00:00 - A travelling day today. We were to go off at 9am but our bus and Manuel had some sort of mishap (rumours were of another flat tyre) and we actually set off at 10.30. This meant that we didn't get to our hotel in El Calafate until 6pm (further delay due to a broken window at the back if the minivan that kept falling off so we had to keep stopping to glue it back on). The voyage itself was pretty uneventful. We drove a couple of hours to the chilean border ...

23:00 - Had quite a long day today. Slept terribly last night. Jolanda snored the whole night and the traffic felt it was in our room. For a small town it sure is busy! Early start (6:45 breakfast and 7:15 on the minibus). The weather was miserable...gray and rainy. We drove to Kafayate, about 200km south of Salta. Our guide for this trip was a local woman, Vanessa. She lived for 10 years in Italy when she was a child when her family decided to escape the regime ...

18:35 - Today was not very eventful. Didn't make it to Cafe Tortoni as I decided to sleep in. Pickup was at 11 so had a late breakfast and then joined everyone on the minibus to the domestic terminal. Jolanda on the way to the airport expressed concern over the type of plane we were flying with and Sally was unable to appease her :-). It all worked out ok though. The flight to Salta was a couple of hours and i made some inroads in my book on the Incas (and slept ...

And almost 7 years later, I am back in the saddle! 22:00 - I didn't sleep very well last night (it didn't help that I set the alarm at 8am on my phone running on London time and so it went off at 5am!). Today I took a day off from the group. Having done the tourist bit around Buenos Aires for the last two days, I asked Sally to book me on one of the Gaucho Fiestas trips. You get to visit a 'typical' argentinian ranch. Obviously, these ranches are for tourists, b...

23:20 - After delays and missed messages yesterday, I finally met up with the group this morning. After breakfast, changed rooms (as of today I share with a lady for the next 3 weeks until we get to Lima) and then had another go at the 'The conquest of the Incas' book until Sally (our tour leader) and the rest of the group turned up. We are actually still missing two people but hopefully they'll turn up before we leave for Salta on Tuesday morning. Sally gave us ...