Looking up, down and around

Mendoza is unfurling itself to me, as is Argentina. Slowly, but steadily every day something small becomes clear, such as why the city´s 1.4 million trees were planted in the deep, wide gutters that run along the edge of every street. (They aren´t traditional gutters for rainwater run-off as there isn´t any precipitation here. Instead they are part of an elaborate irrigation system that keeps this city high in the desert green). Or the rhythm of the city, which sees the streets deserted at 3pm and 11pm, but crazy busy around 1pm as the inhabitants hot foot it home for lunch, and also after midnight when people finish their dinner.

Some people engage with a new city on its own terms straight away. They arrive, adjust, absorb and dissolve into the place within days. For others, perhaps most, it´s different. While on the road they develop a protective force field which shelters them from difficult or dangerous situations and gives them a sense of homely security. However, it also creates a certain emotional and cultural distance between them and their locality, stifling the traveller´s interaction with locals. It won´t be hard to guess which type I am, but I have only just worked it out! Language can be part of the barrier, as here, but you can notice things even when travelling in an English-speaking country like New Zealand; like a hesitation before you enter a shop (what system for shoe sizes do they use here?), or the decision to choose inconvenience over awkwardness by walking for an hour to avoid a possible embarrassment on a bus over small change or a confused destination.

This behaviour is deep-rooted and, it is comforting to learn to accept, it is not necessarily a bad thing. What´s more, with time, or a dose of Dutch courage, or just a hearty "Fuck it, you only live once", you can summon up enough blood to buy something unusual from a store or walk a different route to school. Eventually both the heart and mind will open a little wider and the people and place will rush in and find a place in each.

Aaaargh!

I´m desperately trying to get into the way of the siesta, more through necessity than cultural exchange. Like the princess in the fairy tale, I seem to be able to detect every lump in the woodwork beneath my mattress, and together with daily half-7 starts and the thousands of multi-syllabled words flying around my brain, and I am a just touch sleep-deprived. But siestas are less easy done than said, it seems.

But, at the edge of the dark cloud that is a streaming cold (courtesy of one of my classmates, a Team GB Olympic equestrian), I espied a silver lining. A couple of Ibuprofen and a big lunch and I´ll be out for a good 2 hours, I thought. But no, el gordo American who left the hostel a couple of days ago has returned unexpectedly this afternoon, and this time he is billeted in my dorm. Que mal! Now, I know there isn´t a huge amount you can do about snoring, and people who do usually wish they didn´t, but if this guy makes the same noise for the next two nights as he did before he left, I´m going to end up doing time. My solution for this evening is prayer to a non-existent deity and Malbec, both in large quantities.

Settling in to student life

I have signed up for more immersion. More trying to understand the school cook´s gabbled explanation of why he grills meat with newspaper laid on the top. More wrist-slapping from the teachers when I try to ask anything in English, even during our fun afternoon excursions to the hot springs or tours of the town. But I need it. After a week´s lessons and staring imploringly at hundreds of pairs of dark, frowning, confused eyebrows, I have decided I have to stay a little longer and try to get to grips with Spanish. My many years of studying Latin at school are helping with my comprehension, but this is streaking ahead of my speaking which, attuned to French, is to be frank, shit. My otherwise amiable roommate in the hostel, another Federico no less, left me in no doubt that I need to work hard at my pronunciation, comparing my speaking very unfavourably with the Spanish of an exceedly broad-accented rural Irish guy also staying here.

There are much worse places to be put through this torture. This pleasant desert city, flattened in 1861 by an earthquake and helpfully rebuilt on an exact north-south grid, will be my home for a few weeks I think. The town, which gently slopes up towards the Andes to the west, is clearly the place where knackered Peugeots, Fiats and Fords go to die. Mark I Sierras, Escorts and Falcons abound, all belching smoke and growling like dogs, their owners riding their clutches at red lights, wary that the next stall could be the car´s last and giving the whole town a baritone´s hum late into every night. It reminds me, obscurely, of a documentary on the history of motorway service stations...

Habla español? Si, pero muy mal

I should I suppose be writing this in Spanish, except that it would be extremely dull and brief. I started an immersion Spanish course here in Mendoza, Argentina today. Immersion in my school means you can´t even ask where the toilet is in English. I came home shattered, and now I have had two hours´siesta / wait for the supermarket to be open, I´m even more tired! With homework to do tonight, I don´t think I will yet be sampling much of the chief delight of this town, el viño.

What time is it?

I've flown across 8 time zones, but somehow my body clock is still roughly in tune with my hostel companions. That is, because they go to bed at 7am every night - 11pm New Zealand time. Maybe it's because there isn't a huge amount to do in Santiago during the day that they just go out all night, or maybe it's just South America for you.

Another day, another continent

After 47 days, 6,500km on the road, 300 dolphins, 21 hostels, climbing three 6,000ft+ peaks, Grade V rafting, a bungy jump, a helicopter ride and a skydive I am leaving NZ in two days. Naturally this puts me in a reflective mood....

Man first stepped foot on these islands only 700 or so years ago. The subsequent history of huge environmental change at the hands of man and hooves of stock and the oppression of earlier settlers by later waves is dramatic and fascinating. But while Britain wrings its hands trying to reinvent itself for the umpteenth time in the face of globalisation and dwindling resources, New Zealand feels like it is still creating itself as a nation for the first time around. It is can seem naive that a 1930's railway bridge is listed as a historic monument, but this place also feels unburdened and agile, able to learn quickly from the mistakes of older nations.

Settlers came here and marvelled at the fertile lands they had found, a reaction that is easy to imagine in, for example, Hawkes Bay, with its miles of healthy-looking orchards and vines. That delight in the locality and the relative recency of settlement feeds through to its current inhabitants: it is not somewhere any resident I have met apologises for.

My thoughts are now turning to South America, and in particular another land of promise for agriculturalists, bandits and fortune-seekers: Patagonia, courtesy of Bruce Chatwin. Having done all things extreme here in NZ, and risked a period of penury on my return to pay it off, I am wondering what kind of voyage Argentina will present me with. I doubt I will find my own Mylodon in a remote cave. A crash course in fiery Latin American politics maybe? We'll see.

A walk in the park

Well, I did it yesterday, along with the 500 or so people who have been circling the mountain like vultures for the last week. It was less Mount Doom, more Piccadilly Circus. Still, it was an amazing walk; 8 hours and 22-odd km with a side trip to the top of Mt Tongariro (1,967m) to get mobile phone reception and check the football scores. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

And then I jumped out of a plane at 15,000ft today, but more of that in the next post!

Tongararing to go!

For almost the last two weeks I have been circling Tongariro National Park in the central plateau of the North Island in hope of getting a fine day to do the Alpine Crossing, a stunning 18km stroll / mountain assault course between two active volcanos. I've been in Auckland, Taupo (twice), Raglan, Napier and Coromandel - all lovely places with different atmospheres and attractions, but I have become fixated on this walk, touted as the best one-dayer in the world, to the exclusion of everything else. And tomorrow seems finally set fair for a hike up to 1,900m amid snow-capped volcanos! Fingers crossed....