"Argentina, Argentina, Argentina, here we come!" We were singing that after crossing the border! Chile seemed to love us too much and tried all its power to keep us there for as long as possible! The road became much wider and easier all the way down to Bariloche, enjoying the belle view Argentine's lake district had in store for us, with the sun shinning on Bariloche's many beautiful lake. Anthony couldn't stop saying "STOP"! and got out of the car to take a picture! But we had to hurry to El Calafate, which's two days away. Further south, we had a choice of driving on the adventurous Ruta 40 or a normal road, but on a longer distance. Of course we opted for Ruta 40! It was a deserted road, we didn't see a single car on that road for hours and hours! We wondered what would happen to us if the car had broken down, as we seemed to be isolated from everything, there wasn't houses or any living things anywhere! Further again south, on Ruta 40, the road was over-floated by water, so we enjoyed a kind of rollcoaster trip, splashing the car through the "river"! That night, we had a huge bad luck. As we were driving past Caleta Olivia, near Rio Gallegos, far south, the road became harder to see, there weren't any lights nor any white strip on the road or anything. At a moment, I tried to overtake a lorry steep up the road, as I was reaching the end of the overtaking, the road became curvy, and a van came from the opposite direction. I only had a split second to decide, and went on my left onto the opposite direction's hard shoulder to avoid a collision, but unfortunately the van did exactly the same, turning on its right on the hard shoulder, so we collided head on head. Ant and Bree were both asleep, so it was a total shock to them, waking up to a crash! Most fortunately of all, no one were injured at all, just some little bruises there and there. But it wasn't in my mind at all at that time, I got out of the car to check out the damages, and became so furious that I smashed my fist down and down on the wrecked bonnet. The people from the van were so nice, calm and helpful, checking out that no one were injured. I couldn't believe at all what had just happened. A passing by car stopped and offered me a lift back to Caleta Olivia to phone up "AA". I was taken to "Defensa Civil", where a very nice and helpful 18 years old girl, Jesica helped me out, phoning up a lifting-truck and making conversations to make me forget my huge frustration of the accident. When the truck arrived, I took him to the place of the accident, about 30 miles away. There, we found Anthony and Bree asleep in the car. They had to wait for about 3 hours in the freezing cold car! Back to Caleta Olivia, it was the beginning a week we never expected it at all to happen. Booked in a hotel for a miserable night sleep. In the morning, I went back to Defensa Civil, to find out what help they could offer me. There, I was met by two teachers for the Deaf, and two pupils. I didn't expect it at all, and their Argentina Sign Language was all new to me. The teachers were so kind. After I had explained everything, and told them what I will need to do, they drove me all over the town to the police station, to the insurance company, to the mechanic. At the end of the day, we were told it would take a week to get the car repaired. We decided to stay in Caleta Olivia for the weekend and leave for El Calafate on Monday. On Friday night, we went out for a barbecue with Jesica and her friends. We managed to communicate with her friends better and better toward the evening and the three deaf teenagers Luis, Marcelo and Gabi. Later on, we went to a nightclub, where we ordered its strongest drink on the menu, a glass of spirit mixture only. As the night went, we became more and more drunk, but had yet finished the first glass! I improved a little bit my awful dance with Jesica, but couldn't stop making her laugh at me!! The next day was a depressing day when we got to announce the sad news of the accident to our families and others! Then it was to the police station to give my statement of the accident, then to the insurance to hope for some financial support for the car repairs. Unfortunately, it was totally my fault that we wouldn't get any recompense. That night, we were invited for a pizza at Gabrielle, one of the teachers' house. There, we had a good laugh and some interesting exchange of opinions about the Deaf with Silvia, the second teacher. After several drinks, we started to dance in the kitchen, where the three boys got a bit over-excited after some hidden-drinks-away-from-the-teachers! The following night, we were invited to Gabi's house as her mother insisted on meeting us after hearing things from him! So we went over for a barbecue, meeting his mother and her boyfriend. We enjoyed trying to communicate with them which was pretty difficult as they spoke no English nor could sign much at all! The next night, we finally left for a long journey to El Calafate. We were not used anymore to travel by bus and carrying our backpackers at all, which depressed me, having to watch the landscape in the back of the coach. All the luxury of the car we enjoyed in the past few weeks were gone. I could go on waffling of how depressed I felt, and how I thought about the car every minute! We woke up to glorious white snow all over the place, with wonderful mountains lining up the road, and arrived at El Calafate. It was a pleasant feeling, to be very near to what we have been waiting to see, the Glaciers Perito Moreno! Booked in a Hostel, we went for a good steak, at a posh restaurant. We attracted pretty lot of attention, with our dirty clothes and messed up hair! The next day, after an hour on the bus, we arrived to the destination that we were longing for, the gorgeous Glaciers, where we awed for hours around it. Anthony and Bree luckily witnessed an ice break, splashing into the water, which Bree said "did u hear the beautiful noise of the splash?"! "eh? I'm deaf, u know!", hiding my frustration that I didn't see it nor hear it! The view, were, well, I just cannot think of another word, other than beautiful, gorgeous, amazing, exhilarating! We went round the corner to get a bit nearer the water and the ice, to get a feel of it. It was all amazing and so different from anything we've seen in the past two months! After several hours awing at the Glaciers, we set off back to El Calafate to catch a coach at 4am back to Caleta Olivia. That night, we went to a pool bar where we witnessed a nasty fight between two drunken oldies. "men!", said Bree! We played several games of pool against locals before catching the coach for a long journey. Back in Caleta Olivia, we were told the car isn't ready yet, and requires some pieces from Buenos Aires, which would take another 4 days! It was a huge decision for us to make, as it would waste extremely precious days of few weeks we had left. After long debates over different opinions, either wait for the car to be repaired or forget abt the car and leave for Buenos Aires. The thought of leaving the car wasted away disgusted us that we felt forced to stay and wait. We stayed at Silvia's house the next few days to save money. There we got to know her much better, her husband and her kids. We could almost communicate fluently with her now, in Argentina Sign Language. As most of u would know, communicating with foreigners deafies are really fun and challenging, which's one of my greatest passion! Finally, on the morning we expected the car to be repaired, we got news that the new radiator from Buenos Aires has arrived, and that the car will be ready in the evening. We went out shopping to get presents for Silvia and her family to thank them for their generous hospitability and their help with the police, etc. In the evening, back at Silvia's, we received horrible news that the mechanics had ordered the wrong type of radiator, and would require another 3 days to get another one from Buenos Aires! We were so angry, that we decided that we just cannot wait longer, as we only had less than 2 weeks left of travels. Remember we are at the very South of South America, and gotta get back to Caracas in Venezuela, at the very top of South America (by land only!)! We booked three tickets to Buenos Aires for the evening. We then went for a few games of pool then to the casino where I and Anthony finally got very lucky and won 500 quid between us! At 4am, we left Caleta Olivia for a 27 hours journey to the Great City of Buenos Aires. We were relieved to finally leave the tiny town of Caleta Olivia, but it was a memorable week, which we met some interesting people, Silvia the gorgeous teacher, Jessica the nice helpful girl, and the three immature teenagers Luis, Marcelo and Gabi! Throughout the long, miserable journey, I couldn't stop having flash backs of the car accident, of how unfortunate we have been, getting bad news every time. We seriously missed our car so much. But, it was Buenos Aires we started to dream! The next day, we woke up to see Buenos Aires, the City of Tango, of portenos (snob Buenos Aires people, who like to dress well!). We lodged at a wicked hostel, Lime House Hostel, where we met a wicked funny worker, called Marcelo. That night, we went out to find a good Steak restaurant, as Argentina is renowned for the finest steak in the world. After the great meal we had, Bree and I exclaimed "it was the best steak I ever ate!", but Anthony's response, was, just as we expected, "well, it was really good, but Irish ones that my mum makes is the best..."!! For dessert, we boys witnessed Bree making a fool of herself practising tango with the old restaurant boss! After the delicious steak, we went to see a tango show in an old cosy café. There, we were able to try out tango properly for the first time. Ant confidently danced with the professional pretty tango woman, and grabbed up her leg at the end of a song! I then tried for a bit before giving up! It took a long persuasion to get Bree on the dance floor and dance for a bit. At the end of the night, and after several beers, I confidently went over to ask a very drunk old woman for a tango! She happily accepted and somewhere seem flattered to be asked by a gorgeous young foreigner! It was a good laugh, but she started getting a bit too close that Ant couldn't stop sniggering! The next day, we went looking for a pub that showed the N.Ireland - England football match. But could only find a channel that showed Ireland - France match with several Irish people. I couldn't stop teasing Ant abt Ireland losing, and how crap the match was. But after the final blow, we saw the result of the England game, that Ant screamed out laughing! Afterwards we went to try to change our scheduled flight changed from Caracas to Rio de Janeiro, but were told we could only change the date and not the location. That meant we only had time for the Iguaza Falls and the return trip back to Caracas. That really discouraged us, especially Ant who always dreamt of Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. Ant and Bree went off to explore Buenos Aires, the infamous Evita's balcony, and its surroundings while I went back to catch up a bit more of sleep. In the evening, we went out to a transsexual nightclub "club 69" (don't get silly ideas, it was said to be one of the best nightclub in the City!). There, it was so funny, watching transsexual dancers dancing! As we grew confident after several vodka&red bulls, we strutted our stuff on the dance floor. Ant, who became bored dancing with me and Bree, went off to find another girl to dance with. But he had to be extremely cautious not to pick a transsexual! At the end, we were all so drunk, that we couldn't remember at all the journey back to our hostel! We only had a few hours of sleep before waking up to go and witness a game of football between Boca Juniors and Argentinos Jrs, at one of the best known stadium in the world, la Boca stadium! There, the atmosphere was unbelievable! I cannot really describe it, people were jumping up and down so wildly, screaming, throwing piece of papers! The view was so amazing from our side, which was calm, full of oldies! Bree bought a huge Boca flag, that I enjoyed screaming "Boca, Boca, Boca!" and flying the flag! When Boca scored, the fans became even more crazier and ran towards the gate, squashing each other! We were so happy to see Boca win the game 1-0 and returned to the hotel to watch the final of US Open before heading to another nightclub "la Pacha", where more vodka&red bulls rounds got us all blacked out, although, somewhere we managed to find our way back to the hotel! The next day, we left Buenos Aires for Iguaza falls, a 16 hours trip. We finally met up with Aman, Andre, and Semhar, all friends from our old school. It has been a hectic few days emailing each other for definite meeting point and time, but it was all worthwhile as we had a brilliant time. They brought added life in our worn-out travelling. We went for a quick meal to catch up on a bit of news, then went back to our hostel for some drinks, playing some pool against other foreigners, that we won bottle of beers at every game we won! (we deafies are too good, eh!) On the way to a nightclub, Aman, already pretty drunk, and in her pyjamas, threw up by a doorway of a house! She then insisted on continuing to the nightclub! There, more drinks were on the table for us English! We became confident enough to get onto the dance floor, maybe a bit too confident, as Aman and Semhar gave out exotic dirty dances, especially Semhar with her brazilian figure and a lovely bum that got us all boys gaping! We became a bit too wild, dancing in true british style, sexual dances that astonished the hearings!! It was a brilliant night, that it was a shame we only had one night with them as they had to get to Buenos Aires the next day and us visiting Iguaza Falls. I couldn't get up at 11am, so Ant and Bree went off to Iguaza Falls before I joined up at 2pm! The Falls there were phenomenal, so many falls, that the sight were just so amazing! We went on a speedboat to get a closer look of the falls, and get a feel of the powerful falls splashing on our head! It was a real thrilling trip, that got us all soaked! It is another one of the many major highlight of our travels! Back to the town for another night before catching a bus to Sao Paulo in the morning for another 20 hours journey! We finally crossed the Argentine border onto Brazil, after eventful weeks, that we will never forget about. Argentine is a marvellous country, with many activities and sightings on offer. I will definitely come back to Argentina one day and visit everything that we wanted to! Here, I'm gonna say farewell and pass on to Bree who will tell you the last week of our travels back in Venezuela, where we will finally be met by the hot Venezuelan sunshine after weeks of cold! Embles xx