Sitting in the Casa Blanca Cafe in El Calafate (an aspirational little place in an aspirational little town, even though it has Chevvies driving around even more ancient than those on display in Habana) I heard that my baby sister had just given birth to a little girl. With this momentous and extremely happy news, I spent a good few minutes (and Rands no doubt) chatting to my mom and Andrew (brother-in-law) and it seems like indeed it is time to go home. Thavash...

I felt a bit what most 'north-of-Brazil' south americans feel when touching down in Buenos Aires, and which was a bit surprising to me, given that I have been here before: it really feels like a European experience in South America. It seems like everyone is walking a big dog on a leash; there are numerous cafes and bistros on every block; the architecture of course is a Franco/Italian mixture and the skin tone - now in comparison with everything north all the wa...

Courtesy of a six hour delay in my flight to Buenos Aires from Bogota (will now arrive at the fine hour of 3h30 am, just in time for?) I am able to reflect on the last few days which saw me scuttle from Bogota to Medellin to Cali and back to Bogota, in order to jump the continent to Argentina. It's been great fun in Colombia and I will certainly be back, not least because this trip was essentially monopolised by the city experience, and I am very aware of the fa...

Bogota surprised me (even though Ed gave me some warning in this regard). I'm not sure what I expected, but the first very tactile surprise was stepping out into what felt like Johannesburg weather in mid-autumn. It was about 17C, and was utterly delicious after the oppressive heat of Cartagena. In fact, Cartagena was at the back-end of 3 months of mostly tropical heat and humidity, and thus I discovered a whole new me who very much enjoyed a sub-20C day - I mu...

Cartagena is hot, and on my arrival it was bursting at the seams with thousands of people taking to the streets for a festival to celebrate Cartagena's independence from the Spanish (just about two hundred years later, Simon Bolivar is still a big hit in these parts). As a usual and necessary corollary to this they also celebrate, every year in Cartagena the crowning of Miss Columbia (to this royalty, the late Senor Bolivar unfortunately has to bend the knee). D...