Hola! - well, would you believe it - i've been in the southern hemisphere for 3 weeks now - far too long - i'm clearly getting a dose of the Ben's - that's where you find minor things start to irritate you and you start whining at people that are merely serving but not in charge (i owe someone a big apology) (sorry, Bennie) - and according to Foreign Office advice (www.fco.org.uk ) - if you start to suffer from these symptoms - i should avoid driving and the use ...

Greetings from the end of the world - as they seem to like describing it here. Ushuaia started off as a penal colony - building of the prison commenced in 1902 and was finished in 1920. General Peron ordered its closure in 1947 declaring that Tierra Del Fuego needed families not prisoners. By the early 1980's Ushuaia had grown to about 7,000 people - but was still pretty much a remote fishing town. Later in the 1980's the government turned Ushuaia into a free por...

Well - i've now rewritten the Montevideo bit to include Colonia and corrected Dolores.... A website you might find interesting is www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook - it has top-line information on every country and is frequently updated. You might also like to know that there are branches of HSBC and Santander banks throughout Brazil, Argentina & Uruguay - Santander own Abbey National; Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester in...

Right - well - i'm horribly behind with this - so you'll have to pretend i am where i am writing about as opposed to writing from - if you see what i mean. Well, it's Saturday 14th February & i'm still in Colonia - the Internet Cafe (or Cyber Cafe as they call them here) is closed hence no update on the 14th itself - anyway, i got the Buquebus Hydrofoil from Colonia to Buenos Aires (BsAs is the local abbreviation apparently) - the hydrofoil does the 35km jou...

Hola! and greetings from Buenos Aires. The more observant amongst you will notice that the accompanying picture is of La Paz, rather than Buenos Aires. There isn't a picture of Buenos Aires on this site, strangely. Anyway. Buenos Aires is a big city with wide streets - the widest being about 12 lanes wide - 6 lanes of traffic going in each direction - that's the biggest but most of their streets are much wider than you'd find in most cities. Cars? Well, fans of...