It was exciting to meet Jonny, French and all friends attached in Buenos Aires on the first day and so as the rugby was also on, this warranted some afternoon pubtime hours before heading off to the famous Pacha club in the night.There's loads to do in Buenos Aires; wandering around different neighbourhoods, like San Telmo with its markets and tango dancing on the streets, La Boca with its colourful El Caminito, a street of multicoloured tin houses built years ago with the beginning of immigration and Recoleta, home to the cemetery where Eva Perons grave is visited by hundreds every day. We also made it to the the Evita museum, interesting from an Argentinean point of view, and to the city zoo, home to some lovely (and one crazy) elephants. And not forgetting one of the most exciting activities - going to see Boca Juniors play at home, the atmosphere was electric, Boca in the end beating Huracan 3-1.

We also had a couple of good nights out in Buenos Aires and with the restaurants being first-class, there was a tad of steak sampling, have never seen a steak as monstrous as the one Mark had at La Cabrera.

But having to move on and having unsuccessfully made it to Uruguay after missing the boat, we made our way on down to Patagonia, first stop 20 hours southbound - Puerto Madryn. We rented a car and did a day trip from here to Peninsula Valdes, home to lots of sea-lions, elephant seals and penguins, eeeee! The following day we also did a day trip to the Penguin reserve at Punta Tombo, the largest penguin colony outside Antarctica, where the area is protected and tourism doesn't seem to have much effect on the penguin's lives. Not too far from here is where you can find the Welsh towns of Gaiman and Trelew. Not too much about them are that Welsh these days though there are lots of Welsh teahouses around and museums in both towns displaying artefacts from years ago, explaining what happened when the settlers came over. It was also funny to see signs around advertising Welsh lessons.

30 hours further south, we eventually made it to Ushuaia, the end of the world (bar Antarctica). The cabin we'd booked was like a palace, with a living room, kitchen, 2 bathrooms, bedroom on second floor anda barbeque outside...so that was lovely for a few days. With no chance of getting over to Antarctica with the prices of the boats, we stayed within the surrounding area of Ushuaia, the scenery around the town really pretty. We did a boat trip down the Channel Beagle, running between the last section of Argentina and Chile before it ran into the sea for Antarctica, and we walked up as far as we could to the Glaciar Martial looking back down over the city. Also visiting Tierra del Fuego's national park, we decided to hire another car for a day...and was glad to see that no-one noticed the bump the next day.

Making our way 20 hours back up country we stopped in El Calafate, quite a touristy town and not much interest in itself but a good base from which to visit the Perito Moreno Glaciar, absolutely amazing...its front face measuring 5km and its length some 30km. We took a boat trip up to the front face for an hour to see it closer, have never seen anything like it though, the photos will explain.

Another 32 hours northbound found us in Bariloche, where Jonny carried on into Chile to take his flight and I stopped for a couple of days more. Almost as soon as I walked into my room, I met Karen, about 10 minutes after that I met Dean...and these were my friends for the next couple of days. Thinking that Bariloche would be the Cancun of Argentina, I was surprised to find that it had really beautiful surroundings. Hiking up to the peak of Cerro Campeonarios, you got a gorgeous 360 degree view for miles. It was at the top here that this Mexican guy was eavesdropping on my conversation with a woman who was staying in my hostel...he also wants to go travelling and so started quizzing me about every place I'd been to. On holiday with his mum and sister, they then insisted on driving me back to my hotel in town and inviting me for lunch. It was Dean's bday however so we went out for pizza, and celebrated St Paddys day all in green.

The next town I visited was purely for the reason that Genie G had spent some time there a few years before and talked about it...it was actually a really lovely little holiday town for Argies. The scenery on the way there was gorgeous, passing by 7 lakes towered over by the Andes behind them. San Martin de los Andes is a nice little town to walk around, and is set on the mouth of a big lake, although my walk to Bandurrias viewpoint (note the name) was largely unsuccessful and even though I walked and scrambled up muddy hills and through bushes and trees for what seemed like 2 hours I didn't find it and in the end I admitted defeat.

Finally, the last Argentinean city on my agenda was Mendoza. I arrived in the morning after a 24 hour bus ride with one mission in mind - to find somewhere showing the rugby. That I did, and 10 Paddys in there with it, but as always with the Irish our defeat still ended in a good craic (and a big night). At the barbeque at my hostel the following night, I then met a big group of people, mainly Swiss, and we went on a bodega (wine cellar) tour the next day on bikes. It was good fun, no real accidents but a toe caught on a rock and a little blood. That week Jimmy, one of the Irish from the rugby, had his birthday so there were more celebrations, resulting in missing a bus to Santiago de Chile.

I then carried onto Chile with Jimmy and a Swede called Tomas, met even more Irish (I'm sure there cant be many left in Ireland)... a Chilean guy who took us to a friends house party and before we knew it we were in the central market in the morning for a fish platter breakfast. I was pleased to see there were lots of sushi restaurants in Santiago and a lovely bad food called chorrillanas, like a mush of chorizo, chips and maybe a beans sauce, but apart from the food side of things and a walk up to the mountain in the middle of the city for some nice views, I didn't get chance to see so much in the city, spending my whole last morning in the airport trying to sort out my flight to New Zealand. It did however, pay off so now you find me in Auckland, very tired and having never seen Saturday March 28th due to the time difference here, but soon to be starting a new chapter.