Don't cry for me Argentina...

There wasn't much crying in Argentina during my sojourn last weekend to the Argentinean city of Mendoza just the other side of the Andes from Chile. However I can imagine there may have been a few tears in Santiago during my absence as Eduardo and Jonathan have separated, now there are only 2 of us in the flat. I almost feel sorry for Eduardo (almost!!) but I can more than imagine various reasons for not stickin it out with Ed'. It's a shame really Jonathan was a nice guy and almost made it bearable living with Eduardo, I now have to face him alone.

I made the Andean crossing to Argentina with two guys both called Mark from Sydney, however we very nearly didn't make it at all. We had planned to leave on Thursday and arrived at the border early evening only to be told that the border had been closed 15 minutes earlier because with all the snow and ice it was too dangerous to let anymore vehicles through; so 3 hours later we found ourselves back in Santiago- 6 hours on a bus to end up where we started! The Friday we tried again leaving Santiago at 7 in the morning, arriving at the border to find the border open and the weather in our favour. However Mark or as I will refer to him "Markbeth" (due to his likeness to Shakespeare's character) had forgotten his passport and couldn't cross into Argentina... What did we do?....give up?.... no! we bribed the immigration officials!! for the price of 2 hotdogs and 2 bottles of coke Markbeth was allowed to pass. It was definitely the dodgiest and funniest thing I have been a party to since being here. To think that by buying the officials their lunch you can enter the country!!

Our actual time in Argentina was very "tranquilo" (easy-going), we saw Star Wars joined a couple of winery tours and gorged ourselves on the biggest Argentinean steaks you have ever seen. On the Sunday night we attended an all you can eat Argentinean BBQ restaurant for the equivalent of $7.50 Australian and I kid-you-not there were people with a whole cow on their plates. For some length of time we were doing our own thing and I took the opportunity to aimlessly wander around the town, perusing the markets and in one moment of cultural inspiration I decided to take a look in the museum of modern art, however once entering found myself at a choir recital (don't worry I was confused as well). The choir was very impressive, although I was disappointed not to have heard "Don't cry for me Argentina" and considered offering to give them my rendition of "Argentina, what's it like to lose a war?" which although a classic I concluded may have been inappropriate.

We were due to return on Monday so that I'd be back in Santiago to complete some work I had due on Tuesday. However wouldn't you know it, we got on the bus at the bus station and sat there for half an hour until they herded us all off again explaining that the border was closed again. We had an extra day in Argentina, I wasn't going to be able to hand my work in and basically the situation was inconvenient to say the least. Eventually we left on Tuesday and just when I thought things were going to be pretty straight forward the bus pulls over and stops. The driver aided by some old geezer who'd appeared changed a tyre; I don't know if you've ever seen someone changing a bus tyre but I certainly hadn't and until this trip hadn't realised how amusing it can be to see a few grown men and the odd old age pensioner struggling with a wheel over half their height (for the record I didn't offer to help, I was more than happy to watch and laugh as I had by this point developed a slight hatred of this particular bus company).

Having changed the tyre/wheel we continued towards Chile and threw ourselves straight into the biggest traffic jam of buses, trucks, tractors and the occasional mule that I have ever seen. We crawled along at a snails pace for over 6 hours; this turned what should be a 7 hour trip between Mendoza and Santiago into a 15 hour ordeal. Finally arriving back at the border we knew that we were going to be confronted by the same problem caused by the absence of Markbeth's passport and had formed a contingency plan, a plan that basically consisted of secreting Markbeth back onto the bus amidst the chaos that is the Los libertadores border crossing if he was refused entry back into Chile.

As it happens he was told that he wasn't going to be able to enter Chile and that because he had no travel documents whatsoever he had essentially been an illegal immigrant for the past 4 days (does that make me a people smuggler?). We were about to resort to the contingency plan when the Argentine official made some subtle signals- another bribe was on the cards. This time it cost Markbeth a tad more than simply lunch for a few fat Argentines, 50 Argentine pesos to be exact (A$25), but at least he got back into the country and boy was I glad that I'd now been party to 2 bribes; in my mind an essential South American experience.

Not much else to report now, hope all are well. Before we do part though it probably warrants a mention that if I shed any tears over the last weekend it would have been for the death of a football club; One man (and an American at that) owning what really amounts to a social institution is sacrilege. For over a hundred years many of the greatest football clubs in the world have been at the heart of many peoples social and sporting lives in the UK, if today a dollar value can be put on that sort of thing then in my mind it has ceased to live.

Ciao for now.