mini rant... and breathe...

We finally arrived in Buenos Aires after planes, trains and automobiles (plus every other form of public transportation known to man). The flight itself was only a few hours, which was extremely infuriating actually as we were totally engrossed in our films (me- Sex and The City, Liam -Troy) when the pilot interrupted to say he would be switching off the in-flight entertainment for landing. We were literally 20 minutes from the end so it was tres annoying to say the least. (We had spent a blissful few days in the beautiful town of Paraty, but unfortunately had to travel south to the slightly less aesthetically-pleasing Sao Paulo for the flight to Argentina, which meant a 20hr journey before we arrived in Buenos Aires).

Long bus journeys are a big part of travelling, especially if you are on a budget (which we are smashing, by the way), as flights tend to be at least twice the price. When we started this trip we baulked at the idea of an 8hr bus ride, but now we are used to regularly spending 24hrs on a sweaty bus and 8 hrs seems like a walk in the park. Whilst I´m on the subject of the more negative side of travelling, let me just have a quick rant about other irritating aspects, just to get them off my chest.

1.Every laundrette shrinks your clothes, so much so that I´ve had to chuck away 2 tops and 3 pairs of knickers (which they shredded somehow?) already, and a few of my trousers are beginning to look scarily like they´ve had a row with my ankles. What do they DO to them , for chrissakes?

2. Carrying a huge backpack around on your back is not fun. I´ve developed a curvature of the spine in recent weeks. By the time we come home we´ll probably be crawling on all fours.

3. Some of the food in South America (Brazil particularly) is just plain WEIRD. Take for example the beef stroganoff that I ordered. (I didn´t know I´d ordered it as I couldn´t understand a word of the menu so just pointed at something randomly and tried to look confident in my choice). It came with a deep-fried banana in batter sticking out of it. I mean. A banana. In batter. The filthy, fruit-frying, b*stards.What was the chef thinking when he created that particular little delicacy I wonder. Perhaps he just stuck that in there for a laugh to try to confuse the gringo in the restaurant, looking smug that she´d managed to pronouce something for once.
Or how about the various assorted shapes they serve as snacks, which Liam and I lovingly refer to as UFO´s (unidentified fried objects). A typical discussion when ordering these goes something like this "what do you fancy ordering Liam? Well, we had a couple of triangles yesterday, so why don´t you try the square and I´ll have a few of these oblongs". The scary thing is we don´t know what the contents of these culinary delights are even AFTER we´ve eaten them.

3.How come everything came out of the rucksack, but now we´re trying to repack it (which we have to do every few days when we´re moving to a new place), only half the stuff will fit back in? It seems to take us at least an hour to leave the room each time, and even then it´s with half our belongings swinging on the outside of our packs cos we couldn´t face rearranging them for the umpteenth time.I guess our interpretation of travelling light is a bit different to everyone elses. Other travellers smirk when they see we´ve got half of Dixons in our bags, what with 3 mobiles, a PSP,an electronic translator, an iron, straghteners, hairdryer, ipods etc all bulging out.

4. Dorms were created by the devil. If hell exists, it will be a huge foreigner-filled dormitory) We´ve only stayed in them when we´ve arrived in the dead of night in a new place with nowhere to stay and this is all that´s available. The last time we did this I was on the top bunk. about an inch from the ceiling (some dorms even have 3-storey bunkbeds) sharing a room about the size of a postage stamp with 5 overexcited Spanish girls on a hen do, who rolled in at about 5am waving plastic willies and half-empty vodkas and then proceeded to throw up for what was left of the night.

I know it´s totally self-indulgent and spoilt-brat-like to have a moan when we are on the trip of a lifetime, but I´m hungover, feel sick and it´s my blog so I´ll do what I like.

I´ll be back with a proper post once my head is removed from the vice-like grip of this migraine....

Argentina is fantastic by the way.