INTEGRATION

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2
The President of the Argentine is on a State visit to Mexico. Today’s newspaper publishes a discourse President Kirchner presented to the Mexican Senate. In the speech he attacks the Bush Administration for building a wall along the border. Not only is the wall an insult to Mexico, it is an insult to all the peoples of the world. President Kirchner lectures the United States on integration. President Kirchner is as white as a founder member of the Augusta National Golf Club. So is President Kirchner’s wife and possible future President, Senator Christina Kirchner - as are President Caldaron of Mexico and his wife. The front page of La Nacion carries a photograph of President Kirchner and his audience of Mexican senators. The senators are white.
On Argentine TV, brown faces are restricted to news programs.
Not even the servants in Mexican soaps are indigenous.
Both Presidents might set integration as a goal for domestic broadcasting – though criticising the United States wins more votes.

THIEVING WOMEN OF BUENOS AIRES

WEDNESDAY, JULY 25
I arrive at the bus terminal with an hour to spare. The bus for Rio Gallegos leaves from dock 1 to 18. I find a seat and listen to the departures announced over the speaker system. A young woman sits beside, asks the time and to where am I travelling. She tells me she and her girlfriend have seats on the same bus. The bus pulls in. I surender my ticket, shove my wallet back in the leg pocket of mmy cargo pants and carry my bags towards the cargo hold. The two women shove sandwich me, shoving with their bags. I think of them as ill mannered. I should think that Argentinians are seldom ill mannered. On public transport, men give up their seats to women and oldies. And I should wonder at women without anoraks travelling to Patagonia. Shove, shove and my wallet has gone. So have the women. The theft and fake peso bills are my fault. I am seventy-four. I know better. My only excuse is that I am re-acclimatising.

BUENOS AIRES & POLITICS

TUESDAY, JULY 24
Visitors to Buenos Aires are confused by the smart clothes and broad avenues of splendid nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings. Buy a newspaper, sit at a café, sip coffee and you enjoy the illusion of being in a major European capital. Read the paper and reality seeps through. Striking fishermen have blockaded the main fishing port and torched the processing plants. Pickets have closed all but one bridge into Uruguay. Pickets block highways. Why? Because direct action is as Argentine as beefsteak (see the smashing of computers by passengers at the airport for internal flights). And, perhaps because a Presidential election approaches. The main candidates are followers of Peron – Peronistas. The official Peronista candidate is the present President’s wife. There is an opposition Peronista candidate and there are dissident Peronista candidates. All this is incomprehensible to an outsider. Those of us with memories and an interest in foreign affairs recall Peron as something of a buffoon, a lesser Mussolini, wrecker of the seventh largest economy in the world. Our children know only the stage or film version of EVITA.
Past President Menen supports one of the canditates. A foreigner would presume Menen’s support to be the kiss of death.And, yes, the economy is once again heading for disaster. The Government has been falsifying the inflation figures. And a Minister has resigned because of the illicit money discovered hidden in her bathroom.

COUNTERFEIT CURRENCY

TUESDAY, JULY 24
Carlo, the hotel manager, is delighted. The fake bills from the cab driver confirm his faith in the villainy of his Buenos Aires compatriots. I take the underground to the bus terminal and reserve a seat for tomorrow to Rio Gallegos.

THIEVING CAB DRIVERS

MONDAY, JULY 23
I go to the movies this evening. I take a cab back to the hotel. I don’t have sufficient change for the fare and pay with a 100-peso bill (3.3 pesos to the US dollar). I drop by the corner café, drink a beer and eat two empanadas. I pay with a 20-peso bill. The waiter catches me at the entrance to the hotel: the bill is a fake. All the bills the cabdriver gave me in change are counterfeit. A writer has an advantage over other folk: mishaps are good copy.

RELATIVES IN DISTANT LANDS

MONDAY, JULY 23
Discovering relatives in a foreign land is a great delight – particularly when travelling the vast expanses of Argentina. Cousins at four generations’ distance have invited me to lunch at their apartment. Tony was a great polo player in his youth. He brought a string of ponies to England each year and sold them off at the end of the polo season. My elder brother bought one of the ponies, Rubia. There is the connection. We are five at table in a panelled dinning room: Tony, a younger brother and their wives.
I feel very scruffy in my cargo trousers.

RESURECTION

Hi to all you readers. Writing to you has become a habit. The first section of my journey is done. I plan returning to Ushuaia in February to ride north through those countries I missed or avoided on the road south: Chile, Uruguya, Paraguya, Brazil, Venezuela. Meanwhile let me relate my return to England and my search for sponsers. The first leg was unsponsered. Those few I approached judged me mad. I would fall off my perch before the first hill or be crushed by a truck or bus. Why associate themselves with certain failure?