PARTY TIME AT THE HOTEL ARGENTINO

javier - front right

vaguely inebriated

RIO GRANDE:

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15
Javier, the oil driller, is barbecuing a few dozen chickens in the yard - party time at the Hotel Argentino. We are celebrating the arrival of two Spanish pedal bikers from Valencia. The bikers have ridden from Buenos Aires via Bariloche, Monson and Calfate, then across into Chile and back via Porvenir to Rio Grande. Tomorrow they will head for Ushuaia. One is a salesman, early forties, handsome, voluble, lots of charm. The forty-day bike ride makes a great tale for his customers and will boost sales. The second biker is younger by ten years, an odd job man in the modern sense: basic electrician, basic plumber, painter and decorator, simple carpentry. He is the more thoughtful of the two and talks little. The Spaniards complain of ruthless Argentine truck drivers, of being forced off the road. I prefer a different image: the kindly driver who held me in his arms and called me brother.
My neighbour at table eats two full chickens. I drink more than one glass of red wine.
The Spaniards party to 5 a.m. They are on the road at seven. Such men were the Conquistadors…

CRASH CURE

RIO GRANDE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15
These are facts. I suffered back pain throughout the three months prior to leaving the UK and in my first weeks in the Argentine. I received four treatments from an excellent osteopath and two treatments from a sports therapist. The pain continued.
I get hit by three trucks and the pain ends. Eight days have passed since the crash. I feel confident in writing of a cure. I suspect this cure is a one-off and am reluctant to include this piece in my weekly column for 50connect.
50connect is a leading web site for mature citizens. Imagine hundreds of back-pain sufferers hobbling into the main highway in search of a curative truck.
Meanwhile Pepe has inspected the new x-rays. I have a date at the hospital tomorrow morning. Pepe will change the cast.

X-RAYS

RIO GRANDE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 14
Graciela is not pleased that I went to the restaurant yesterday. She knows that I took a knock on the foot. She threatens to telephone Bernadette. Meanwhile she takes me to the hospital to have fresh x-rays taken. Going anywhere with Graciela is a kiss-fest. Half the town are friends. The other half long to be.
I sit in the x-ray table while Graciela explains that she cares for me to be rid of me. I am to be more careful. I agree and pay US$5.50 for the x-rays.
A lady doctor examines the picture and reports all well with the ankle. She is not an orthopaedic surgeon. Pepe will give his opinion on Thursday.

ARGENTINES EAT

RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, AUGUST 13
I may have remarked in a previous BLOG on the massive quantity of food Argentines eat, in particular, the vast amount of meat. I escaped at lunchtime. Not far, a mere hop to the corner restaurant. Fernando, Javier, Pepe and Carlos were my guests. Carlos and Javier ordered churasco: a plate-sized chunk of grilled meat surmounted by two fried eggs and piled with thick potato chips. Fernando preferred Milanese: the two slices of breaded meat required folding to fit the plate, two fried eggs and the potato mountain. Pepe and I had the midday special: spaghetti with meat sauce plus a hunk of stewed beef. Add an excellent bottle of red wine and the bill came to US$32.

YELLOW PRESS

RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, AUGUST 12
I long for books. I have been lying in bed and thinking of the vile headlines in the British yellow press during the Falklands/Malvinas war. Much of the British Press is owned by foreigners of very dubious morality. Odd that successive Governments should permit such people to manipulate public opinion.
Murdoch terrified Blair.
Perhaps, Brown, a historian rather than a lawyer, and a child of the manse, will be more courageous. Meanwhile I am cared for with immense kindness by Graciela and her gang.

EX-FUTURE NOVIO

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 9
Graciela’s ex-future novio, Fernando, has been out to the frontier in his 4X4 pickup to collect the bike – the road was ice free. The back end of the bike is a mess. Xavier advises trucking the bike to the Honda Agency in Buenos Aires. The future is taking shape. I can take the bus to Puerto Natales in Chile and the ferry north to Rio Montt and bus north to Santiago. From Santiago I get the bus across northern Argentine, visit Paraguay, then bus south to collect the bike in BA and continue up through Uruguay into Brazil. Meanwhile Pepe has brought crutches. I am not good on crutches. My balance is uncertain. Maybe the painkillers are to blame. Hopefully I will improve.

JAMES ROBERTSON-JUSTICE

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 9
Graciela has many friends. She has summoned an orthopaedic surgeon friend to offer a second opinion on the ankle. In his early sixties, Pepe is a one-legged mini version of James Robertson-Justice. He divides his life between a medical practice in Buenos Aires and a 17000 hectare estancia in Tierra del Fuego. In Buenos Aires he rides a 1970s Triumph 750. The leg was victim of a bike crash.
Pepe examines the x-rays. He is against pinning. The operation will delay recovery. Four weeks in plaster with no weight on the foot, a further month taking things carefully…

NIGHTYMARES AND FEMALE LOGIC

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 9
I was smashed awake three times in the night as the bike slid from under me and my shoulder hit the ice. To get to the bathroom, I use a chair as a walker. Graciela points out that I am in her room so that she can help me to the bathroom. I hate waking her. She says my pushing a chair across the floor is a more stressful awakening than being asked quietly for help. Many thousand years of human history have witnessed men resisting such female logic. Graciela says I snore.

WONDROUS FRIENDSHIPS

this morning, farewell...

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
Graciela drives me back to the Hotel Argentino. I am discussed in the third person by Graciela and her novio and by various massive workers off the oilrigs. I am referred either to as little grandfather or little old man. The little is a term of endearment. The decision is taken unanimously and without a vote. I am to sleep in the spare bed in Graciela’s room. There is a bathroom and the room is conveniently adjacent to the kitchen. I have run out of humour. My ankle hurts and I am beginning to fade. I am put to bed in my striped pyjamas. I lie beneath the sheets and wonder at my fortune, yes, that I am alive and so little damaged, but far more fortunately, to be in the care of such extraordinary friends. Why should they, these Argentines, each one with his or her own problems, care for an old Englishman? My only connection to them before visiting Rio Grand for the second time was a single November evening last year at the end of my ride south from Mexico. Graciela and I sat in the kitchen and talked of life and hopes and loves and sorrows late into the night. We talked of our children and of our fears for them. I spoke of my longing to return home, of how much I missed Bernadette. I have reached an age where I am no longer suspect. Sexuality no longer creates a barrier. Truth is more easily discovered. Friendships come more easily and are both more precious and more wondrous.

PLASTER CASTED

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
The orthopaedic surgeon examines the x-rays. The truck parted the round bit of what I think of as the anklebone. The surgeon advises pinning it back in place - plaster for two months, a further month of minimum activity. He applies the plaster. I enquire as to the cost.
The doctor says, “Your insurance will pay for it.”
I explain that insurance companies don’t insure old men of seventy-four who chose to ride motorcycles the length of the Americas.

X-RAYS ARE SCARY

Riding the eighty kilometres to the Chilean frontier took four hours. The ambulance returns me to Rio Grande in an hour. I am x-rayed from head to toe. I hate being x-rayed. Will they find something seriously frightening? The operator reports that my ankle is broken.
I am wheeled to a doctor’s office. The doctor says, “You have damaged your thorax.”
“My ankle.”
“No, your thorax.”
“My ankle,” I insist.
The x-rays arrive. The doctor holds them up to the light. “Your ankle is broken.”
I am about to reply, “No, my thorax.”
Graciela arrives. I must behave.
She says, “So, little grandfather, what have you done?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“Broken his ankle,” the doctor says.
Graciela ought to be exasperated.

SECOND ASSAULT

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
The nurse at the Aid post is a warm, kindly, overweight grandmother.
She takes my temperature and my pulse and my blood pressure. I ask if I am alive. The Chilean cop says, “You shouldn’t be.”
I say, “It is something to boast of, being hit by three trucks.”
My hysteria contaminates both Argentine and Chilean cops. Raucous is an accurate description as the nurse removes my thermal suit.
To get at my ankle she has to cut through three sets of thermal underwear.
I beg her to be careful with the scissors.
She binds my ankle, helps me to the ambulance and straps me onto a stretcher.
I am being taken to the hospital in Rio Grande. The nurse holds my hand. She wants to give me a shot. I decline.
The driver skids on a rut.
She falls on me – a second assault.

STUPID OLD FOOL

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
This end of Tierra del Fuego is a treeless moreland of tough tufted grass. The clarity of light foreshortens the vast distances and hills seem no more than ridges sculpted and scoured by the incessant wind. Fifteen kilometres of dirt roads separate Argentine and Chilean frontier posts. The road follows the coast. The sea is grey green and fringed with foam. Ponds and lakes are iced.
The trucks hit me two kilometres short of the Chilean border. Two Chilean cops load me and the bike into a double cab 4X4 pickup. I make inane remarks and find the remarks hilarious. I doubt if I make much sense. The Chileans want rid of me. They determine that I do the sensible thing: return to the emergency clinic at the Argentine frontier. Both cops are young. The driver drives one-handed; the pickup fishtails on ice.
I ask if they are friends with the Argentine cops.
“Certainly we are friends, good friends. Difficulties are made by the politicians.”

HIT BY THREE TRUCKS

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
I got hit by three trucks today. I am unlikely to write a better opening in my remaining years. I am fortunate to be writing. I intended riding from Rio Grande to Porvenir in Chile and take the ferry across the Straits of Magellan to Puerto Arenas. Monday evening I checked with men working on the oil fields near the frontier. They reported the road clear. Unfortunately snow fell on the high ground during the night. Sections of the road were sheet ice. A sensible man would have turned back. I had been in Rio Grande a week. I had said my goodbyes. Retreating would have been unmanly. I fell twice before the trucks got me. Two of the trucks were on a trailer pulled by the prime mover. I was riding very slowly on an incline and, where possible, keeping to patches of bare tar or gravel. The truck came from behind. The driver sounded his klaxon. I may have tried to swerve off the road. I don’t know. The truck hit my back wheel. The bike tipped. I was trapped astride the bike beneath the truck’s front fender. We slid for forty metres. The driver clambered down from his cab, a tall man in his late forties, grey hair. He expected to find me dead. He was close to weeping at discovering me alive. He and his mate pried the bike free. Could I stand?
I wasn’t sure.
I said, “Let me rest a little.”
I wiggled toes and fingers. I bent legs and arms. Everything functioned. My write ankle hurt. Nothing else. I rolled onto my belly and knelt, supporting myself on the truck fender. The driver helped me to my feet. He held me in his arms, named me brother. He should have called me a damn fool for riding a motorbike in winter on Tierra del Fuego, a double damned fool for attempting to ride on ice.
I said what every Englishman of my generation would say in similar circumstances, “I’m so sorry. Please excuse me…”

WHITE SANDS - ARENA BLANCA

RIO GRANDE: MONDAY, AUGUST 7
Argentine TV is lamentable. People read. A steady stream of customers enters the book shop up the street from the Hotel Argentino. In England, few bookstores outside major cities would equal the choice in books. I order a Spanish translation of White Sands published in Buenos Aires. The book is a farewell gift to Graciela. The owners of the store ask me to sign one of the central pillars. Any visiting author would be flattered with the same courtesy. Later I meet with the lawyer. We talk of the judical system. He says, Integrity and independence of the judicial system are the foundations of society. Here there is neither.

MEAT

RIO GRANDE: SUNDAY, AUGUST 6

Rio Grande is an oil town. Xavier is a driller. He has been working rigs for nearly thirty years and is excited now at bringing in a well as he was when he began. He is a short man with a full short greying beard, permanent twinkle and lopsided smile. He drives me to Sunday lunch at Fernando's home. Fernando started as engineer on ships servicing offshore rigs before founding his own maintence business. Pedro installs security systems. Other guests are a third generation lawyer, a head of department in the Provincial Government together with pregnant wife and two-year-old grandchild.
The official is within the system. The lawyer is disgusted by endemic corruption. They differ in politics. The confrontation across the table is indirect. I almost miss it. Fernando is tending meat at the charcoal grill full width of what would be a narrow patio in a warmer climate but here is roofed with a transparent thermal palstic. Pedro is opening bottles of red wine. Xavier is twinkling. The official's pregnant wife is feeding her granddaughter. The lawyer pushes his chair back and is gone.
We eat meat and drink good red wine until evening. Back at the hotel I fall asleep in an arm chair.

TOO FEW WOMEN IN RIO GRANDE

RIO GRANDE: SATURDAY, AUGUST 4
Few people in the US have roots or local loyalties. People emmigrate from East to West and back in search of promotion. Make more money, and they move house from a $100,000 salary neghbourhood to a $150,000 neighbourhood, from $150,000 to $200,000. Move, move, move...A society of gypsies.
Tierra del Fuego is somewhat similar. The island is populated by incomers. Most are men. Women take their pick. Three sit at the bar. One believes herself too tall. She watches another young woman. This second woman is dressed in some sort of fashion work suit in pale beige. She plays the coquette, displaying her shape, pursing her lips for a kiss from a tall, handsome novio. Yet there is a hollow core to her confidence. She wields her beauty, yet knows that she is not beautiful, merely moderately pleasing - condemned outside Tierra del Fuego to play a different roll. Perhaps a wallflower...
The tall young woman is envious, yet sees the hollowness.

NIGHTLIFE IN RIO GRANDE

RIO GRANDE: SATURDAY, AUGUST 4
We are four in the pub on Saturday night, three men and Graciela of the Hotel Argentino. Pub? So the sign says. The oblong space is in a new building. Rental as a hardware store or shoe shop would seem more likely. Pub it is.
We sit at a corner table beneath a photograph of Rio Grande in the thirties. For Rio Grande, Thirties is antique - as it would be for much of the US. Other similarities come to mind. Political Parties represent loyalties rather than philosophy. Xavier, a driller for nearly thirty years, sites control as the only political aim. The leader of his union has exercised control for twenty years. He owns a yacht, various houses and property.
Two nondescript young men sit at the bar. They attempt jokes with the waitress and are ignored. How many times will they visit the pub? Will they eventually recognise that they will never belong, never be insiders.
Graciela, Xavier and Pedro are insiders.
The pub owner kisses and chats.
Other arrivals pay respects.
Pedro takes the car and fetches some king of cable for the music system.
Yes, we definitely belong.
The tab of under US$20 covers a bottle of wine, beers, tea for Graciela and coffee.

DEFEAT

RIO GRANDE, SATURDAY, AUGUST 4
I have been defeated here in Rio Grande. Puchero was the victor. Puchero is a stew. It is served in two deep bowls. One bowl contains the meat: half a chicken less the limbs, a huge chunk of beef, a large section of oxtail, chorizo. The meat swims in a broth and is surrounded by three types of dried beans, small, medium and butter. The other bowl contains the vegetables, also in a broth: more beans, cabbage, onion, pumpkin, carrot, potato. This is a single serving. Immagine these two huge bowls of food set before you. Even the fiercest appetite quakes.
Let me recomend a small cafe in Rio Grande frequented by oil workers on their week off: San Martin 86. The owner is Chilean. His Puchero, though grotesque in quantity, is delicious. Add two beers and the bill came to US$7.

LIVERPOOL PUB

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 3

British Institutions fade away. The Liverpool Pub one block back from the sea was a wreck when I was here last November. Police were searching the rear yard. The building is graced now with a new name: DISCO LAMAR and is freshly painted in two tones of blue. The yard at the back requires attention.

COUSINS EVERYWHERE

parking the Honda

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 3
Rio Grande has doubled in size over the past few years to a town of 75,000. It continues to grow. I wander along the waterfront. A woman at the Municipal Cultural Centre is proud to show me the theatre. The theatre has seats for 450. The ceiling is curved and of varnished wood. The Cultural Centre works closely with local schools.
I walk a little further. A sign outside a new house bears the architect’s name: Simon Thomson. I call his cellular and we meet for coffee at a gas station.
Simon is a young man reared here in Tierra del Fuego where his father is a ranch manager. Simon is qualified from the University of Buenos Aires three years ago and already offered more work than he can handle. He worked as a fishing guide during vacations. Both his maternal and paternal families have been in the Argentine for three generations. He is the fourth. He is a distant relative by marriage of my distant cousin, Tony Deanne.

UNLOADING

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 3
The truck from Ushuaia arrives at midday with my bike. The driver and I unload while Graciela takes photographs. Imagine manhandling a Harley Davidson. We’d need a crane.

HOTEL ARGENTINO

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 3
Graciela, owner of the Hotel Argentino, underwent surgery three weeks ago at the Italian hospital in Buenos Aires. She is a small, dark, vivacious woman, eternally optimistic (think Ibiza in the 60s). She greets me with voluble affection. We sit in the kitchen, drink coffee and exchange views.
Views in Argentina don’t vary much: Politicians are a bunch of thieving liars.
Her hotel is a popular base with workers from the oil fields who work two weeks on and one week off. Late evening and there is a crowd in the kitchen. They all have tales. An electrician relates having to pay half his earnings back to the contractor. Wine circulates, bread, mozzarella. Her operation has put Graciela on a strict diet. I eat alone at the corner restaurant, a vast steak, salad and beer for £4. Idiot, I leave my jacket on the back of the chair. I return for it later. The lights are off. A bunch of kids are drinking beer and already midway drunk.
English? To whom to the Malvinas belong? Argentina, right?
I answer, To those who live there.
No, no. The Malvinas are Argentine.I say, Argentina has something more valuable than the islands. You have the best footballers in the World.
Confrontation evaporates.

CONVENIENT FOR TRAVELLERS

USHUAIA: THURSDAY, AUGUST 2
This is a special for travellers leaving Ushuaia. Transportes Montiel run minibusses to Rio Grande. The bus picks passengers up at their hotel and delivers them to where they wish to go in Rio Grande or vicar versa. Busses run every two hours through the day. The fare is 40 pesos (£8) – 10 pesos more than the standard bus and far more convenient.
Address in Ushuaia: Deloqui 110. Telephone: (02901) 421366.
Address in Rio Grande: 25 de Mayo 712. Telephone: (02964) 420997.
Yesterday I bought a waterproof thermal work-suit at a store for non-tourists: £12. My bags are already full so I wear the suit on the bus – also my boots. I sit up front beside the driver. The distance to Rio Grande is 200 kilometres. We hit packed snow and patches of ice for some ten kilometres as we cross the mountains behind Ushuaia. Perhaps another twenty kilometres has clear strips between strips of snow. The remainder is clear. The driver is sure I can ride safely from Rio Grande to the frontier.

TROPHIES

Pablo is on the right

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2
Argentines have a great passion for silver gilt and gold gilt sporting trophies. Most of the trophies are mounted on fake marble pillars. Pablo’s trophies run the full length of the wall above the workbench and pack the space above a large cupboard. No doubt there are more in the house.
The workshop only functions in the evenings. Bikers collect round the stove, work at the bench, sip maté. A couple of the bikers have ridden north to Colombia. None have shipped their bikes on into Panama.
I would enjoy receiving a degree of admiration.
Mostly they think I’m nuts.
My boots are much admired.
“Italian,” one of the bikers comments. “Waterproof. You can’t buy Alpinestars in Argentina.”
One of Pablo´s sons, a student, arrives direct from a three month holiday touring South America. Everyone talks travel costs.
In Ecuador the son survived on US$15 a day.

PICKET

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2
Avenida San Martin is Ushuaia’s Bond Street. A picket (not telephone company employees) blocks half the road on the same block as the police station. An oil drum serves as a stove. I mention to the strikers that my eldest son, Antony, is a Trotskyite Union official. I mention that he collects Union badges. A dark woman retorts that they can’t afford badges – my son must be collecting from capitalists.

ARGENTINA, LAND OF PICKETS

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2
The employees of the national telephone company are on strike. There is no internet connection. I can’t mail my column. Nor can I check for emails from my editor, Clare. She has been on holiday. The m/s of my new novel was part of her holiday reading. I expect her to hate it. Expecting disdain for my writing is a permanent state.
Perhaps it comes of being dyslectic and of a generation in which dyslexia wasn’t recognised and corporal punishment was standard treatment for lazy spelling.
Teachers didn’t bother reading my work.
Aged sixteen, I was grateful to be taken out of school.
Bernadette says that I am 74 and should have gained confidence.

SKIRT

big sandwich

USUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2
The soup is finished. For late lunch I order a serving of beef off the grill at a workman café. Home in Herefordshire we barbecue skirt. I buy direct from the abattoir where the butcher hangs beef for a minimum of eighteen days. Hanging tenderises the meat. The chunk I am served in Ushuaia must have been cut off an aged ox while it was still running wild. I struggle to hack off the corners with a saw-bladed steak knife. The juice has flavour. I chew and chew and watch the short-order cook prepare three sandwiches. First he whisks a couple of eggs onto the hot plate and adds two slices of ham. A slice of breaded veal goes on top of the ham followed by a thick slice of cheese. The whole is dumped in half of a fat French stick. Add mayonnaise, pin with a couple of toothpicks and serve.
I have given up chewing the meat and eat the salad.

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.

END OF THE WORLD

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1
A Portuguese woman resident in Brighton, England, takes my photograph in front of the Municipal END OF THE WORLD sign. The woman has been given a Round-the-World holiday as a fortieth birthday gift.
She is an incompetent photographer.

Or I am a lousy subject…

TEENAGER COMMUNICATION

USHUAIA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1
I call a friend in Rio Grande, Graciela, owner of the Hotel Argentino. Graciela has been in Buenos Aires. I left my number at the Gran Hotel Espana with the kid she had left in charge at Rio Grande. Graciela didn’t call. I learn now that she had flown to BA for emergency surgery. Dumb kid should have told me! Kids don’t tell. A message left at my home is as likely to get through as a message in a bottle dropped in the Sargasso sea.
I have a bus ticket to Rio Grande tomorrow.
A truck will be dropping the bike at the Hotel Argentino in early evening. Total cost: 140 pesos or £22.

SOUND ADVICE

USHUAIA: TUESDAY: JULY 31
Two young women and a young man staff a shop specialising in up-market ski clothes. One of the women is from Bogota, Colombia. She is in Ushuaia with her novio. They are working their way round the world. The rate of pay here and the falling Argentine peso suggest that they will be in their mid-fifties before they get home. I tell the Colombian that Popayan is probably my favourite city in Hispanic America. Her novio comes from Popayan. We have established a link
The other two sales staff are from the north of Argentina. Most workers in Ushuaia come from the north. The Argentine woman offers me maté. Argentines drink maté instead of tea. What is it? An infusion of green sludge sipped through a tin straw from a tin cup. Sipping maté without grimacing is an art.
We discuss rates of pay and unemployment up north and the general corruption. The man says that most native Ushuaians have jobs in local Government. The owner of the store works in Government.
I tell the trio of Pablo’s 2000 pesos. The young man advises me to put the bike on a truck to Rio Grande. People in Rio Grande are different to Ushuaians. They aren’t so greedy.

DUMB AS FISH

USHUAIA: TUESDAY, JULY 31
Sandwiched between the mountains and the Beagle Channel, Ushuaia suffers the characteristics of an island. One of these characteristics is the belief that outsiders are as dumb as fish and serve the same purpose. Pablo gives me a quote for transporting the bike to Porvenir: 2000 pesos. Over £300!!!!
He tells me that the road from the frontier is black ice and deep potholes: that trying to ride would be suicide.
I reply that paying 2000 pesos would be suicide.
I need an alternative.
I also require a Balaclava.

WIND CHILL

north coast of Beagle Channel
trees permanently bent

USHUAIA: MONDAY, JULY 30
The bike is ready. Pablo has fitted new tires more suitable to snow and dirt roads. He produces a wind speed/temperature conversion table. Add 50 kph to a temperature of –2 and I would be riding at –26. Pablo will call a friend for a quote for transporting me and the bike to Porventur. A ferry runs from Porventur to the Chilean mainland where I can load the bike on a truck north to Puerto Natales.

CAMERAS CAUSE BLINDNESS

south across the Beagle Channel USHUAIA: MONDAY, JULY 31
I would enjoy reporting that I saw sealions and seals and dolphins and whales and cormorants and Imperial petrels in the Beagle Channel. I SAW nothing. I was too preoccupied with either spotting a good photograph or photographing. A half-gale blasted spray across the decks and the saloon windows. Ducking the spray and taking photographs produced interesting shots of the sky and bits of cabin and slugs slithering on rocks that only I know are sealions.

sealion or slug?

However I did see marginally more than a youthful foursome of fashionably-clads. They had one of those digital cameras with big, old-type bodies that Pro photographers carry. They ordered from the bar and photographed each other posing with drinks. We sailed and they slept.

Darwin didn't carry a camera. He used his eyes. Looking south across the channel, he saw the end of the Andes hooking round to the East.

CORMORANTS

cormorants on a rock in the Beagle Channel

USHUAIA: MONDAY, JULY 30
Last November I crossed the immensity of Patagonia pretty much on cruise control. I had travelled for six months. I was cold and permanently tired. Ushuaia was the end. I stored the bike and headed for the airport.
Now Ushuaia is the beginning and I have sufficient energy to do the tourist things. Today I buy a ticket for the afternoon cruise on the Beagle Channel. The wind is blowing midway to a gale. The cruise boat is a twin-decked sixty-foot catamaran. I sit in the lower observation saloon, drink coffee and watch the cormorants. These are of the rock variety. They have white throats and bellies and are smaller than those that fishermen use in the Far East. The sea inside the harbour is smooth as slate. Every few seconds the cormorants duck their heads in the sea. Is the weather too warm? Or are they looking for fish?
They dive for fifty seconds or more. Surfacing, they paddle themselves almost clear of the water, stretch their long necks and wriggle. The catch is a swelling that passes down the throat. Two unpleasant grey gulls buzz the cormorants a couple of times before landing beside them. Cormorants float low in the water. The gulls float very high and remind me of paper sailboats my brother and I used to fold out of single sheet of paper and race down the burn.

PARADISE

USHUAIA: MONDAY, JULY 30
Argentines don’t do mornings and they don’t change the clocks. First light is around 8.45. The sun finally rises between two mountains around 10.15. The cabin glows. I have bathed, made breakfast and am on my second pot of coffee. I sit in bright sunshine at the table in the bow widow and gaze up at the peaks. If you stay at the Casa Galeazzli-Basily, book the new cabin, sit out on the deck in the sun and accept that you are close to Paradise. As to the bathroom, I have it whipped. The water pressure is high. Open the bathroom taps too far and the water races through the geyser without getting hot. Open the taps too little and the gas won’t light. It takes a few minutes of a morning to perfect the flow. The bath fills and I bask, legs vertical, feet resting up the wall. Picture a dead bloated bodily-bald cow and you have the image – though cows don’t have beards. As to the lavatory, having to lift the cistern top when you flush is no big deal. The top is ceramic. Don’t drop it.

SO WHAT?

USHUAIA: MONDAY, JULY 30
Today’s front page headline in LA NACION: only 9% of Argentines have faith in the country’s judiciary.

Did I mention the theatre on the waterfront?

Typical of original Ushuaia architecture - now mostly replaced by totally tasteless concrete.

FACISTS, CORRUPTION AND GOOD FOOD

USHUAIA: SUNDAY, JULY 29
A Basque policeman on holiday invites me to dinner. He is not an undercover cop. He has the physique of a toned tank and is six-foot-four inches on bare feet. Disguising him would be a tough assignment. Separatists murder cops in the Basque region. I suggest that big must be a disadvantage. He answers that the size of the target is immaterial: the separatists use bombs.
He has an Argentine friend, a woman, whose parents emigrated from the Basque region.
I have been at the judicial police this afternoon to collect my deposition on the Buenos Aires pickpockets. I make a social error in remarking that the police were friendly and helpful.
In her cynicism, the Argentine Basque is typical of Argentines. All politicians are thieves. All cops are crooked. All judges are corrupt. All Peronistas are Fascist pretending to be Socialists.
We dine at an eat-all-you-can restaurant down town. We serve ourselves from a vast array of what used to be called hors d'euvre in my youth and are now commonly referred to as starters: a dozen different salads, tongue, hams, whitebait, chorizo, salami. Whole sheep, spread flat, spatter over a charcoal pit. Massive chunks of beef smoke on a grill together with offal and black pudding. There are puddings for those who want something sweet and have room. We order one of the more expensive wines on the list, an excellent heavy read Merlot. Cost for three? $40…

HOW DANGEROUS IS DANGEROUS?

USHUAIA: SUNDAY, JULY 29
I’ve been writing much of the day, answering mail, Blogging, posting a column. In between times I study the guidebooks. I had a route planned through Brazil. Today a Brazilian messaged me warning that the further north the more dangerous Brazil becomes. How dangerous is dangerous? And is danger more apparent and threatening to a Brazilian. Brazilians read the newspapers, watch news on TV: every violent incident registers.
I set out on my journey south from Veracruz, Mexico, last year. Mexicans in Veracruz warned of dangers in riding across Mexico. I met only with hospitality.
Friends home in England and in the US warned that I was crazy to ride across Colombia. Of all the countries through which I rode, in Colombia I felt most secure.
However, I am a realist. I know that, in travelling, I touch only the surface. On message boards, I read questions on safety from tourists intending to travel through Guatemala. Other travellers answer that Guatemala is safe, a veritable Paradise. Guatemala is the Hispanic American country with which I am most familiar. Guatemala is extremely dangerous for Guatemalans. Police reported 2200 armed assaults on urban busses in the capital during in the first five months of 2006. I have friends who have been kidnapped, who have been held up in their own houses by gunmen, who have been robbed by armed men at midday in the city centre. As for the gentle Maya, be suspected of thieving and beware your fellow villagers. The Maya douse thieves with gasoline and strike a light.

HONDA WELCOME

Pablo's dog demands affection

USHUAIA: SATURDAY, JULY 28
My bike has been stored at Senor Preto's frigorifico for six months at no charge. Senor Preto is the Ushuaia distributor for Honda. He and his staff at Honda welcome me. The Agency doesn't employ a mechanic. I am dispatched to Paulo's bike shop. The bike shop is the standard bike fanatic's mess of half-assembled and half disassembled trail and endurance bikes. Some are beyond rescue. Ushuaia specialises in rocks.
Paulo lives next door to the workshop. He will be back shortly. I sit on a stool by the stove. A vast black shaggy dog leans against my legs and looks up with soulful eyes. "Please," the eyes beg , "Please, just a little love."
I scratch him behind the ears.
He leans more heavily.
Paulo arrives. He is a pony-tailed trail-biker in his mid forties with grease ingrained hands.
Can he collect my bike from the cold store and prepare it for the ride north?
Sure, why not.
He will ready the bike for Monday morning.

HOT IS COLD - COLD IS HOT

USHUAIA: SATURDAY, JULY 28
I wake to the drip of melting snow off the roof. I light the heater, open the curtains. The view of mountains is magnificent. The central mountain is too sheer to hold much snow and is mostly black. The sharp peak is visible through a cap of pale-grey cloud. The sky beyond is a deeper grey. We expect snow tomorrow. I shall walk down to the sea front and watch squalls whip the surface of the Beagle channel – definitely romantic. First I make coffee. Then I report to Lola the hot water mystery. Lola calls the plumber who installed the bathroom. The taps are quality. They have china centres marked in English: Hot and Cold. The plumber doesn’t speak English. Perhaps he has reversed the taps. Yes, indeed…

HOT BATH FOR SORE BACK

USHUAIA: FRIDAY, JULY 27
After a 52-hour bus journey I am due a little comfort. I have reserved a room at the Casa Galeazzi-Basily at Gobernador Valdes 323. I am given a cabin for the same price as a room: US$38 including breakfast and use of the internet. Expensive. Ushuaia is expensive.
To reach the cabin, I walk down a wooden walkway. The walkway changes levels frequently, steps up and steps down, patches of ice The young receptionist, Lola, leads the way. I don’t care to tell her that I am terrified of slipping.
The cabin is recently completed. I am the first occupant. Two windows and panes in the upper half of the door form a bay. A table and two chairs fill the bay. There is a double bed and a kitchen counter equipped with mini fridge and two-burner hotplate. The fridge holds all the makings for my breakfast plus a couple of beers. Joy of joy, the bathroom has a bath. True, not a full size bath, but a bath big enough to bask in if I rest my feet up the wall. Fifty-two hours in a bus and my back hurts. My desires are for a hot bath and bed.
Lola leaves and I open the hot tap to the tub. The water runs cold. I open the tap in the kitchen sink. The water runs hot. I try the tap in the bathroom sink and the water runs cold. To flush the lavatory I have to lift the lid on the cistern each time I flush the lavatory. A gas heater produces too much heat. The TV shows a snowstorm on three channels. Yet the polished wood floor is delight, towels are thick, the mattress is firm. Stupid old man, stop complaining. Brush your teeth and get into bed…

BUS TO PATAGONIA

FRIDAY, JULY 27
The bus departs Buenos Aires at 8.30 p.m. on Wednesday. I arrive here in Ushuaia on Friday, at 10.30 p.m. Travelling by bus is more reliable and considerably cheaper than Aerolineas Argentina. The distance is 3000 kilometres. A bed-seat for the two nights on the bus to Rio Gallegos costs US$100 including aeroplane type food. The AndesMar coach is a double-decker. The bed seats are on the lower deck and seats are sufficiently wide to enable a passenger to sleep on his side. Take books. The Atlantic littoral is endless miles of featureless dry scrub; a Texan would be at home.
We reach Rio Gallegos at 8 a.m. I catch an immediate connection to Ushuaia, £11. The road crosses a wild lumpity moorland studded with lakes. Sheep, wild geese and vacuna share immense paddocks. Raptors perch on fence posts, face to the wind. We pass through four sets of Customs and Immigration: out of Argentina, into Chile; out of Chile, into Argentina – time consuming. A small drive-on ferry carries us across the Straits of Magellan – definitely romantic. We stop briefly in Rio Grande, then climb through a strange land of shattered pine forest. Thousands of trees lie tumbled. Amongst the fallen stand jagged stumps and half trunks. So must have been the battlefields of World War One. Beavers imported from Canada did the damage – or disease – or climate change. All three explanations are on offer.We creep up through mountains that once isolated Ushuaia. The road is surfaced with packed snow and ice. A double-trailer truck sprawls crumpled in the ditch on the inside of a curve. The last descent and we see street lights curving round the bay on the Beagle channel. The Municipality promotes Ushuaia as being both the most southerly town and the end of the world – more façade. Puerto Williams in Chile is further south and globes don’t have ends. Not that I care. I like the place. It was my goal last year on the ride south from Mexico. Now it is my starting point on a new journey.

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.

MIRACLE

TUESDAY, JULY 24
I am woken by a man calling from the airport. My bag has arrived. Will I collect it - or should they deliver it to the hotel.
I ask for it to be delivered.
The hotel manager, Carlos, deeply sceptic, presumes that I am insane.
So I worry. And worry. And worry.
And read the newspaper. Out of one hundred and eighty scheduled internal flights over the weekend, thirteen were cancelled, two left on time. The remainder were delayed for many hours. As usual with Aerolineas Argentinas, ground staff offered neither explanation nor information. Finally enraged passenger smashed six computers at the check-in desks!
My bag arrives at 5 p.m.
It is intact.
I go to the bus terminal and book myself a bed for Wednesday on the bus to Rio Gallegos. The bus leaves at 8 p.m. and arrives at Rio Gallegos at 7.30 a.m on Friday.
An Argentinian messages that I am crazy to travel so far on a bus.
I message back that only a serious crazy would prefer flying with Aerolineas Argentinas.
As to comfort, a bed on a bus must compare well with a Honda 125.

RELATIVES

MONDAY, JULY 23
The English have a different attitude to family that do the Spanish. To the Spanish, family is important however distant the relationship. Our Spanish cousins welcomed us with immense warmth a my great grandfather´s bicentenary celebrations in Morella last November.
Today I am invited to lunch by distant English cousins of my generation.
My brother gave me their address.
My cousins are kind: two brothers and their wives - both wives are from Uruguay.
We lunch in a panelled dining room.

I feel scruffy in my cargo trousers.

However a man without his baggage has few sartorial options.

I hope to meet with Chilean friends in Santiago.and I have friends in Granada, Nicaragua.

The distance between Santiago and Granada is immense.

Maybe I will feel less vulnerable and more confident once I have my bag!

AIRPORT

SUNDAY, JULY 22
The 86 bus runs from the Plaza de Mayo to the international airport. The journey is 30 kilometres. The fare is $0.30. A more expensive bus goes directly to the airport. And there are cabs. Cab fare is $20. Sunday traffic is light so I take the standard bus. We reach the airport in under two hours. Ground staff tell me that my bag may arrive on Tuesday. I suspect they have been in contact with my grandson, Charlie Boo, and have been throwing bones, reading tea leaves or consulting Tarot cards or the I Ching. In my hippy days, I would have been enthusiastic at this method of divining my bag´s progress. Now I am merely apathetic. However the bus journey is informative.
Argentinian men give their seats to women with children.
Refuse trucks avoid certain barrios.
Developers are as criminally insensitive in Buenos Aires as they are everywhere - however the planning authorities permit the destruction of building that would be protected in any European city. I suspect that the buildings are protected here by law. Law is merely a piece of paper.
Sad because Buenos Aires is a remarkably beautiful city.
You see lovely facades in the most unexpected places.

GOTHS

SATURDAY, JULY 21
Goths come out on Saturday night. Goths are similar to Peronistsas in being divided into tribes and sub tribes and dissident branches of sub tribes. I discover one of their meeting places and sit in a corner, watching.
All Goths wear black. Serious Goths wear leather knee boots. Less committed sub tribes wear boots only to mid calf and with canvas uppers. Festooning laces are an important detail common to all.
The 100% Goths spray their hair in red and silvery grey streaks and shave one side of the head. The spray kills all life in the hair. Add a chalked white face, blackened eyes and lips and you have a weird corpse.
A dozen silver lip ornaments are obligatory amongst the 100% Goth women. The ornaments must be sexually limiting; imagine having to scissor the woman free from a man´s lap. However the true Goth doesn´t betray interest in sex - or interest in anything other than his or her appearance. Drink is a single beer split amongst a dozen Goths. Conversation is a short sentence followed by minutes of silence.
Men of an unpainted sub tribe wear their hair spread in waves down their backs. Once settled, they barely move for fear of spoiling the pattern. This sub tribe is interested in sex.
And there are vivacious sub tribes, Goths who dress in black because they like black and have more in their lives than dressing up. These Goths chatter amongst themselves and even interchange remarks with other sub tribes.
I ask one of the vivacious to explain the classifications.
He answers that it is very complicated.
The same is true of the Peronistas.

SHOPPING

SATURDAY, JULY 20
I walk the Calle Florida for three hours. Calle Florida is pedestrianised and Buenos Aires´main shopping street. Argentinians are strong on facade and the more expensive shops specialise in smart country clothes for people who never visit the country. Midmarket Suburban Golf Club smart...
I am an indecisive shopper. My wife, Bernadette, is partly to blame. She has impeccable taste. The bags and luggage she designs are carried by movie stars and Royalty. I feel her watching over my shoulder as I finger a shirt. Is the colour right? Red and green colour blind, how can I tell?
So I play safe.
I buy a shirt of blue denim and a navy blue sweater.
Both are on sale.
And I finally change my Alpinestars boots for a pair of those black leather trainers that you can´t train in. Being able to walk three hours in biker´s boots is one hell of an advertisement for the boots.

HIGH FINANCE

FRIDAY, JULY 19
Midday and the flight from Madrid must have landed. The manager at the Gran Hotel Espana calls Aerolineas Argentinas at the airport. No bags have arrived. The manager is pleased at being correct in his sceptism.
Later I sit at table with a dozen men in their early thirties. They talk sex for a few minutes then switch to football. I ask which is most important to an Argentian.
The general agreement is fifty fifty...Though one adds that a football match lasts two hours.
I ask what they do.
They are in finance.
Finance has a ring to it.
However these aren´t bankers.
They are bank clerks and insurance clerks.

BUENOS AIRES

FRIDAY, JULY 2o
I had my beard trimmed today at a splendid barber shop on Avenida de Mayo. Shop? More of a palace. Back in the thirties all thirty chairs would have been in use. Boot blacks would have been burnishing shoes. Now two barbers remain. Both are ancient. Paintwork peels. Mould disfigures mirrors.
A man of Buenos Aires tells me over coffee, "Back in the thirties every Argentinian fancied himself an English gentleman. Peron brought us back to reality. We are working class Italians."
Thank you, Italy. Argentina serves the best coffee in Latin America.

JAZZ FOR THE PRIVATE SCHOOL SET

FRIDAY, JULY 20
Travel guides report that NOTORIOUS is a jazz club. The club is at the rear of a high tek music store where shoppers sit at tables, sip coffee, wear head sets and scroll music on a screen. Entrance to the club is $7 with a minimum $12 table charge. I wear a Peruvian sweater, cargo pants and biker boots, reasonable gear for a jazz club and I don´t have anything else. This isn't the standard jazz club. This is jazz for a private-school, fur-coat clientele. Wear a sweater, make sure it´s cashmere; gold is essential though unobtrusive. Persperation is forbidden.
A snotty waitress tries sitting me at the bar. I take a table against the wall. A smoked salmon salad comes with slices of brie, different greens and walnuts - and shards of walnut shell.
The band is an all-white Brazilian trio (a black or brown face would be out of place). The trio play Portuguese weep music - music that needs to be played softly, that makes the listener lean forward to catch the notes. These musicians have discovered mikes. Even the drummer has a mike. The noise level is bearable from midway back in the music store.
Hey, pay no attention to what I write.
I´m a crotchity old man who wants his luggage.

MEAT

Facades on Avenida de Mayo

THURSDAY, JULY 19
My first night in BA and I eat at my favourite workman´s cafe half a block off Av. de Mayo. The place isn´t much - ten or so bar stools at each of three narrow tables. Late, it is good for people watching, joining conversations and learning a little of peoples´lives. I order meat and salad. The salad fills a deep plastic bowl. The meat is half the size of a brick. It comes roast and tender. What cut? God knows. Meat is meat. Add a big bottle of larger and the bill is $2.50.
Fat and full, I head for bed and dreams of what Aerolineas Argentinas and Air Comet have done with my bike box.

GRAN HOTEL ESPANA

THURSDAY, JULY 19
The Gran Hotel Espana at Tacuari 80 (centre of picture) is a small fine fin de secle building - good stained glass and lots of marble. I have a quiet room at the back on the fifth floor. The radiator is hot, so is the water. The ceiling fan is for summer.
Tiled floors in bathroom and bedroom are a danger to old men.
I take a shower and walk with great care on wet feet.

The rate is US$20 at 3 pesos to the dollar.

Of the managers, one studied law. He is a both a cynic and sceptic.
The other manager is insulting. He has seen the photograph on the BLOG in which I am dressed in Alpinestars black thermals and which Bernadette thought very James Bond. Gustavo sees a strong resemblance to a garden gnome.

DON´T FLY AIR COMET

gran'dad under starter's order:



JULY 18/19
In preparing for this journey, I consult my grandson, Charlie Boo. Rather than bones, Charlie Boo throws pieces of his animal puzzle. Eighteen-month old sages take the long view and Charlie seems pleased. I should warn him that I am flying Air Comet to Madrid for an onward connection with Aerolineas Argentina.
The Air Comet flight out of London is delayed two hours and thirty minutes. No one from the airline meets the flight at Madrid. A mini tribe of despairing Bolivians or Peruvians are camped on the floor by the Air Comet enquiries desk. A further fifty or so of the less pessimistic stand in line. Neither queue nor camping offers hope.
A woman at Argentine Airlines check-in counter sends me back to Air Comet. I try a second check-in counter - then a third. The third woman smiles and issues me a boarding pass for a flight delayed from 1 a.m. to 4.35 a.m. and comps me a free dinner. Midnight and the self-service restaurant has left-overs that a Napoleonic soldier would have avoided on the retreat from Moscow. Everything else is closed. The water dispenser won´t dispense.
I curl up on a bench in the departure lounge. Thank God, I´m not travelling with small children.
We take-off from Madrid at 8 a.m. in a replacement plane that has to refuel in Natale, Brazil. The replacement cabin crew hate us.
Breakfast is a small yellow lump rimmed with dry red sludge. The bread is stale. Lunch is a stale ham & cheese sandwich. Dinner is a stale cheese sandwich without ham. This is the 19th. The food trolleys are dated the 17th.
I doze for a while, wake and wonder whether I am dead and that purgatory is a never ending flight.
We land at Buenos Aeries at six in the evening - no baggage from London. Much of the baggage that does appear should have been on a previous flight. Passengers queue at the baggage reclamation office: families with small kids, a school rugby team deprived of their sports gear. One of the ground staff tells me this is a daily occurrence both with Aerolineas Argentina and Air Comet.
I have been forty eight hours with out proper sleep. A room at the Grand Hotel Espana feels as good as a suite at the Ritz.

JAMES BOND & HIPPOS

Bernadette says that my Alpinestars thermal underwear is a James Bond outfit for night attack.
I doubt whether Bernadette sees me as a James Bond look-alike – even in slinky black.
A hippopotamus comes closer to the mark.
I have asked Jed to photograph me in the garden.
Jed refuses. An ancient dad dressed in skin-tight thermals comes low in his choice of garden sculpture.
He says, “Dad, don’t dare go outside dressed like that.”
Bernadette poses me amongst the lilies.
I associate lilies with funerals.

Shrimp…shrimp…shrimp…

SHRIMP

I am seventy-four and feared that I can no longer cope.
When I was young (back in the 1950s), I dreamt of organizing the world. Now, in my seventies, I accept reality: under Bernadette’s direction, organizing myself is marginally possible.
Bernadette is committed to a surprise birthday party in Rotterdam this weekend and leaves tomorrow.
I fly out of the UK to Buenos Aires on the 18^th.
Buenos Aires has had snow for the first time in 100 years.
Tierra del Fuego will be a frozen hell.
I have forty thousand kilometers to ride.
In younger days I might have encouraged myself with visions of golden breasts and buttocks.
Now I shelter in meditation. Ohm was the fashion in my youth.
Ohm doesn’t work for me.
I have my own magic key to oneness with the universe. I close my eyes : in near trance, I imagine the beaches of HispanicAmerica. I imagine small beachside restaurants. No need for menu. Only one excuse exists for this insane journey: shrimp.
Shrimp ceviche, devilled shrimp, shrimp, shrimp, shrimp.
Culture? Tomorrow…Maybe.

GREAT BOOTS

Improvement In Preparedness

Our cottage is suddenly infected with the foul odor of covetousness. A precious package arrived at midday: splendid biker boots, thermal underwear, T-shirts and a cap, all from Alpinestars. I have locked them away from the jealous hands of my younger sons.

FEAR OF A COLD CLIMATE

The manuscript of OLD TOAD ON A BIKE sits on Clare Christian’s desk at The Friday Project. I delivered it by hand last Thursday. For the past few nights I have been obsessing over what I left out or forgot to include. In writing fiction, protagonists discipline the content. Writing travel, the writer is the protagonist. I need to be more disciplined. Hopefully I will do better with the second volume.

I fly out of the UK to Buenos Aires on the 19^th.

Have I packed? No.

Am I ready? No.

How do I feel at the prospect of traveling alone from Ushuaia to upstate New York? Scared.

Mostly I am scared of falling ill. Health Insurance doesn’t cover bikers in their 70s.

A fatal accident should be reasonably cheap and convenient for my wife, Bernadette. I carry a Montecristo cigar box in which to mail my ashes home and the eastern section of the cemetery at the Catholic Church in Hanley Swan, Worcestershire, is family property.

As to midwinter in Tierra del Fuego, I will probably put the bike on a truck or pickup to Puerto Natales in Chile from where the ferry sails to Puerto Montt.

Essential, is to check the heater in the cab!

And pick a mature driver, a survivor...

OLD MEN CAN'T WAIT

Crossing Tierra del Fuego on a small motorcycle in mid winter is an unsuitable pursuit for an elderly gentleman. My bike is in store in Ushuaia. I must get to Puerto Natales in Chile to take the ferry north up through the Chilean fjords to Puerto Montt. Roads in the passes may be closed for three days at a time. The cold will be acute. I am fearful. I am not sure that I can manage. I am sure that I can’t manage. Then why not wait?

OLD TOAD ON A BIKE is the first volume of the travel trilogy and will be published in early February, 2008.

OLD MEN CAN’T WAIT is the second volume. I can’t wait. I don’t have that many years. My adoptive daughter, Anya, lives in Duchess County, NY. She is having a baby in January and granddad wants to be there. And I need to be back in England for publication. Ushuaia to Duchess County is one hell of ride on what is basically a pizza delivery bike.

HEREFORDSHIRE

I am leaving the English summer for Tierra del Fuego in mid winter. Insane! Our garden here in Herefordshire, at the foot of the Malvern Hills, is a perfumed heaven of roses and lavender. The view from our garden across two cricket fields to the hills is divine. Jed (17) is at Hereford Junior College. Josh (21) is studying Spanish and International Affairs at Leeds Metropolitan University. I will miss my sons, miss that small part of their lives to which they permit entry. And I will miss my wife, Bernadette. I will miss her every moment of our separation.

THE FRIDAY PROJECT

I had intended leaving for Argentina in late February. I required a publisher. That has taken a while. Firstly I am an old man and this is an era of youth. Backing me is a gamble. I might die before I produce.

Secondly, publishing is changing. Communications are changing. Blogs and web sites gain huge readership.

Who wants books?

Fortunately most people who fly, those who have need to spend nights alone in hotel rooms where the TV is in the wrong language and the news is broadcast by FOX, or holiday on the beach and are too old to surf...Oh, and all those perverts who find sensual gratification in the feel of a book - particularly a hardcover perfectly printed on good paper.
So there remains a substantial market.
I have finally agreed a three book contract with Clare Christian, MD at The Friday Project.

Why The Friday Project?

Because they understand modern media and specialise in transferring Blogs to print.
I was a little concerned at first as to whether they were proper publishers. They lack that slight air of condescension towards the writer which is the publisher’s hallmark. However, Macmillan's handles their distibution and foreign sales (think tweeds, starched shirts, careful ties).

SILLY DECREPIT OLD DODDERER

This is both an expression of thanks and an apology to all those who messaged me support. I didn't realise that people had been leaving comments on this Blog. My age is to blame. I have become a silly decrepit old dodderer who shouldn't be allowed out of the house on his own.
I leave on the return journey from Ushuaia at the end of May. Unable to find my way around my own Blog, how do I expect to find my way north the length of the Americas? By the same method used on the southerly leg - luck and chance.
However, I am better prepared for the second leg. I have the leather bomber jacket I bought in Peru. And I have taken to swimming to build up stamina.
I catch the bus into Ledbury, our local market town. Bus travel is free for pensioners and I receive an old person's deduction on the swim.
I swim twenty lengths of the Ledbury pool on my back.
A large white hairy baloon follows me.
As to the ride, my ex considers that I am irresponsible, at my age, to risk my life to the road.
My present wife, a sensible woman, encourages my departure.
My ex and I have been separated for 27 years - a fine example of absence making the heart grow fonder!

ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF SPEECH GIVEN IN MORELLA

I am deeply privileged by this invitation to speak. However I am shy in standing before you and ask for your forgiveness for those inevitable crimes I commit of syntax and vocabulary. There have been twelve years prior to my recent journey in which I had little opportunity to speak Spanish. My verbs are casualties of an old man’s memory and you listen to a man whose mouth is full of pebbles.
First, on behalf of myself and of my sons and daughter and of my grandson, I thank the citizens of Morella and your excellency, the Calde, for your kindness and hospitality. And I thank all those who have assisted in preparing this festival that recalls the life of my great-grandfather, Don Ramon Cabrera.
I wish to pay particular thanks to a close and valued family friend, Dona Conxa Rodriguez and to my cousin, Don Josep Llasat Roig. Their enthusiasm has made this congress possible.
I am a novelist. I distrust historians. History books are dictated by the victors (or by Hollywood film producers). My knowledge of my great-grandfather comes from the portrait that hangs in my study. I suspect that the young El Tigre would be unsettling as a companion. My Ramon Cabrera is in his sixties. I imagine that he has seen too much, that he has grown in wisdom, has lost faith in violence. Rather than a warrior, he has become a man of peace.
There is something more to the portrait, something unmistakable: This is a Spaniard.
And it is of this that I wish to speak.
I have returned recently from journeying alone by small motorcycle from the ruins of the first house of Hernando Cortes in Veracruz, Mexico, to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. Such a solitary journey is always as much a journey of self- discovery as of discovering fresh lands. I discovered how deeply I am rooted culturally in Catholicism. I speak not of faith but of culture. I admire the chapel of the Rosary in Quito and the cathedral in Cusco more than I admire the Inca stone work of Machu Pichu or the pyramids at Tikal and Copan.
I recall visiting the Jesuit Temple one evening in Oaxca, Mexico. A side chapel is dedicated to the Jesuit martyrs. I sat there alone in the quiet of the evening and read their names. The English were amongst their number, names familiar from my Catholic childhood: Edmund Campion, Hugh Sykes, Edward Thomson.
Yes, I am Catholic by heritage.
I discovered something else. Though we speak the same language, I find myself a foreigner in the United States. Nothing is familiar. In Hispanic America I feel at home. So much is familiar.
My journey took me over the Andes and across the altiplano. I thought often of the first Spaniards in the Americas. They were small men with little education and burdened by many superstitions. See the country they crossed, then judge them how you will, but never deny their extraordinary imagination and amazing courage. I have thought of myself as English. I should have paid heed to the comment of a Mexican in Veracruz: “The only Pure Bloods are horses.”
Following the trails of the conquistadors, I became increasingly aware of and proud and grateful to have inherited from Ramon Cabrera the genetic heritage of Spain.
This is my Ramon Cabrera, a man intensely Spanish, a man who has survived great storms and come safely to harbour, the great-grandfather who observes me calmly from his golden frame above the bookshelves in my study, a man I never knew but who has grown in my imagination and whom I have grown to love.
There is, of course, a different Cabrera; the Cabrera of history books; Cabrera, the Carlist General, Conde de Morella, Marques del Ter. Surely his battles are finished. The dead are dead.
Yet, for one hundred and fifty years, the followers of Carlism have been excluded from Spain’s body politic. Perhaps I am impertinent. If so, please forgive me. But it seems to me that this celebration is a final act of inclusion, a confirmation of the unity of a diverse nation, a modern nation, a strong, confident, democratic Spain - a nation of whose heritage we English descendants of Cabrera are immensely proud and grateful to partake.
Again, I thank you.

MY THANKS TO MORELLA

The fortified town of Morella occupies a peak in the foothills of the sierra del Maestrazgo and dominates the junction of three Spanish provinces, Valencia, Cataluña and Aragon. A huge castle crowns the peak and the town is protected by massive walls. The builders must have imagined the town impregnable. They were wrong. A Carlist general blasted a hole in the defenses.

The general, Ramon Cabrera, was my great-grandfather. He was notoriously ferocious in war. Spaniards named him El Tigre del Maestrazgo.

In late November, Morella celebrated the bi-centenary of Cabrera’s birth – a curious celebration given the damage he caused.

I spent four wonderful days as the guest of the mayor and people of Morella. The mayor opened an exhibition recalling my great-grandfather’s life. Amongst the exhibits was a painting of my great-great-grandmother being shot by firing squad. She is kneeling on the cobbles. A brave (or stupid) friar holds a crucifix over her head as the soldiers fire. My cousin, la marquesa del Ter, and I unveiled a plaque on the castle wall. Members of the PP (conservative party) presented Morella with a bronze equestrian statue. We enjoyed one of those civic lunches that continue for four hours (the wine was superb). The present Carlist pretender, the duke of Palma, sat on the mayor’s right. I sat on the mayor’s left. We three spent much of the luncheon discussing public education. Expected to make a speech, I remained moderately sober. My speech was heavily influenced by my recent journey through Hispanic America.

HAMISH

I have offended Hamish. He is a Border terrier aged 18 months. I posted his photograph yet ignored his existence when writing of my family.

HAVENS

Reintegrating after a long solo journey (in this case, six months) takes a while. Journeys have direction and imperative: Get up, get dressed, get on the bike. Each day brings new people and fresh interactions. The countryside changes as does the climate.

Now I am static.

I am back home in England. We - my wife, Bernadette, Jed (17), and Josh (20) - live in Herefordshire at the foot of the Malvern Hills. Jed is a freshman at junior college. Josh is a freshman at Leeds University – Spanish and International Relations.

Our home, a 300 year-old cottage, lies down a narrow lane. The cottage is set in a large garden. Roses, clematis and ivy compete for wall space The lawns need mowing (right now, the ground is too wet). A gate opens onto the village cricket field. A cedar tree shades that corner of the garden. A line of oak trees divides the cricket field from surrounding farmland.

Idyllic?

Yes - though my judgment is prejudiced.

And I have been lulled into inaction.

The great American essayist, James Baldwin, wrote: Havens are high-priced. The price a haven dweller must pay is in deluding himself that havens in fact exist.