The Arena Of The Unwell: January 2011

My home in Buenos Aires (BA) for Xmas is The Milhouse. Always riding high in the league of South American party hostels, one mention of this notorious place will always draw some kind of reaction so I had to check it out for myself. In typical fashion, apart from securing a bed for the night, my research on the Argentinian capital is slim to none and I'm caught wanting. The international airport is way out of town and I'm kindly relieved of thirty-something quid by the taxi driver to get me into the centre. When I'm fully laden in a new town it's kind of important that I head straight for safety and arrive in one piece so I try not to let it bother me too much. As we draw close to my new home I'm getting bad vibes from the lads running between the cars at traffic lights and smack the locks shut. I've come too far to fall for a sucker-punch now. Eyes on the prize, gringo, eyes on the prize.

It's a good job the driver knows his way around. As with many of these hostels there's no grand entrance and you'd never find it without assistance. This one just has a small sign on a wall beside a seedy adult cinema but inside it opens out into large air-conditioned communal area with a bar and a pool table. My hopes of an air-conditioned room are dashed when I'm shown to my bed by the staff - they've nicknamed Room 107 "El Che" but "El Furnace" seemed more appropriate. On the plus side it does have it's own bathroom which saves me the displeasure of having to use the one across the hall that's been dubbed the porno-shower as it's constantly resonates with the grunts of an x-rated soundtrack from the establishment next door through a shared ventilation shaft. Thankfully the reception I get from my roomies, Tom and Rachel, is as warm as the room itself and I settle in quickly for a fairly relaxed night, catching up with some episodes of An Idiot Abroad - the Machu Picchu one takes me way back. It feels like years ago! Stuck in this concrete monstrosity of a city I'm starting to miss the lush greens of Peru and Bolivia. Gotta get out of this sweat-box soon and see if BA can redeem itself.

The next day is Xmas eve. I catch wind of a walking tour round the La Boca neighbourhood and get involved. The guide gives us a quick reminder that this old port is not the safest place in the world and we're off. A 64 bus takes us to within sight of the football stadium La Bombonera, home to the legendary Boca Juniors and a virtual shrine to their favourite son, Diego Maradona. Unfortunately, the few weeks I have to kill in Argentina are the exact same weeks when no football is played here so I won't get to see the stadium in all its hooligan infused match-day glory. It's striking to see the type of part-terraced stadium which have been outlawed in top-flight English leagues for years now. We're always bitching about health and safety back home but few will doubt that we got this one spot-on and it transformed the sport back home. You'd never dream of bringing kids to a Boca game although, looking round the streets here, I doubt their fans would think twice about it. "Nice one son, that'll scar up a treat. Now run over and kick the little dude in the head before he gets up again!"

Next we head into the brightly coloured streets of the surrounding neighbourhood to suck up some culture and have lunch. It's nice enough and the history is interesting but it can't compete with Valparaiso back in Chile. Hanging around the streets today is a rather unconvincing Maradona lookalike who's charging to have photos taken. We decline his offer and choose instead to debate whether he attempts to correlate his waistline and facial hair with that of everyone's favourite cheating bastard for fear of falling behind on his rent.

We see in Xmas at the new Milhouse hostel round the corner before large groups of us pile onto buses and head to Pacha nightclub at 2am. The music's good and it's a decent enough venue. The reputation that comes with the name certainly generates a buzz but for those of us lucky enough to have spent at night at its classy big brother in Ibiza this place just doesn't measure up. Smarten up the door policy a bit and this place stands a chance, otherwise forget it. We leave at 6am and get a few hours kip.

In the morning I Skype home and the sight of the family gathered round the laptop in their jumpers and Santa hats while I sweat buckets is real sweet if a bit strange - this is one day of the year I'd definitely like to be with them. Annoyingly, any last chance of getting remotely festive in BA today is dashed when I find out I'm too late to sign up for the Milhouse Xmas lunch. I missed out. Apparently it was pretty damn good and there's nothing open outside so I settle for a large beer and a couple of bags of crisps. Tonight's post-Milhouse venue is Crobar. After last nights disappointment I need to repair my faith in nightclubs so I hang in there long enough to give it a go and I'm pleasantly surprised. It's a classy joint under the railway arches near the Palermo district. Phenomenal sound system, fierce choons, proper DJ, chilled atmosphere and no dodgy attitudes. Great stuff but by the end it's another ridiculously late night. My measly potato-snack dinner fails to prevent me getting utterly wankered and I've just wiped the arse out of Boxing Day too.

The following day I sign up for an afternoon bike ride round Palermo. Seems like a pretty relaxed way to get to see this side of the city. First stop is the, ahem, Falklands Memorial in Plaza San Martin. The guide asks if there's any Brits present. No way am I fessing up right now, if she's gonna dig herself a hole I'll happily bury her in it. "No-one? OK, phew, so I can continue.", she says. Now, this is gonna be interesting. She keeps referring to the war between the Argentinians and the English. I'm sure a few Welsh and Scottish veterans would be pleased to know their involvement didn't register over here. If there is an upside to this oversight, their sightly off-focus resentment of the English perhaps protects our fellow Brits from all the shit we get off them. One sad fact I learn is that until a couple of years ago, the families of their dead soldiers were not permitted by the British government to travel to the graves of their loved ones. Even now it's prohibitively expensive with certain restrictions still in place and only one flight per month permitted. She closes the book by informing us that the Argentinians often refer to the conflict as "the stupid war" so at least it's nice to know we agree upon one thing. Later on, our guide gets pretty defensive when she asks and discovers my true nationality but I try to reassure her, "I watched you very closely, and you didn't screw up once!" Most of the afternoon is distinctly less informative but it's still nice to get out for the day and we end on a high by visiting the fascinatingly creepy Recoleta Cemetary, final resting place of Eva Peron.

I return to the hostel in time to find a group preparing to check out La Bomba De Tiempo - a fifteen piece drumming troupe. Rachel went last week and is going back for more so it's gotta be good, but I need to be super-quick because she's leaving soon. I take a shower, consult my wardrobe (huh?) and quickly throw on whatever's not lying in a wet patch on the floor. A short cab ride takes us to an old, run-down factory space which has been given the urban counter-culture treatment (i.e. they installed a cash register) and transformed into a rough and ready music venue. Beer by the litre and good vibes all round. The drummers send the crowd wild for two hours solid before we head back to continue the party at The Milhouse until the early hours. This is probably my favourite day in BA but I won't forget my next and last action-packed night in BA in a hurry either.

Chris and Jessica, a couple who I met in Mendoza, are in town and head over to catch up. The night starts pretty innocently enough until we head of to the other Milhouse. After necking a quarter of my beer I spy a white tablet slowly dissolving in the glass. I stop drinking it immediately and feel really spaced-out and sleepy for a couple of hours. I'm pretty much convinced it's rohypnol. I heard of five other people getting spiked at Milhouse recently. I find it hard to believe that travellers are spiking each other but something's going on here and the hostel should try to stamp it out because it'll get a bad reputation which would be a shame. Anyway, it's a close call for me but I'm not gonna let it spoil my night so I tough it out and we head out to a drum 'n' bass night at a basement club named Bahrain. This music takes me back a few years and I still have a soft spot for it so I'm having fun. When Chris and Jessica say they wanna leave about a hour later, I decide to hang back and bid them farewell. Bad move.

When I finally leave about 5am, I turn left and immediately get propositioned by a whore. I pay up and service her right there on the spot ... yeah right, as if peeps, what do you take me for! This is clearly not the best place to be at this time if any so I give it my best Jacko spin and moonwalk the hell outta there. When I do find a taxi it's heading towards me on a one way street in the wrong direction so I foolishly let it go, not knowing it'll be the last taxi I see all night. I continue walk for about thirty minutes along the main streets until I'm nearly home when I spy three drunken dudes (probably travellers) play fighting as they walk the same route ahead of me. My self-preservation reflex kicks in so I ease off the pace until they're far ahead enough to relax and, boom - right when I least expect it, the thing I've been warned to expect! I'm only twenty yards from my hostel door when three young local lads with eyeballs like saucers approach me from one side and say something to me in Spanish. All three have their right hand on a nice shiny blade tucked down their trousers and it's clear they mean business. I back away towards the end of the block to ensure they can't fully surround me, reach into my wallet, pull out a wodge of notes I got from an ATM earlier that evening, throw it at the ringleader and tell them to fuck off. They do so at full speed while I head back to the safety of the hostel to think about what just happened.

So that's how easy it is to get robbed in BA and make a shit sandwich with all the trimmings out of a perfectly good night out. I'm so grateful for all the advice I had been given by my fellow travellers regarding such situations and I'm lucky I reacted quickly and sensibly enough that things didn't get out of control. I can't convey how much I'd love to have had a one-on-one with the filthy little soap-dodging scumbags. If they were still conscious after I'd finished with them and able to stand up they'd be picking up their shitty brown teeth with broken fingers, but then I'd probably get nicked and the notoriously dodgy porkers would take the rest of my shit. It's a lose-lose situation in BA so I'm checking out of "El Furnace" and moving on. I'm off to Rosario for New Year but not before I stick on my England top for one last defiant visit to the ATM. I share my cousin Bob's eloquent sentiments on this whole sorry episode - arse of bunchholes!

Some time ago I was persuaded to check out Rosario, after being sold on the promise of a four-to-one girl-boy ratio. Surely this statistic is bullshit of the highest order but I can't resist checking it out for myself. Rosario, birthplace of Che Guevara and more recently Lionel Messi, is a couple of hours north from BA en-route to Iguazu Falls so it would be rude not to drop by and say, "How you do-en?" As I step out of the bus terminal, there it is. There's a guy walking down the street in front of me with two girls on each arm. Honestly, I couldn't make this up! The girls in this town are beautiful and immaculately dressed all day. I swear, the moderately good looking ones must literally cry themselves to sleep each night. Oddly, the guys here don't seem to try half as hard and I see countless mismatched couples walking around arm in arm looking happy as Larry, Barry and Gary combined. It's strange and odd, but sweet. Rosario radiates love.

I'm staying at Che Pampas hostel. It's another recommendation but it's a bit hit-and-miss to be honest. Inside it's covered in colourful street-art murals and decorated beautifully but a few things are amiss. It's hotter than the sun in here and the air-con is rarely on. The "swimming pool" on the roof is really just a dirty padding pool full of weak tea and a splash of old milk. The bar has utterly random opening times. The staff are rarely around and are not always as helpful as you might expect. I could go on. There's also only a handful of English-speaking guests which creates some communication difficulties. In its defence it does have awesome TV room with bean bags, a great sound system and a neat little USB slot for all those films travellers tend to "acquire" whilst they're on the move but I expected a little bit more from this place.

The National Flag Monument is the stand-out performer in town but the rest of Rosario is nothing spectacular. Neither is my new year which is spent in the company of a couple of Aussie stoners who's "get-up-and-go" gets up and goes at about 10-past-breakfast each day. We each cough up 40 pesos for a rooftop BBQ to see the dawn of 2011. Instead of the 9pm banquet we're promised this amounts to little more than one flimsy burger dished up a few minutes to midnight. Quick, get the party poppers! We stick around for a couple of hours before heading out but we're gonna need a taxi so a group of us walk about on the hunt. I could head to the biggest haystack in Argentina and find a hundred sub-atomic needles before we'd find a taxi tonight. We give up about 4am and go home. It's a miserable end to a shit day. Crappy New Year!

My luck changes when I discover that a London-based quartet staying here (Phil, Ella, Jasmine and Dena) are heading up to Iguazu Falls too so we join forces and book tickets for an 18 hour overnight bus journey. Before we leave one thing puts a smile on my face. I finally realise why lots of guys walking around Rosario have the word "NOB" emblazoned across their t-shirts. The local football team here is called Newell's Old Boys. Priceless.

In Iguazu, we're staying at the Hostel Inn which, with it's huge inviting pool, looks positively five-star compared to the usual fare until we check out the kitchen. I've seen better equipped swiss-army knives. On top of that they're playing the most appalling Reggaeton music all day and night. It's so loud you'd swear Shabba Ranks had launched a comeback under your pillow. I'd usually criticise a place if it had as many power cuts as this place (six in one day, no less) but that was our only respite from this shite.

Thankfully the legendary Iguazu Falls themselves are every bit as amazing as they look in the brochures and my new travel buddies are superb bantering company. After a few failed attempts to hop on the overcrowded buses outside the hostel the five of us hail a cab and I dive in the boot. Inside the park we take a miniature train to the walkways which lead us to The Devil's Throat. It's real busy here and it's full of old American tourists hobbling in from the nearby airport. Unbelievably, they all look genuinely miserable to be here. Perhaps they too have realised that Niagara can't compete with this place. Regardless, it reminds me again of how lucky I am to be doing this now, under my own steam, and not once society has busted me up, spared me a few dimes and thrown me on the scrap heap. We take the train back to the mid-way point and trek down to the foot of the falls on Circuito Inferior. This has to be one of the most amazing sights I'm ever likely to see. It's visual overload. It stops you dead in your tracks while it etches itself on your brain. But don't take my word for it just go see it for yourselves. We finish off the day with an awesome boat ride up to the falls. There's people queueing up for this in their swimming trunks. I'm not prepared for this. We get on the boat which powers right up to and underneath the falls themselves. Don't believe me? Go and look up some of the videos on YouTube because I wasn't going to break my camera to prove it. It literally felt like someone emptying a swimming pool on your head. Great end to a great day.

We spend our last day in Iguazu getting sunburnt round the pool while trying to absorb all that we'd seen the day before. A particular highlight of the day for me was convincing one of the girls that scientists now believe ginger haired kids are the result of the mother eating too many cheesy wotsits during pregnancy. Her identity will be spared. Sunstroke or not, that's a blond moment of epic proportions. Get the hair dye ready for your future children hun, you know, just in case those cravings get the better of you.

Next stop, Patagonia.

Choon of the day: John Mayer - Stop This Train