Tuesday night is party night in Santa Fe

Tue, 9:05pm. Bus got here about five to eight and after a false start I walked over to the hotel OK. Shower and shave (I didn't need a shit, even though it ruins the poetry of this blog entry - truth, though it kill me....) and I came out about 8:45. I looked in the guide book and it said the local bars centred on the junction of San Martin and Santiago de something. Man, is it dead round here. I see a few bar/pseudo-club looking places which are completely shut, I know not if this is because it's Tuesday or because it's relatively early.

I am having a (microscopic, seriously, I don't think it's even 350ml) draught beer outside (it is moderately warm) some not quite empty bar/restaurant nearby. I will have a bit of a wander later after I have confused a mouthful or two of beer and see and maybe I will just go back to the hotel.

The guide book says the population is 250-350k (can't remember exactly, but it's not a tiny place by any means) but it's only saved from being dead as it's a university town. Maybe this is still the summer holidays, although naively 'adding six months' makes it mid-October, which suggests not.

The beer had well over half an inch of head on it, that has now disappeared as I haven't touched it while writing this crap and the glass now looks emptier than ever. The only consolation is that an advert in the window showing a photo of a beer (the scale is impossible to judge, it could be 'the world's largest glass photoshopped to have been in' or a picture of the tiddler I have in front of me) with the text 'Compromiso Triferto Recoleta Liso $2,50' which, despite my dictionary translating 'liso' as 'smooth/flat/straight/plain/unadorned', I hope suggests this costs ARS2.50. (The bar is called Triferto and I believe this area is called Recoleta.) On the other hand, that is about 50p (even at the shit exchange rate I am getting with my Visa card cash withdrawals), which seems far too cheap when it was ARS14 for a pint in the fairly cheap Kilkenny in BA. On the third hand, even if that is good value I would rather not have to order every mouthful of beer separately.

Ooh, they have stuck my bill on a spiky thing on the table and it is indeed a 'Liso' for ARS2.50.

Oddly, some but not all of the junctions here have 'wheelchair' ramps off exactly one of the n kerbs which constitute the junction. Seriously. I have no idea why, unless the idea is to kill off suitcase-trundling tourists as they frantically try to lug their cases up the sheer kerb on the far side.

First impressions of the town/city/whatever are that it seems fairly pleasant, if more tranquil than I would expect for somewhere of the size my memory says it is.

While flicking through the guide book I saw that Parana is in fact just over the river from here. Oddly, Parana is (I could swear) on the Buenos Aires-side of the river, so why the bus terminates there and not in Santa Fe baffles me. Does it loop back slightly? Maybe I got confused.

I vaguely thought I might go to Corrientes next but the shoestring guide, while describing the place for a couple of pages, actually says "fuck Corrienties" on the grounds accommodation is very expensive and it's not that nice. On the one hand that vaguely tempts me to go there out of sheer perversity, on the other hand since I will feel compelled/inclined to spend two nights wherever I stop off next I should maybe give it a miss and try somewhere else.

To give this bar credit, they do keep giving me two (admittedly small) bowls of snacks with each beer. Well, I'm only on my second, but still.

11pm. Went for a wander. Little sign of real life. Am at Kusturica on 25 de Mayo which I walked past earlier, saw two people in the bar and noted it as the most bar-like place I'd seen so far if I found nothing better. And I didn't, so I came here. No one in the bar this time. Turns out everyone was in the patio at the back. Everyone constitues about 20 people at a guess, but the music is passable and at least it's not dead like sitting on the street at that other bar. This is OK but it certainly isn't party central. I think there is a very slim chance of entering into a conversation but frankly I'm not too fussed. If I can only get served (I checked, it is table service) this is fairly pleasant in a relaxed way.

Got served, a litre bottle of Quilmes. For atmosphere, I'm wearing a T-shirt and fleece and the temperature is very pleasant. Terrace is quite nice if slightly underlit, although I suppose it does add to the mood. Very 'tropicalish' with thick foliage round the edge and a palm tree. A moderate amount of that insecty chirping in the background which always reminds me of Mexico, probably just because that's the first place I heard it. I am deliberately not sitting too close to the border foliage lest there be lurking nasties. (While sat outside the other bar, a movement caught my eye and I could swear I saw a cockroach manhandling a fag butt down a drain. An oddly repulsive sight assuming I didn't imagine it. Didn't see a single other cockroach so maybe I did, but I could almost swear that's what it was, at first I thought some sort of fluff was attached to the butt and it was the wind but then I got this impression of legs moving and it seemed to resolve. Thinking about it, that's val
uable cleaning service really if true. Helps keep the council tax down.) Music is English language, I don't recognise the current track but previous two were "Yellow" by Coldplay and "Cigarettes and alcohol" by Oasis, which probably indicates the style of music they are playing tolerably well. Maybe we'll get some Smiths in a bit. :-)

Clear sky, quite a few stars visible although it's too light to see many and nothing I recognise.

23:45. There is a couple intermittently snogging and 'repeatedly kissing' (an act which I find frankly cringeworthy even when I'm participating myself) at a table about 5m away. I am speculating that sort of thing gets on my nerves primarily when I can *hear* it. (I can't hear them snogging, of course. It's that repeated kissing noise that keeps attracting my attention.) I am thinking back to that damn couple who also played music out loud sat just behind me on the boat put to Isla del Sol who were doing the same thing and of course I could hear them and they pissed me right off without me having to see them. Of course I'm just a bitter old man. :-)

Wed 00:10. I have just counted and there are eight customers on the terrace including me. I doubt there is anyone in the bar. But some guys just got served so I may have one more and then back to the hotel and hopefully not too late a start tomorrow. Maybe being forced out of bed at 9:30 this morning to check will have helped knock my sleep cycle onto something a bit more normal. (For whatever reason, despite or perhaps because of my restlessness and then later boredom on the bus, I - perhaps unusually - was not at all sleepy during the journey.)

00:15. Just ordered another litre, there are five people here including me now. I am half curious how this might pan out. I didn't ask at the hotel if it was 24h reception, it said it on their web site and to be frank it ain't cheap (though nothing here I could find easily was) so it had better be. Worst comes to worst (which I don't expect it to) I won't die on the street overnight. (And of course if push does come to shove I will employ the banker's solution and check in at a hotel which does have 24h reception.) It is getting a tiny bit cooler now but it's still fairly pleasant. They are now playing something that sounds a bit like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Not my favourite band by a long chalk but it could be worse.

Jesus, the new bottle has a layer of frost on it and my hand hurts after pouring some out.

It's very early days yet (not that the days are going to get very old here) but oddly I do seem to be allowed to speak to people in Spanish here and they do seem to understand me.

00:25. OK, two more people just left.. Me and two guys in the far corner left, unless there's anyone in the bar. If/when the guys leave I will ask if I'm in the way and clear off if they aren't staying open anyway.

The phone keyboard is sorting itself out. The alt key is still a little ropey but it was almost dead the other day and the full stop seems to be back to normal.

Hmm, two women just sat at the table which those two people (women) vacated a minute ago. I infer it's the same women, so maybe they didn't leave after all. Man, this is exciting stuff, isn't it? Move over J K Rowling, there's a new author in town...

I might observe a bit randomly - I didn't just think that - following my visit to that crater on Easter Island I am vaguely wondering if I could visit a volcano or two in Mexico. From talking to that guy at Loki in La Paz Guatemala (if memory serves) would be a good place to see a live volcano, but it's not on my itinerary, plus he showed me a photo from some trip there of someone holding a frankly gigantic spider which was presumably just encountered en route, so I shall not be touching the country with a bargepole, it's small enough that unlike Mexico (where I always get the jitters anyway) I couldn't feel properly safe anywhere...

I do wonder if spiders exhibit one of the largest size variations of any species/genus/whatever the term is. I suspect dogs may be similar in variation (although my gut feeling is that money spider vs goliath knocks toy dog vs wolfhound into a cocked hat). But probably whales win, I suspect a pygmy sperm whale compared to a blue whale is an amazing ratio.)

00:50. Those two women have gone but two guys have appeared from somewhere so there are still at least four other customers.

01:05. About three guys just turned up. I can't help wondering why, unless this is as lively as it gets in this town on a Tuesday. Maybe they just want a decent quietish place to chat together. Maybe when I leave all those shut bar/club-looking places practically next door will be open. :-)

I seem to be hitting a dry patch lately. I don't think I've had a non-goal-oriented (eg 'can I have a beer?', 'what do I do with my keys?') conversation with anyone since those guys in Santiago spoke to me for half an hour when I was there on the Sunday night before I went to Easter Island a few days later. Maybe I'm forgetting something. But that's two weeks two days ago. Maybe there were similar droughts earlier, but I can't help thinking I managed to end up chatting with people in English (ex-pats, other tourists) or Spanish (badly, but still) more frequently than this before. Ah well, I'm sure it will sort itself out. I shall have to make an effort to stay in possibly busy hostels going forward, not that I was inattentive to that here, but nothing obvious came up when I was deciding where to stay. (Despite the 'hostal' in its name, which may not even mean what I think, the place I'm staying here is very hotely. The room, for not much less money, is nowhere near as nice as the fla
t in BA, but the place is hotely as a whole.) At least I'm doing my best to be out and about to meet people thanks to my insatiable thirst, and maybe in a tourist hotspot like Iguazu Falls I will be able to blag my way into a conversation with some other tourists at least.

To be fair, there was that overture I cynicised myself out of my first night in Buenos Aires. But nevertheless, it wasn't a real conversation, even if it was my fault it wasn't.

Maybe I should screw my courage past :-) (to is not far enough) its sticking place and stay in a dormitory on the next place en route to Iguazu Falls. If it's only a night or two I will probably survive and it may promote interaction. It's a shame if that's necessary as I seem to have got by nicely without it so far, but maybe I'm just that bit more desperate now. On the other hand, apart from personal foibles, that does seem like an excellent way to get some of my valuables stolen.

(Hmm, thinking about it, I 'obviously' didn't chat to anyone (unless I am forgetting something, which I doubt) for my two weeks in Brazil at the start of the trip. But I arguably had a not purely 'business' chat with the French-Australian waiter my first night in Santiago, and I met people a few days after. So at best/worst that period matches this one, and of course then I was heavily freighted with a cargo of recent farewell drinks with various people back in the UK. I will explode with words building up in my vocal chords if something doesn't change soon at this point. ;-) I half seriously wonder if that's why I'm spewing more crap out on the blog now. Of course, in a purely practical way, if I go out and don't meet people I am more likely to fill time up with blog posts than if I go out and get distracted, so it may be a purely practical correlation.)

Yeah, at the risk of harping on, and the blog may give the lie to this, I've just mentally run over the trip so far and ever since I left Brazil I've chatted to people pretty frequently. Not absolutely everywhere, but some places I didn't stay long anyway. This definitely seems like a dry patch. I am not going to accuse people on Easter Island or in Argentina of being miserable London-style curmudgeons :-) but nonetheless, as it has happened it's been a bit barren lately. Still, as I doubtless said already, I am sure my luck will change and I may start stretching myself to ensure it will.

01:50 Just myself and those three recent arrivals on the terrace now. No big deal, I should be getting to bed anyway. Will doubtless be out tomorrow to see if it's any more lively so even more reason to take it very slightly easy tonight.

0200. Purely to satisfy my compulsion for accuracy, I will note that while looking around for the waitress to get the bill there are two women on a bit of the terrace behind me, so there are six of us here, not the mere four I mentioned earlier. I'm off home after I finish this beer though if I can just find the waitress, who is notable by her absence. I may just finish up and try to locate her indoors.

Ah, she just emerged to serve the three guys with another beer. ARS16 for two litres (well, they're somewhat deceptively 970ish(I can't remember what I read in BA and it's too dark here)ml bottles, but still). I had to double check the price, I assumed I misunderstood. That is amazing, albeit I have only Buenos Aires as my yardstick here. Less than £1.50 a litre. That may even beat Chile although my memory is fickle in these matters. Gave her ARS20 with tip, a generous tip but suddenly I feel I can afford it. And I'll probably be back here tomorrow so it can't hurt to invest a bit in goodwill.

Anyway, it's 0205 and I've nearly finished the second litre. Will have a piss here, as if I do end up spending the night on the street or seeking another hotel or even just walking back to the one I have (though I think it's pretty close) there's nothing worse than a full bladder and not wanting to risk foreign legal shit by using a dark alley as a toilet. And then home. So I will post this now, and if shit happens I can always make an additional entry. It will pass the time on the street. :-)

Tedious wafflings - it's a bus trip day

Tue, 10:30am. Checked out just on time and killing THREE AND A HALF HOURS before the bus goes. I love carting my suitcase and bag around at times like this.

Squeezed into a cafe with the damn things and tried to order an early lunch. The waitress told me my choice was 'closed', I didn't catch whether that was because it was too early or too late. It said nothing at all on the menu about this and that being available at such and such times, so I figured they didn't deserve my custom and left. Who's to say my second choice wouldn't have been closed anyway?

Now sat outside some other place near the bus terminal with the too-bright sun reflecting from the cleverly-chosen WHITE plastic table top into my eyes. Having a coffee. The waitress asked me if I wanted it with something that I didn't understand. Fortunately she then offered me 'just coffee' so I assume the other thing was some random snack or food item.

Sun is pissing me off. I would go inside but I have a handy and reasonably secure wall to lean my damn cases against here, inside they are more of a liability.

Ah, I have moved tables and it's a bit shadier here now.

The activity of a fly just attracted my attention to my arms and hands and I could swear the backs of my hands are hairier than they used to be. I assume I am imagining it though.

12:15. Feeling moderately mellow, it's quite pleasant here in the shade and it's rare I get to sit outside a cafe during the day for hours without feeling the need to go and 'do something'. On my third coffee and also had a tolerable if slightly small steak & chips with diet coke - sorry, Pepsi Light (TM) (R). Will finish this coffee, pay up and then wander over to the bus station. It's practically next door but I need to allow a little time for getting lost and worked up over whatever random crap the terminal designer and/or local authorities have decided to impose on travellers.

13:00. At the bus terminal - paid a "voluntary" (ie no set price) ARS1 to use the bog here, no doubt pissing off the attendant but if you aren't going to tell me how much to pay then you bring it on yourself. Should probably have used the bog at the cafe for free but didn't want to manhandle my bags around the inside to get there.

The age of miracles is not over

The ho(s)tel in Santa Fe got back to me by the time I got back to the flat. I am booked in for two nights. Sorted, respect due. I think this is the first time a web-based not-live-online-booking reservation form has worked and got me a prompt response.

I won't go quite so far as to say this is the kind of thing that proves once and for all the existence of a benevolent providence, but I am tempted.

They aren't exactly cheap, but then a) they are mentioned in my Shoestring guide, so I can hardly be accused of going super flash - and I am not paying extra for a premium room and b) the one hostel on hostelworld.com is damn near as expensive, so it's clearly just that kind of town.

Out and about

Mon, 6:20pm. Come over to Reconquista, on the grounds it's nearby and following my 'symmetry' rule where I tend to go to the same place my last night as my first. At the bar I finished up that first night (ah, called Muelle). The pirate bar next door (possibly called Porto Pirata, but I only saw it in passung so could be wrong) has (in English) "The Most Theme Bar In Buenos Aires" (or something very similar). I hope that's true, I'd hate to be walking down a dark alley and find somewhere worse. :-)

Left Kilkenny when I said last night but stayed up web surfing til about 4:30am, sigh.

Asked at reception which floor the flat company office is (can't remember where I went on arrival) and the guy ended up talking to me in English. I feel my Spanish is going badly downhill here, although it's probably no worse than usual.

It occurs to me I could put some Spanish learning audio programes I have on my MP3 player and listen to them on the bus tomorrow. But I've been meaning to listen to them for weeks now (I deliberately took them to Easter Island on the laptop, suspecting I might have no net access there, and I never put the time in then). Still, we'll see.

7:50pm. That was a touch odd. Numerous beggars seen off with "ah, no" earlier. A woman just came up and asked if I had something I didn't catch. I tried "ah, no" and she asked if I spoke English. She then asked if I wanted company or "chicas" (girls/women) (I can't remember exactly wht he said). She didn't look a stereotypical madam or prostitute, and for someone to just come up to me sat at a table outside a bar and ask that seems weird. Still.

10:15pm. Got about half a pint left, it's not a great night but I am vaguely tempted to stay out. I think I will try to be strong though, I need to pack and see if the hotel got back to me (ha) and jot down a few details etc, plus I do have an earlyish start and also if the guide book is to be believed Santa Fe has a fairly good nightlife and as I plan to stay for two nights, tomorrow is the most likely night to really experience it.

I observe in passing Argentina, or at least BA, seems largely bereft of street dogs. It took me a while to notice this but then some nagging suspicion that something was missing came through. :-)

Onward travel to Santa Fe

Well, I got up about 3pm (I just didn't want to get out of bed, as always) and dragged myself out about 4:30pm. Went over to the very nearby bus terminal. The area is quite cool in a slightly down at hell way, it was quite lively. There are three train stations down there which I wandered into as a passed, which was somehow quite cool. (The trains don't go to many places as far as I could tell, and my guide book says the same.)

I asked a couple of companies about buses to Santa Fe and they seemed to like running the services at about 4-5pm. So you get there about 10-11pm. What a great idea. I could hardly understand the first guy, in fact I didn't get the times of their buses clear at all. It doesn't help that annoucements are blaring out.

Anyway, I found another company which does about five or six services a day. I get the impression Santa Fe isn't a major destination and this company is probably a bit of a specialist. Anyway, I booked an aisle seat (the guy did the Argentinian "sh" pronunciation of "ll" when he said "ventana o pasillo" and since "pasillo" isn't a word I was familiar with, although it was clear from context, I unintentionally copied his pronunciation when I said "pasillo" :-) ), semi-cama, on the 1:30pm bus tomorrow for ARS90. I just need to sort out a hotel or something now. The one place on hostelworld.com seems to have low ratings (based on only 3 reviews) and is not very cheap (about £25/night for a private room, since I'm on my own and have to pay for a double) and expedia.co.uk seems to have one insanely expensive place at about £100/night. So I've dug up what my shoestring guide says is a pretty decent hotel and filled in their on-line reservation request form, which I suspect is going to mean they don't get back to me in time but we shall have to see. That will be about £30/night, but that's for somewhere pretty decent by the sound of it, and I don't think there's much chance of finding a "lively" hostel very easily in Santa Fe, so it's not as if I'm passing up a chance to meet people by going to this place. I got a bit of a shock when I dug their web page up as they use the $ symbol to indicate ARS. So I thought it was nearly two hundred USD a night for a single. I think I'm right about this, but I can see potential for a scam there where you only find out the price was USD when you check out.

Anyway, I just hope that hotel gets back to me in the next few hours. I ate at a cheap but OK cafe near the bus terminal after I got the ticket, but being a touch weak I think I may go out for an hour or two now while it's still light and for the early part of the evening, just somewhere round here, then try not to get back here too late. I have to check out by 10am and I need to pack, but if I do pop out for a bit now then I guess that gives the hotel time to get back to me. I could and perhaps should just stay in all night (I didn't want to leave earlier to go and sort the bus ticket out) but I'm not going to. With luck the 10am checkout will stop me pushing things too much anyway.

Vague plans

Have had a quick look at the guide book and the web. I think I might go to Santa Fe. It's a six hour bus trip and is vaguely on the way to IF (although it's not clear from the web that you can actually get a direct bus, or how long it would take - Santa Fe is north of BA, which is good, but it's also west of BA, which is not so good from a pure "going to IF" perspective, although I have no idea what route the IF buses actually take from here, maybe they go through Santa Fe anyway for all I know). If not, I can always meander in that direction via some other places (maybe Corriente). I have about two weeks in hand (without checking calendars, I have four weeks in total between flying into here and flying on to Panama, and I want to spend about a week in Uruguay and have had 6 nights here when I leave BA) and since I lack any definite goals for Argentina beyond IF it seems a reasonable move to spend my time here seeing stuff en route to there. (I could fly up there, it's about two hours and I suspect it's not too expensive. But then what would I do with the rest of my time, lacking any other clear goals? I'll probably stumble across more interesting stuff wandering up that way by bus. I can always fly back, although it occurs to me I can probably cross by land into Uruguay and then maybe get the ferry back to BA for the onward flight to Panama, rather than doing BA-ferry-Uruguay-ferry-BA-onward flight as I had naively been assuming.)

Lazy or wasted Sunday?

Sun 8:30pm. Got up about 2 or 3, only left the flat about 8 to come out for food. Just been web surfing, haven't decided where I'm going on Tue (damn soon!) or done any of the little chores I need to do. Feel a bit weird now I'm out, like I'm just not quite connecting with the world. A bit zoned out. Probably just cos I've been inside all day.

9:30pm. Wandered over to Reconquista for a drink, not in the mood for trying to find anywhere knew. It's amazingly dead, half the places are shut and half are mostly empty. Came to Kilkenny partly in desperation and I had the second floor to myself for about five minutes. Maybe 10 people downstairs. Sort of came here as (last night too) it is just slightly cold out (last night the wind was strong enough to be chilly) and it's a more insidey place. Do wonder if places will get busier later or if Sundays are just as dead and dull here as in London.

Loads of rubbish on street corners. I have no idea why. I mean like several square metres of the stuff. But it's not all bagged up so I am not sure it's just out for collection, although that's the most likely situation.

This crap phone keyboard is reducing my desire to write and I'm sure is reducing my expressiveness.

I was almost scared to leave the flat earlier. That's a bit of an exaggeration but even (perhaps even more so) back in London I find it somehow a bit eerie to go outside when I've been in all day and then it's dark out. Thinking about it, it's sort of the same even if I've been out already that day. There's something about leaving home once I've got back that sometimes gets to me.

I wasn't depressed or anything when I sort of decided and sort of 'just kept web surfing' and didn't go out. I just didn't want to do anything. I guess even apart from the late nights I need(ed) a bit of time just NOT DOING ANYTHING. I really need to formulate my immediate travel plans as I will have to buy a bus ticket tomorrow but even that just feels like too much effort. I wasn't that hungry but I knew I had to eat, which is why I did come out in the end.

It's a bit grim being out and it being so dead, but somehow I don't want to just go back to the flat straight away.

It's all OK but I am clearly just feeling a bit listless.

I was going to go over to La Boca earlier but I'd have had to get a cab and for some reason I just couldn't face the effort, hence my dithering around in the flat just web surfing until it was too late to be worth doing.

11:20pm. Still dead, not that I expected anything else. Am having one more. Feeling a bit down for whatever reason. Am wondering if I should just get a bus to Puerto Iguazu, my guide book says its about 17 hours but if it's overnight and the arrival time reasonable that may not be so bad. I guess I just need to see if I can find somewhere midway which is attractive. I have made next to no effort so far, the map at the front of the guidebook showing the whole continent shows only a few places, so I had no super easy way to find the names of anywhere suitably located. But really I need to make a bit of an effort and dig out a map on the web or something. I've just been so lazy about it ever since I got here.

11:55. Mentally picking up. Still dead but the music has turned upbeat and I think that's helping. To paraphrase Wodehouse, I can't believe I was worrying about such a footling task as picking a town between here and Iguazu Falls and buying a bus ticket there. It's as easy as falling off a log.

I keep falling into the mental trap of treating the trip a bit like work. I mustn't waste any time, I must see as much as I can, I have to achieve my goals and even those of other hypothetical people ("You went to country X and didn't see Y!?"). Get a grip Stevie boy. I'll pick somewhere and if it sucks well no harm done, I'll go somewhere else. Yeah time is a bit limited, but I think in my own way I've experienced BA quite adequately even if I could have done more (and I may end up back here later on anyway, as I did in Santiago, since I fly on from here to Panama), and if I get to IF then I've done everything I particularly wanted to do in Argentina and anything else is a bonus. Besides, it's often the small random places that are the most fun. While I'm glad I didn't stay longer, I enjoyed Chañaral even though it has little beyond Pan de Azucar park nearby to nominally recommend it.

I am drinking far too much but maybe I'll manage to be strong when I get somewhere smaller and have a few days off. And if not I'll probably live til I get back to London and can try to turn over a new leaf there.

Judging from sudden noisy clashes with the music I have the crazy idea there's going to be a live band downstairs...

Mon 00:30. Yes, there is. It's far from rammed but there may be 50 people down there. The trouble is that while the band are good, I'm not exactly getting a major amount of enjoyment - the music is not exactly not my taste (it's English-language but lots of instrumental stuff, vaguely blues I guess - although they opened with "Mustand Sally" - I suspect it's all covers but know too little about blues to be able to tell) but is not giving me the sort of 'energy' I would like. I think if the atmosphere was a bit livelier or I wasn't so concerned (despite feeling better than I did) about being out yet again and wanting to be up before 2pm tomorrow to sort buses out and so on and hence feeling a bit more mellow I might be able to get into it a bit more, but there you go. On the other hand, it's quite cool I stumbled across this live music and it is pretty good and I feel it tempting me to stay out. So I'm feeling torn and maybe that's why I'm not totally chuffed.

(About one song in the first four have been applauded. That's not a bad summary of the atmosphere. It's far from hostile but it's a bit indifferent. And as I say, they're pretty good, so I don't think they are just judged unworthy of applause. Oh, and the song that got (mildly) applauded was as obscure to me as the others, so I suspect it wasn't just a popular song. I feel a bit sorry for the guys to be honest, they deserve a better audience, but I guess on a Sunday night they can't expect too much, and I guess they're putting in the spadework to get to play on better nights or in better places.)

On a purely waffling note, last night (not long before I got to the bar I spent most of it in) I came to a level crossing with bells ringing. 30 seconds later some enormous and (to my mind) fearsome looking vaguely American style locomotive pulling some passenger coaches roared through. I have (and I remember having it as a kid too) the probably unusual feeling that level crossings are a bit sinister and scary, which gives them that "playing with your fears" atmosphere which is somehow romantic at the same time as being unpleasant. And seeing that enormous ugly powerful-looking fucker of a train go through after standing there with the bells going (and seeing some guy cut across the crossing on foot, despite the bells, about 20 seconds before the train came - I remember thinking "rather you than me, mate, I'm standing here if it takes all night for the bells to stop") was an experience in its way. On the odd occasion I experience a similar situation in the UK I get something of that
feeling, but the boxy, huge "exoticness" of the train added something compared to the UK version.

I wonder if I got this feeling of "fear" about level crossings from public service broadcasts on TV when I was a kid, but I suspect it's just some personal quirk.

01:00. The band have stopped or are on a break. I will have another - sod it, I'm not getting to bed early now - and maybe go after that. It's all good.

I just went to the bog and note that the condom machine at least claims to vend at 1 peso, or less than 20p. Unfortunately the women here aren't as cheap as the condoms. :-) But if memory serves it's two quid in London pub toilets. I wish all prices here were in the same ratio.

I must admit there is a faintly decadent quality to being down here on a Sunday night/Monday morning with the place half empty. It is busier than it was when I arrived, perhaps illogically - Sunday night is clearly not party night as such, so why would people come out late? But I guess if you come out late on a more popular night, that's just your habit and you'll do the same on Sunday. I must say I don't get the feeling most people here are tourists, although except for the odd overheard (Spanish, i.e. probably local) conversation and a couple of minor chats with people on other nights I have no really solid evidence for it.

On a completely random note, I am reading some of Orwell's essays now and in one he says he was 17 in 1920. It takes an intellectual effort for me to be able to believe anyone was young in 1920. Stupid I know, but there it is.

I don't feel drunk but the way my thoughts are wandering makes me wonder. A chance reference to Mexico in one essay reminds me that, if memory serves, the Mexican revolution occurred in 1910 or thereabouts, yet this is the 200th anniversary of Argentinian independence. Was Mexico really that late? Or maybe I am confusing some kind of internal upheval with actual independence. I wish I knew more Latin American history but unless it's presented to me in the right way, my brain seems to "slide off" historical facts, in the same way it does when reading corporate reorg announcements.

I am vaguely deluding myself that tomorrow night (with checkout the next day) I will go home after bus ticket buying and a bit of sightseeing and resist the feeling that I "ought" to be out for my last night here (and, to be honest, my general affinity with bars and so forth). But I suspect that once I do get out during the day I will not want to go back home and end up staying out.

01:55. Band doing a second set. I am reminded by my lengthening hair (it now gets screwed over slightly by how I sleep on it) that when I got it cut (back in Santiago before Easter Island) I asked for a number 1. I am not sure but I think WHEN SHE HAD FINISHED, the woman who cut it said "I've given you a number 2, is that OK?" Partly not being sure I understood correctly and partly because I couldn't see myself insisting she redid it as I'd FUCKING ASKED FOR (and my Spanish may be poor at times, but no matter how shit your accent or skill may be, "uno" and "dos" are not confusable) I said "that's fine". I suspect she really did give me a number 2, it shouldn't be getting this long so soon. I am not likely to get it cut here in BA, I will see if I can find a cheap small-town barber somewhere in the near future. Someone who is numerate enough to appreciate the difference between one and two for preference.

02:30 I think I'm going home. It's too late and although I'm sort of enjoying myself in a quiet way there's no point pushing things. I wish I didn't have a ten minute walk home, but I suppose really that's no big deal. Fingers crossed for getting up not too late tomorrow, I cannot push it too far as I do have to go over to the bus terminal once I make a decision.