I like Argentina already. That is not to say I didn´t like Bolivia. But Bolivia is like the Tyrone senior football team circa 2003 to 2008. It wears you down. It eats at you until you have nothing left to give. I also like Peru, but not after I woke up in Cuzco following a ten hour bus journey through the night from Arequipa. I got off the bus. I zipped open my bag. Camera - gone. Ipod - gone. Money - gone. Bus thieves. I was angry. I was depressed. I was robbed. When you have very little money and the contents of your wallet are stolen, es no bueno. When you are trekking and visiting some of the most beautiful and dramatic places in the world and you don´t have a camera to capture it, es no bueno. When you are travelling on night buses for hours or lying in your hostel bed and you have no access to music, es no bueno. Another thing that es no bueno is dealing with Peruvian police. When I went to the police station to report the theft, the cop looked at me like I had just slapped his mother on the ass. Hard. Getting the report was like pulling teeth from an alpaca.

But with Machu Picchu in my sights, there was no time to dwell on the negative. You can pay through the nose on the train to get there or you can pay through the nose to do one of the trails. I was having none of the paying-through-the-nose stuff, so we devised a strategy to get to the famous Inca city on a shoestring. So it was on to another bus, this time to Santa Maria, a truly terrible bus. Wheels hanging on the end of a cliff, ascending dramatically, the smell of s*** and body odour washing over my head as children bounced around the bus, I wanted the journey to end. It ended after about seven hours. And then we took a collectivo a few hours to the sleepy village of Santa Teresa. The next morning, we caught a lift to a hydroelectric plant and from there trekked a few hours to Aguas Calientes.

Up at 4am the next morning for the last two hour stint to Machu Picchu, myself and Jesus Dragon were in the top 20 people to arrive. We marched through the gates with our passes for Huaynu Picchu and watched the mist clear magically from the lost Inca city below us. This place is South America´s poster boy, the best known archaeological site on the continent, an awe-inspiring ancient city. For me, however, the highlight was climbing up the steep mountain of Huaynu Pichhu to see the amazing lost Inca city below me. The views from here were spectacular and imagining the Inca´s carrying blocks and materials up the steep slope would make even the hardiest labourer wince. I must admit that the whole scene was rather emotional in its beauty and I had to take a few deep breathes as the tingle bounced around my spine.

After staying a night in Copacabana across the border in Bolivia and listening to some Argentinian hippies playing folk music in front of an evening fire, we took a boat across Lake Titicaca to Isla del Sol. I dare you to name me a higher navigable lake in the world than Lake Titicaca. Go on, I dare you. You see, you can´t. Because there is no higher that exists. We arrived on Isla del Sol in the face of the overpowering sun, walking upwards to a little settlement on uneven stones past donkeys and lamas, past traditionally dressed islanders and trekking gringos. Isla del Sol, Island of the Sun, or Sun Island, as I like to call it, was the birthplace of the sun in the Inca culture and the island is adorned with beautiful walks through villages and Inca terraces, some of which are still in use. But the sun does not shine at night, my friends, and the cold Andean winds reminded me of our ridiculous altitude.

The altitude is relentless here and we could not escape it in La Paz, the highest capital in the world, no less. Try walking up a hill to get a drink of water at 3,600 metres above sea level. To put that into perspective, Warrenpoint is 0 metres above sea level, and the top of Slieve Donard is a measely 850 metres above sea level. But we decided to go higher. We decided to go for a bike ride. But on no ordinary road.

After having survived the experience, I can say that Death Road is appropriately named. The North Yungas Road is legendary for its extreme danger and was named by the Inter-Development Bank as the ´world´s most dangerous road´ in 1995. I began cycling the 62km of the Death Road at La Cumbre Pass (4,650 metres) descending to the town of Coroico (1,200 metres), winding my way through steep hillsides and atop cliffs from cool Altiplano terrain to Amazonian rainforest.

Every corner has an extreme drop-off of 600 metres and the single-lane width and slippy gravel surface meant my heart was racing for most of the journey. In places, rain and fog made visibility difficult and at each turn I was constantly reminded of the many thousands of Bolivians who have died on the road together with the scores of gringo thrill seekers on their Death Road fixwho never made it.

After La Paz it was south through the Bolivian Altiplano to the world´s largest salt flat outside Uyuni, nearly twice the size of County Down. The Salar de Uyuni was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes and the extraordinary flat salt crust covering the Salar makes for an amazing contrast to the clear blue skies of the Altiplano afternoons. We took advantage of the landscape to take some good photographs and generally admire the salt and the flamingos. Who would believe it, but there is actually a lot to be said for salt and flamingos.

Potosi was the next stop and it is even higher. In fact, at 4,824 metres, it is the highest city in the world. But Potosi is really all about the mines. The silver garnered from it´s impressive mountain, Cerro Rico, fuelled the growth of the Spanish empire in South America. At one stage Potosi was the biggest city in the Americas and one of the richest. The Spanish sent slaves into the mountain, protected by the Devil, Tio, and effectively signed their death warrants. The average life expectancy of a miner in Potosi today is 38. I decided to get in on the action. Our visit to the mines involved us crawling around through the passageways of the mountain, offering gifts of tobacco and juice to Tio for our safety. The highlight was meeting the miners down there, chewing coca leaves with them and sharing a bottle of their sangani. I remember thinking that they would have to be off their faces in order to spend each and every day of their short working lives down there. And then we blew up some dynamite. That´s right. Dynamite. Why? Why not? After another series of bus journeys, each one more horrible than the previous, I arrived in Villazon ready to cross into Argentina. I was stamped out of Bolivia. I was stamped into Argentina. I then queued up to walk through la frontera and noticed that immigration officials were searching through people´s bags. Now, I have nothing to hide, but I was annoyed that I would have to repack my bag yet again. An American backpacker was asked to unzip his bag. At another table, an English backpacker was doing the same. Some mestizos were opening their bags so the immigration officials could check them out. I arrive up at the table. The immigration official looks at me. ´Quel pais?´, he says, searching my soul. ´Which country´? `Irlanda´ I reply proudly. Without a hesitation he waves me through without touching my bag. The American, the English and the locals watch on with disbelief as I step into the Argentinian sunrise unhindered. I smile to myself and call to mind all the great people Ireland has given the Argentines. Admiral Guillermo Brown. Ernesto Che Guevara Lynch. Edelmiro Julian Farrell. Rodolfo Walsh. Benito Lynch. Eduardo Casey. Anthony Dominic Fahy. Bienvenidos Breandan. I told you I like Argentina already.