom want to both depart promptly but at the same time sell out not only every seat but every possible inch of floorspace, their agents on the ground are not given to helping each other out. Fortunately, this means that - almost uniquely in life - the one giving the you the answer you wanted to hear is probably the one telling you the truth. 'Edward' was selling tickets for the 10am, and despite the efforts of his rivals to persuade us that the 10am didn't exist, it was Edward's smiling visage that ushered us, on time, towards the tourist desert of Juigalpa. For a while we shared our packed bus with a 32-inch cathode ray TV, and when Michelle offered a Pringle to the lady sitting with it, she took the packet and didn't give it back. Broadly applicable moral - don't give crisps to Nicaraguan women carrying huge TVs on buses. 

Edward, who clearly enjoys hanging on to buses

We arrived in Juigalpa too late to find the famous Archeological Museum (famous, that is, to anyone other than the people we asked for directions) and the gallery of small cows with two heads, so the Readybrek Kid was the closest we came to cultural enlightenment during our brief stay.  On balance, the 9 hour bus journey we dodged by visiting Juigalpa would have only been slightly more tedious, but we weren't to know. From the startled stares of some of the locals, we were probably the only foreign tourists to come through town in at least a fortnight, so at least one party was able to enjoy some novelty.

From there on the journey gets a bit more exotic. Through strange dusty roadside townlets with radical preachers with voices like Davros, through mountains and forests, you eventually reach El Rama, where the bus cedes its crown to the boat as the King of Public Transport. The first novelty Rama gave us was the Caribbean-accented English suddenly on offer. Two tourists wandering up to the port with enormous backpacks is an invitation to swarms of friendly advice givers, and he who speaks the most English wins. Or would, if he didn't direct us to stand in a queue for what appeared to be some sort of Spanish-language Pinter production, with lots of people standing around glaring at each other and frequent long pauses. Eventually, a second Anglophone called us out of the audience of the mystery play, and directed us to another ticket office which, remarkably, sold tickets rather than avant-garde theatre experiences. 

Loaded onto our first panga, replete with obligatory crates of chirping chicks, we sheltered briefly from a tropical shower by hiding under a boat-sized piece of plastic, before launching off on the next stage of our journey. The river zipped away beneath us at startling speeds, though the speed wasn't as startling as the occasional salmon-like leap from the surface of the water and subsequent smack-down (something to which we would later become more than accustomed). We were in good hands, however, something demonstrated amply when a small child's pink baseball cap was snatched from her head by the whipping winds. Alerted by her cry of anguish, and also by the fact that the hat had just flow past his eyeballs at 50mph, the driver launched us into a sharp about turn. Most of the passengers, completely oblivious to this act of chivalry, looked briefly terrified,  but were soon helping pass back the dripping headgear to the delighted girl after it was fished from the waters.

As we reached Bluefields Bay, the waves were getting higher and the boat was flying out of the water more often.  For some reason, we didn't properly assess what this might mean for a panga ride on the open ocean, and continued our quest for the Cays and the Corns.

To be continued...

The world's most terrifying salesman: San Carlos bus station

An Unexpected Journey on the isthmus.

It was supposed to be a complicated trip. Our cheap flights were already rerouting us through two regional capitals, so in a sense we were only slightly inconvenienced by a transport meltdown that saw us driven through four countries, but that's putting an awfully positive spin on things.

The smoking cone of San Miguel: Destroyer of Travel Plans

Everything had been going as smoothly as these things ever go. We'd played runaround with the airport counters ("If you queue here it will take ages to drop your bags, you'd be better off waiting for some of the other desks to open at 5am" "Which ones?" "I don't know"), I'd enjoyed becoming a seat sandwich after it transpired that my seat didn't recline, but the one in front of me very much did, the Iberia flight attendants managed to make me feel that ordering a G&T was in some way deliciously naughty (slipping the Blue Sapphire bottle to me when no-one was looking) and watched the entirety of Cloud Atlas (I say the entirety, because we very nearly gave up at several points) on my iPad to avoid the airline entertainment: Elf, on loop for 12 hours, on a TV stapled to the ceiling.

Given that a kind stranger had allowed himself to be moved so that my Esteemed Travelling Companion Michelle and I could be rehoused in reclining seats, all was well until we approved Guatemala. It was a stopping flight, the same flight number intended to proceed to San Salvador. There was something in the frantic last minute instructions to collect our hold luggage, just as we were queuing up to exit the plane for a 90 minute break, that suggested that the aircrew were working with soe very last minute information. Unfortunately, they chose not to reveal what that was.

Being a monolingual anglophone (I do try, but my current Spanish-learning strategy is to use the fun but perhaps not entirely tourist-targeted "Cat Spanish" app, so I can ask where the fish is and say the dog is stupid, but can't ask "why am I standing with my luggage in the street when I should be on a plane?"), I feel slightly cosseted by the international convention of English as the lingua franca of the skies. However, like the Albatross, eventually one must land, and suddenly realise that one is poorly adapted for this new environment. Iberia may have many English speaking staff on their flight crews. Their ground reps, however, are just as linguistically limited as I am*.

It was some time, in which we learned that queuing as a concept does not really exist in Meso-America, before we realised that having collected our bags and cleared customs, that we were slowly being ushered out of the airport. Reassured slightly by the familiar faces of our fellow flyers, we milled out into the airport approach road. Helpful hispanophones managed to communicate to us that we needed to get a bus, but for all we knew it was going to take us to another terminal. Only after waiting so long that our scheduled departure was 20 minutes away did we realise something was up, and only when the bus arrived did we manage to work out - by patient studying of gestures - what was going on.

Volcan San Miguel, a 37-years quiescent cone in the east of El Salvador, had chosen that afternoon to wake up and vomitar ash several kilometres into the sky. It was a shortlived eruption, but enough to ground all flights from San Salvador. Our journey was, basically, a bit buggered.

Which is not to say that we truly understood the actions of Iberia. True, we had boarded their flight with the intention of reaching El Salvador, therefore being put on a bus and transported there was a way for the airline to fulfil their duties. However, that also meant they were transporting us all to the one airport in the region that wasn't working. Had they left us in Guatemala, surely it was more likely that they could arrange alternative flights.

To make matters worse, by the time we driven for five hours through Gautemala City, the surrounding countryside, patiently filed through the border controls and on to San Salvador, the airport was not only disfunctional but noticeably shut. The security staff let us use the toilets and charge our phones, and their armed presence was reassuring, but it wasn't so far from being dumped in the street at 1am and told to sleep there until dawn.   

Travel Iberia in comfort!

 Throughout the night, various plans were hatched. We could pay the bus driver to take us on to Nicaragua. Then we couldn't. We could get a taxi for only $90. Then we couldn't. There was a mini-bus that could take us. Then it couldn't. Eventually the dawn came, and we discovered that we would have another 14 hour wait for a flight. Sit all day in the airport, or take a chance.

Latching on to Juan, a Spaniard also heading for Managua (who was also the kind stranger from the plane), we hit the taxi rank. There were a few startled looks from the Salvadorian drivers when we stated our destination, but a few whispers later were were offered $150 each. Hoping the travel insurance would cover that, we accepted, confident that a car could over the 300 miles to Managua faster than an aircraft that wouldn't be going anywhere for most of the day.

It turned out we were right, but by less of a margin that we had hoped.  The main road through El Salvador is in very good condition, but it's just a two lane road, and for all the stretches where our driver, sporting a borrowed ute with our bags tarpaulined in the back, was able to rattle along at 100kph, there were times when we were stuck behind, variously, an old bus, a motorbike with several people on it, or a donkey and cart. The border crossings were also interminable, though our Hispanophone friend at least made them less stress filled that might have been the case. Our driver was sweating and nervous at each crossing, which in turn made us edgy, but we preceded through several border checks before we hit a snag.

The Honduran highway feels like a neglected cousin of those around it, its roughness reflecting the scraggy terrain of the pacific coast of Honduras, but its border staff were helpful enough. At one point they filed us through a cage, giving us the impression were about to be handed our orange overalls to prepare for incarceration, but Juan was able to handle any questions about our bizarre voyage without too much trouble. The Hondurans were fond of passport stamps, customs forms and receipts. The Salvadorians let us through through entire country with nothing but a cursory glance at our documents: there is no evidence we were ever there.

The Nicaraguan border at El Gausaule is a (comparatively) plush affair, with trees and gardens and a small boy who (for some reason) "refreshes" your car tyres with a squirty thing. Regrettably, like Bill the pony at the gates of Moria, it was here our trusty steed deserted us. The Nicaraguan authorities, for reasons we still don't entirely understand, took exception to our driver and barred his entry. The driver, in turn, then insisted that he get his full fee, and was most crestfallen to be asked to take a cut, and we departed on less than amicable terms, but we now had to hire another taxi at great cost, or take a bus that would almost certainly reach Managua after our rescheduled flight, rendering our whole journey entirely redundant. We did explore the bus station, but the small boys standing around holding broken plastic guns and staring at us were discomfiting, and we slunk back to the patch of gravel that seemed to serve as the official taxi rank.

$110 dollars later, we were on the road again. The driver, despite claims to the contrary, was unable to supply a receipt official enough to satisfy insurance, and had to borrow one from his friend in a local restaurant.  I look forward to discussing this with my insurers when they ask why my taxi receipt has a picture of a roast chicken on it.

The Nicaraguan road, briefly, led us to despair. It was so potholed that for a first mile or so I thought Nicaragua's brush with the British Empire had led to them driving on the left, so often did the taxi take evasive action on that side of the road, but once it levelled off normal service was resumed.

According to Lonely Planet's map, Managua is 47 kilometres from the border as the crow flies. Sadly, Lonely Planet maps have long come with all the accuracy of a six-year-old's crayon drawing of a human face, and the actual road distance turned out to be 186km, a difference not explained by the occasional wiggle on the road or volcano avoiding reroute.  So the last phase of our voyage dragged on, and on, with the prospect of losing our race with the airline a distinct possibility. Our impromptu interpreter, Juan, was staying in Managua itself, so we entered the congested streets of the capital to enjoy the view of bright shiny orange Christmas trees, flashing elves and prostitutes, finally abandoning Juan and - it turned out - our driver in a shopping mall. Juan kindly gave us a bottle of wine in thanks for helping him escape El Salvador. We still haven't drunk it.

Our final driver, Bayardo, ploughed the journey to the city of Granada with great aplomb, and very kindly didn't hold us at knife point until we gave him all our money (apparently a hobby of Managuan drivers).  As we slumped gratefully in our hotel, we calculated that we had beaten the plane by about three hours, and - cumulatively - been on 420 miles of road for 18 hours. Worth every cent. 

* though they may not know how to say "quiero vomitar" in English.

Argentine Supremacy (Water Falling Off Cliffs II)

The Argentinian side is another planet. I arrived with a decent amount of pesos and dollars. The dollars were a godsend, since absolutely noone took cards. Why this is I cannot imagine – Brazil has all mod cons, and Argentina decides to arrange itself like the wild west. Perhaps there's a certain amount of smugness involved, a “we don't have to try, have you seen our cataratas” that ought to tip the traveller off to something special about to happen.

First, though, I had to get there. One of the worst things about Linguistic Incompetence is an inability to adjust: things are confusing enough, so if something doesn't pan out the way you expect, thr result is a borderline panic attack. LP had told me there was a Falls bus from the Terminal for $10. When I arrived, people tried to sell me tickets for $30. Convinced that someone was trying to rip me off, I got a cab instead for $120. Note: the falls buses are run by a company called Rio Uruguay (for no obvious reason). They are the only game in town as far as I could work out (and I did ask around the English speaking staff at the Park). 300% inflation is pretty startling, but once I worked this out I stopped taking taxis at last.

I'd tried to get there as early as possible, having experienced the claustrophobia of the shuffling Human Centipede of other tourists. I had the walkways largely to myself, but then suffered a small camera crisis as I tried to work out why all the photos were coming out in strips which by the time I had resolved it meant that the crowds had caught me up.

Yup. It's pretty good. 

I was still broadly ahead of the game, however, and so it was that the moment was not entirely spoiled when I rounded a bank of trees to be presented with the magnificent sight of Iguazu curving magnificently in a crescent of green and white, jungle and spray framing the torrents as they bent their way along the visible horizon. Forget the slow burn of the Brazilian falls, this was splendour from the word go. I stood and gawped for a while, before remembering myself and my camera. The photographs, no matter how hard I tried, don't really do it justice.

View from "the other side"

The fun of having been to Brazil the day before is that you realise you are walking the same gantries and paths that you could see from the other side. The walkways snake to and fro amongst the cataratas, giving you a chance to look out over them, or stand beneath their spray or catch them in panorama. I walked the high path first, imagining that it would become busier the soonest. That may have been true, but by the time I tried to walk the lower path under the waterfalls, it was already thronging with people wanting their photos taken in front of bits of water.

Hundreds of people photographing themselves. Probably.  

I'm going to take time out to rant. The walkways are constructed so that if you walk along them you get a magnificent view of one of the planet's most visually arresting landscapes. If you do just that, even if you stop to take photographs of said landscape, the system works very well. Where it breaks down is when scores of people decide that taking photos isn't enough, but they must appear in every single one of them. That requires someone to stand on the opposite side of the walkway taking the picture, physically blocking most of the gantry while the remaining space is a no-go area due to the general politeness of tourists waiting for the impromptu photo shoot to finish. It's annoying, but I truly don't understand the narcissism of sticking yourself in every single sodding shot of one of nature's triumphs. Is your sunburned face, baseball gap and brightly coloured t-shirt really adding much to your memory of your adventure? Will you forget you were there if you're not in the frame? I don't know.

Rant over.

The 1st few rows will get wet. 

After a while the sheer volume of people, whether self-photographing or not, began to get oppressive. It was hot, I fancied a sit down, and one of the boat trips offered by Iguazu Jungle suddenly seems appealing. I bought myself a AR$150 ticket for a 'nautical adventure', which seemed to be the one involving being driven into the waterfalls themselves.  I was then sent down a long and winding path, itself showing some spectacular views of the falls, until I encountered a small throng. There was enough time to change into lighter clothing and apply sunscreen before we were offered waterproof bags and lifejackets. My proper camera was put away, and photo responsibility given over to my iPhone and it's handy waterproof sleeve.  Sadly all the photos look a bit like they've been taken through a plastic bag, but it's better than nothing. The tour takes you around the river for a while before driving you almost into the torrents themselves, getting close enough to give the excited passengers a mighty fine dousing in the spray and some outlying splashes. It's a short trip, but it's fun and extremely refreshing. The waterproof bags are highly effective and I managed not to drop my phone. I could, had I so desired, have bought a DVD of my experiences. I gave it a miss.

At rest... the one on the right has lost its wings. 

After a bottle of coke at a cafe where the main attraction was coatis stealing people's sandwiches,  I set off for the Argentinian view of The Devil's Throat, which juts out over its very highest point and looks down into the spray filled valley. It is also a very long way from the rest of the Argentine falls, and the park lays on a small train to deliver the swarming hordes. I thought I'd avoid those swarms by walking, and instead encountered a most delightful swarm, as a passing train disturbed a mass of feeding butterflies, which flapped and fluttered about my face as I passed them by. They settled down to continue doing whatever they were doing (some of the yellow ones were making friends with a yellow plastic bag), hanging out with small green butterflies and odd waspy looking things, but there were further flurries of butterflies along the track, and these colourful blizzards kept me smiling as I trudged hotly down the red-earth track to the Devil's Throat.

The Rainbow Pit

Whereas in Brazil the thickness of the crowds diminished as the afternoon grew hot, here the sheer variety of sights meant that the trails were still thronged with excited visitors even as the act of walking along the metal gantries began to feel like punishment. The first aids stations positioned along the track were filling up with fainting tourists, but not enough to make it any easier to make your way to the edge of the Devil's Throat platform.  Eventually, enough narcissists stopped their self-photography long enough me to worm my way to the edge, and look down into the gullet of Satan.

There's not a hope of seeing the bottom. Instead, what you are presented with is an image from Narnia or some other fantasy world, a pit where all the rainbows of the world are kept for when they are needed. Tiny rainbows flickered in the spray, and one magnificent bow spread its arch from one side to the other of the massive, spray-filled bowl. Looking up, you can see the fluttering Brazilian flag and the tiny specks emerging from their pointless lift. This is Iguazu's highest point, metaphorically and literally. Behind you the Iguazu river approaches, steadily, utterly unaware of the fate awaiting. To the left the canyon marches downwards, further torrents adding their froth to the passage of the river. But right there, in that spot, you could be a pre-Columbian sailor gripping the railing of your ship and ready to go over the edge of the world.

Water Falling off Cliffs

When I was asking people what I absolutely must do in Argentina, 90% of people said their cats preferred Iguazu Falls. Those 90% were quite firm: Iguazu is one of the most amazing things ever, life changingly, breath-takingly, heart-stoppingly awesome, said they. The 10% barely disagreed. Yeah, it's lovely, they conceded. But - they added, being the 10% 'n' all - it takes a lot of time/money/both to get there and see it, and there's lots of other lovely things, such as penguins.

In 2002 I missed three of history's most awesome Test cricket centuries to look at penguins. I'm not making any sacrifices and missing awesomeness for those waddling twats* ever again.

In all seriousness, taking a 2 week trip around somewhere as vast and amazement rich as Argentina does require what Tony would call hard choices. So it wasn't until several days into the trip that I though "sod it", and bought myself a ticket. Well, 10%, I'm glad I went with the ask the audience majority.

I arrived still a bit sick from my mystery cheese poisoning, so apart from a wander into Puerto Iguazu to find the cheapest purveyors of Coca-Cola and to get ripped off by a Cambio, I did very little. My plan, following further advice, was to start with a little trip to the rainforest wonderland of Brazil.

For those that don't know, the rivers around Iguazu serve as the border of three countries. Poor old Paraguay misses out on the Iguazu fun, the River Parana keeping them locked off a few miles up the road, reduced to luring tourists with cheap over-the-border malls (kill me first). That leaves Argentina and Brazil, two Iguazu Falls grinning at each other across the spray and torrents. Most of the smaller falls are on the Argentinian side, which means you can see them in panorama from Brazil, which also has a clearer overview of the famous Devil's Throat, with an unrivalled chance for you (and your camera) to get awfully soggy.

My original plan had been to be virtuous and bus my way to the Brasil Iguacu. In the end, the prospect of three buses and an uncertain amount of time standing by a roadside in Brazil convinced me to cheat and take a taxi (only $100), which meant my slim Spanish and my utterly non-existent Portuguese (taxi guy had to tell me how to say 'thank you') did not hamper me as we eased through the border controls.

The Brazilian side is a slick, modern operation, clearly having had an overhaul since 1939. There are cash machines (making me an utter sucker for using the Cambio), and cards can be used for most costs. A fleet of buses, more regular than the 38, sweep by to convey you to the park proper, dumping you outside the charming, pink Hotel das Cataratas.

Brazil is a country that I'd really like to visit, but this (ahem) well-trimmed Brazilian visit was merely a slow introduction to the wonders of the Falls, and not the nation. Iguazu on this side builds gently to a crescendo, each successive viewpoint giving you a little more until you hit the major viewing platforms around The Devil's Throat.

Step into the spray and you gain a rainbow, but lose a camera

There the Brazilians have built a huge platform jutting out to the edge of a lower fall, so that you stand looking down at a cascade below you, loomed over by another to your left, and faced with a wall of Argentinian splendour straight ahead of you. It is monstrously impressive. It is also, it must be said, very, very wet. Standing inside the cloud of spray will show you rainbows of vivid colour that follow you about, so that you are your very own crock of gold. They are, sadly, almost impossible to photograph without a waterproof camera, but that's not really the point of having your own personal rainbow anyway. I said goodbye to my own multihued serpentine pet of pure refraction with great reluctance.

One of the more bizarre features is the signage for the main viewing platform. It proclaims the platform's accessibility via elevator, and a zizag of patient tourists line up awaiting the once in the lifetime chance for 30 seconds in the world's sweatiest lift. However, you can reach the same platform by walking for about 4 minutes (but the signs do not reveal this). Just so you know. By the time you've queued, the more fleet of foot have been gazing at rainbows for about 10 minutes.

The Brazilian experience is shorter and more compact, and more is about giving you an overview than it is about chancing upon a surprise cataract, offering the climax of the Devil's Throat with little in the way of entertaining foreplay. I was worryingly underwhelmed at first, and sloped off with my impromptu travelling companion for the day, Jess of New York, to have a look at the bird park outside the entrance.

Even more underwhelmed by that, I decided it was time for another go. I left Jess to her Quilmes and plunged back into the park (I say plunged, the bureaucratic process for re-entry was fiddly). It was steamingly hot. I reapplied suncream (taking a short, shady wildlife walk to let it sink in, spotting an agouti as a reward) and then retrod my early steps.

Whereas before there were hordes of tourists, squeaky children and crushes on the narrow walkways, now there was just me and – occasionally – a pair of Germans photographing coatis. Each viewing station was deserted and beautiful, I could stay as long as I liked without guilt (though not without concern about the last bus) and the experience was transformed as a result. As I reached the Throat it was then that I was introduced to my pet prism, and it danced around me for ten minutes as I revelled in the roar of the falls unsullied by the screams of fellow humans. Finally, aware of the passing of time, I tore myself about from the spray and headed back to the buses, hot but very happy.

Pet Rainbow

* OK, I love penguins, but still...

Camera Obscura

A Bridge Too Narrow

One downside of visiting a magnificent place like Iguazu is that there's no way a snap-happy traveller can keep his camera tucked away no matter what the ambient conditions. And Iguazu being a big, soggy waterfall in the tropics, those conditions were humid, wet and oppressively warm. I don't really mind that as long as I'm not trying to bowl 8 overs or work, but my Canon 300D, being elderly and infirm, was having none of it. About an hour into day one my 7 year old SLR decided that it needed a teensy bit of help with the focusing on things. Well, that happens to all of us at a certain age. Manual focus takes quite a bit longer to set up, but does avoid those irritating moments where the camera is determined to focus on something you're not primarily photographing, and it no great disadvantage, if slightly irritating.

At the end of the day, I dragged out the laptop and Googled away to find a solution to my problems. A forum eventually suggested that it was possible - in humid conditions - for one of the two primary mirrors to stick to the other one, and that if you prize them apart the autofocus should resume. Sure enough, on investigation only one mirror was visible, and it was indeed possible, with care and a thumbnail, to prise them apart. I aimed, pressed my silver button and heard the satisfying bleep of the autofocus doing its thing. I should probably have taken an actual photo, but hey - I was excited at my act of DIY, and not thinking entirely clearly.

The next day I set off to the Argentine side of the falls (see next post). The first sight was a beautiful waterfalls cascading out of think jungle. Out came the camera. 

The view through Ned Kelly's visor

And the result? Well, you can see for yourself. No sign of the waterfall, just a thick line of leaves and a lot of black. I tried again. And again. Focus fine, actual field of vision, limited.So, I sat down on a bench and disassembled the camera again, hoping that a combination of sweat, spray and giant brown wasps didn't get inside.

The first option to my befuddled mind was simply this: put right what once went wrong. Despite the mirrors looking quite happy at their right angles, I snapped them back together. Sure enough, my field of vision was again TV shaped, but the autofocus was buggered again.

So, my choice was, take ludicrously narrow photographs like some sort of desperate Peter Lik wannabe, but have autofocus, or take proper shots and have to do it myself. Clearly it was no choice at all.

It's sort of pretty. But at the same time, quite crap.

It only really became an issue when I was trying to get a good shot of the ubiquitous coaties who refused to stay still and smile for the camera. I will need to fix my trusty snapping friend before I try any wildlife photography again.

Stay still, you stripy shit! 

Alas, with so much time spent with the lens removed, some spray did get into the camera sensor, so when I got back to the hotel I had to spend hours cleaning up the pictures to get rid of the spots. At least it still actually works - I shouldn't complain. 

Sierra de las Quijadas Queso Crisis

It's not a bad photo, is it? It's a bit dark and contrasty, but then so are most of my photos. Sadly, its resemblance is coincidental, as I didn't take the damned thing.

Because of pizza.

Well, possibly. Cheese is about the only possible candidate for whatever knocked me out of action on my Quijadas focused trip to San Luis.


I'd made up my mind, at last, about what do do with that precious time between Mendoza and my flight to Iguazu. Although keen to visit Cordoba, I'd worked out the practicalities, and it was easier to pop to San Luis and go for a rock formation adventure in the Quijadas.

Now, San Luis is not somewhere that I would recommend. It's not that there's anything wrong with it, as such, it's just there's not a lot to recommend it when you could go practically anywhere else. The cathedral in the pretty little plaza is just fine, and its bell ringers were, I swear, ringing out popular hits from the 60s at one point, but on a Sunday it might as well have been the opening episode of "Day of the Triffids". There were more House Martins than humans, and I sat outside in a cafe watching them swirl and dive until the darkness blotted out their intricate ballet.

San Luis Cathedral: Don't get too excited

And that was when I ordered the pizza. And chips. And a beer. One of these things was a mistake; possibly all of them, like the combining poison used by The Joker in the first Tim Burton Batman movie. Whatever it was, I awoke early the next day with stomach cramps and a worrying sense of impermanence to the contents of my bowels. I'd never had diarrhoea before, but its symptoms were rather unmistakeable.  I had to dash to the hostel toilet (that was nice - such good timing that I wasn't in a comfortable, plush hotel at this point), where I had plenty of time to ponder the disruption to Plan A.

Not Quijadas

I refused to give up. But firstly I needed to sort out the problem at hand, especially with a 12 hour bus journey ahead of me. A bit of crowd sourcing on the internet gave me the language required from the chemists and having translated the rest onto my iPad I, er, trotted off to locate a Farmacie. San Luis seems so quiet it wouldn't say goo to a boose, but the shop staff almost rugby tackled me as I walked into the Chemists with a shoulder bag. I was firmly directed to a burly security guard who dropped my bag into a bigger, blue shoulder bag, but with a zip and lock mechanism, and then handed back my sealed possessions, this intricate process doubtless preventing me from making off with an illicit haul of Lemsips. "Um," I said. "I actually need something in there". So the whole shenanigan was repeated while I retrieved my iPad. I think he hated me at that point.  I managed to communicate my needs to the pharmacist without too much graphic pointing, grabbed my drugs and a Gatorade and escaped. I popped my pills in the plaza, pondering my options.

These were rather limited, for the following reasons:

• I had arrived on a Sunday. San Luis is not the sort of town that does anything on a Sunday except give Gringos poisoned pizza
• Said poisoned pizza aftermath had now occupied my time till 11am
• None of the travel agencies in town spoken any English
• The hostel tour people didn't do Quijadas on a Monday. 
• Public Transport can get you there, but with something like a 4 hour round trip. 
• I had a bus to catch at 20:30. 



Still not Quijadas

• I still felt like shit. 

Having trudged round town failing to communicate with the agents, I retreated to the hostel where I then got into a long running dispute with the receptionist who, no matter which words from the phrase book I used, couldn't grasp that I'd been told that I could pay half a day for a late check out (£5) and that I wished to avail myself of said option. She tried to usher me out of the hostel about three times before I managed to explain to her why I wasn't going anywhere. And I'm sure I just used the same words as before - maybe my pronunciation was evolving. 

So, no Quijadas for me. Still, I've seen quite a lot of pointy red rocks in my life, maybe a day sitting on my bum was a better bet. I was quite exhausted by this point. I thought about a mini photo project of sleeping dogs in San Luis (of which there were a phenomenal amount), and then thought better of it. I would save my energy for Iguazu. 

Spot the Difference

Alto Images

Aconcagua, impossibly massive, shrouds itself from view. And then, as its might lies hid, a wind picks up, stripping strands of cloud from off the mountain's face until...

"Hola". The tour guide jumps up and down excitedly, pointing at fellow travellers returning to their tour bus. I take a last, lingering glance at almost-clear Aconcagua, but this would not be a good place to be stranded, so I trudge back over the scree to rejoin the bus.

I hate tours. I love what they enable me to see, but I still hate them. They are not really a sensible way for the photo-obsessed traveller to get his or her fill of picturesque sites. In order to have only 5 mins with the Western Hemisphere's tallest pebble we spent 30 mins at least looking at inadequate woven goods and mineral bunnies at Puente de los Incas, and 25 mins and at a service station where I had to bargain the owner down from $20* for a small Coke (the karma of my successful 50% negotiation was dented later when I had to pay $5 for a banana).

Having overreached myself the day before, I thought I ought not to go with the exciting option of hiking through the Silver Mountains and instead signed up for tour of los Alto Montagnes. The final warning from the tour operators was that the tour came with a Spanish-speaking guide, and they could not guarantee that they would speak any English. Resigned to this, I paid up and thought "I'm only here for the views".

And what views they were! It's been 11 years since I crossed the southern Alps (in a car with a speedily diminishing petrol supply, which was a bit distracting), and probably 5 years since I scaled Mt Kosciusko in Australia (not tricky, though my ex got a bit dizzy half way up and had to turn back). Aconcagua, its peak lost to view, is thrice the height of the latter and almost twice that of Cook. I was looking at some seriously pointy rocks, and the novelty was exhilarating.

British-built hot baths - like Tunbridge, but with extra yellow slime

Of course, with me nothing could be entirely straight forward. I tried my best to pick out Spanish words of which I knew or guess the meaning, successfully interpreting that petrolium was Mendoza's biggest economic activity, and the fact that the Rio Mendoza looked like flowing chocolate because of 'muchos sedimenta' didn't take too much work either.  That said, Hericka (sp?) the loquacious tour guide was concerned that I could not understand her, and arranged for me to transfer to another tour, with an anglophone guide, as the next rest stop. In the meantime, I practiced taking photos out of the window to get round the lack of scenic stops.

Having secured my discount Coke, I was introduced to Carolina, the English-speaking guide. I was slightly alarmed to find I could barely understand her but I thought, if she's got a bus full of English-speaking people that's got to be OK. I said goodbye to my new friends, the Argentinian family and Alessio, Daniella and Marco from Italy, and set off on the new bus.

It because rapidly clear that this was not the best idea. The tour was a bilingual one, in both English and Spanish.  Even the non-Argentine tourists admitted they found it easier to follow her Spanish comments. Worse still for me, not only was I no longer sitting by a window that opened, but the glass was twice as tinted as the first bus, meaning mobile photos were now entirely out of the question. Despite having a chance to chat to a very nice Swedish couple, I mostly sat and seethed at screwing up yet again.

My salvation came at the very next stop. As I sullenly rode down the $60 cable car at Los Penitentes, familiar faces greeted me in the other direction. Bus Numero Uno had stopped to look at a Hollywood built Tibetan bridge, Bus Numero Dos had not, so we had overtaken them despite their 20 minute start. After a moment's thought (and checking that my seat by the window was still available) I hopped back on. Like Quantum Leap, I had put right what once went wrong, but with Christ the Redeemer doing the hard yards instead of Sam Beckett. Don't worry, I'm not photoshopping that.

It didn't really matter that I couldn't understand the tour. The Italians and Argentinians filled in with helpful translations, and Hericka's enthusiasm was worth listening to even if the meaning was lost.  And then there were those lovely mountains. Reunited with my open window, I clicked myself silly, grumpy only at the short time at the view point for Aconcagua. We ascended right up into the mountain passes that originally joined Argentina and Chile, and an icy wind greeted us as we frolicked at El Cristo la Redentor and admired some of the Andes at their best.

No, it's not Scott Bakula.

* OK, it's only £2.50, but honestly. What is this, a minibar?