Well – I am in Caracas. And, excuse my language family, but it is the only way to put it… I am fucked. Well and truly.

But – I will get to that later. The remainder of Buenos Aires – went to a museum. Which confirmed my suspicion that the Argentines do not consider anybody important unless they were a general in a war. But, nice museum. Actual jacket worn by some guy who was murdered. Murdered quite well, by the size of the cut in his back. Very big ornate shield type thing. Spectacular, really.

Then – in the evening, went to a soccer game. Futbal. The Argies are mad. Really quite impressively crazy. Home team won.

Yesterday – went to bus station. Spent an hour waiting for the correct no 86 bus to come. Got on. Two hours later, got to airport. Then, another hour in the check-in queue. Luckily I had given myself heaps of time, to allow for food and internet at airport. As it turns out, I just had time to get to the plane.

Arrive in Caracas. Every ATM refuses me. Some of them asking me about the last two digits of my passport or ID card. I tried several things, both debit card and credit card. Nothing worked. Lots of taxi drivers, baggage handlers, everybody really – asking if I want a taxi, or my money changed. Very good rates. Black market – better than the official rate. I end up talking to a guy in a suit, outside what looks like a tourist office. Realise later that I think it is a tourist company. But, I think the guy was actually fairly genuine – and works for a company which sorts out accommodation/transport for business travellers to NZ. So my price range for a hotel was something he had not dealt with before, I suspect. We ended up driving around Caracas for a very long time, over an hour, going to hotel after hotel. Most full, some just too expensive. But considering the places he was taking me to – I wanted to tell him there was no way they would accept what I had to offer.

Ended up at a little place, very basic room. But – hotel, so own bathroom. Time for another clean (was very very stinky on the plane). Then, I started to notice something about the hotel room. There was a large poster of girl in bikini on the wall. Two porn channels on the TV. Could hear loud noises from a nearby hotel room. Large mirror at foot of bed. Switches on the headboard – for lights, music, TV, & aircon. And finally, I noticed the mirrors on the ceiling.

This morning – I left the key in the room, and scarpered. I was still paranoid that my “friends” last night had somehow ripped me off, and if I handed the key to reception – I would be handed a bill. Then, I started to think about the fact that I had the equivalent of $50 cash. And that was all. Old man at roadside kiosk helped me pick a bus to get on, and I think he said that I would see a big sign saying banco. I did not, and got off instead when it seemed to be the end of the line, and there were a few shops around. Soon I discovered that I was in Sabana Grande. Reputedly, the dangerous neighbourhood. Finally found some ATMs. Same problem as last night. Found another one. This one, at least, had a slightly more useful error message. My card has been locked for too many incorrect PIN entries. Both cards.

And then, I realise, it is Saturday. So the banks are closed. No walk-in and use visa to withdraw cash.

So – like I said, I am fucked. Well and truly. In Caracas, reputedly the most dangerous city in the continent, with no money, and no way of getting money.

So – I have been in this internet cafe, which I finally found – after starting to suspect that all internet places were closed on Saturday as well – gathering information and options. Am going to call the National Bank – and see if they can unlock my cards pronto, and give me the 2 digits I am supposed to enter after the main PIN. Otherwise, I guess it is finding an hotel which will take Visa. And is not full. Probably going to be expensive.

Update: checked out the bus station to Puerto La Cruz, and confirmed they´d take Visa.  So – it became a decision of “Do I stay in Caracas screwed without money, or go to Puerto La Cruz, where I´ll be screwed without money.”  Then, a helpful lady at bus station pointed me to a big shopping mall, where the banks are open on Saturdays.  2nd bank I tried – the ATM gave me money on my Visa.  Never been so happy to see cash come out of a machine.  Not even in Palmy on a Wednesday night when you hoped the machine didn´t realise you were overdrawn.

But – have collected a Venezuelan man.  Very chatty, speaks reasonable English.  But is rather hard work.  He wants me to stay in Caracas.  Party tonight he reckons.  But sounds like I´d be paying for a room in an apartment?  And he really is very hard work.  I might have to scarper.

But – am very glad that this is the main problem I have to worry about at the moment. The no money in Caracas thing was a major worry.  Solved, through the age old technique of “try the same thing again and again until it does work”.

I am in Buenos Aires.  I woke up this morning, looked out the window of my bus, and thought “I am in Buenos Aires.”  I was right, you know.  Sort of.  I was also pretty stoked.

But – firstly the remainder of my time in San Rafael.  I decided to splash out.  Go crazy.  Treat myself.  You know?  Got an hotel room, for AR$30.  (Despite what that stupid woman in the NZ Herald says, it´s not particularly difficult to tell what currency a price is advertised as.  You are in Argentina.  It is pesos.  If you are foolish enough to give them that many US$ – you deserve it.)

Anyway – hotel room.  I decided to pay the extra 10 pesos, just for the private bathroom.  When I got into the room, I remembered such things as double beds, complimentary soap, and TV with soft-porn.  I immediately cleaned myself up properly, shower with soap, and even shaved.  Then put on the clothes I´d worn for 12 hours in blistering sun at Payunia yesterday.

Next morning – went to bodega Suter.  Had a private tour of the winery with a seppo who turned up.  I wasn´t happy.  Initially, I had joined a group of elderly latino´s, guided by nice young senorita.  Instead, had to listen to guide I could understand (he was fairly cool, and pretty informative), and a seppo asking stupid questions (the “I know a little, so will ask what I think are educated questions” type.  I fought fire with fire.)

Bought an unlabelled 1985 malbec, their champenoise (traditional method Ben.  Really bad method, from what I saw), and their classier cab-sav.  They only wanted to let me taste their awful sparkling.  I managed to get a taste of their production line pinot noir, but had to quaff it before the next tour group saw.

Plan was to visit the cathedral, plaza, maybe museum.  But – stopped for a cerveza before dropping off the wine in my pack at the bus station.  Got talking to french woman.  Muchos hours, cervezas, and advice later – went to bus station together.  Me to get on my bus, her to book her bus for the next day, and one final cerveza together.  She´s been in South America for six months already.  Wealth of knowledge, advice, and cynical hardened traveller´s anecdotes.  Also offered free place to stay in Paris.  And I think nearly cried when we parted.  Would have been the cervezas, I´m not that nice a person.

Bus to Buenos Aires – 14 hours.  Two course meal with wine turned out to be pretty bad, but with refills of the bad wine, and a whisky offered in place of coffee.  I  don´t know much spanish, but I can guess what whiskito means.  And the bus stewardess may not know me, but she figured me out pretty quickly.  Dirty flirt.

Buenos Aires is pretty cool.  Argentina´s trend of beautiful women continues.  First police I saw was a brace of stunning ladies, with a rather more butch lady with them.  For backup, in case a crim doesn´t arrest themselves when the other two sweet-talk him, I guess.

Plaza de Mayo was a little over-rated, I thought.  Building where Eva, Maradona, and whoever else gave speeches from the balcony though.  Turns out I didn´t get a photo of that.  Sorry Nathan, you´d have loved it.  Another photo of a colonial building.  This one, as it is done in pink.  Other plaza was pretty good.  Ridiculous statue/thing – and the Federal Congress building – quite impressive.

Walked down Avenue 9 de Julio.  The widest one in the WORLD!  As part of this, saw the big obelisk they built.  Surpising that they didn´t stick a statue of a general on horse on it or near it.  Maybe they´ve grown out of that.

Lots of other little stuff.  All the names in Ben´s little piece of plagarism are familiar.  Am staying in San Telmo.  Sí – cobbled streets.  Maybe go to watch La Boca´s futbal team play tomorrow.  Boca Juniors.  Walked down Florida Ave this afternoon.  Great sales technique here.  At first I thought it was stolen goods, and maybe me being set-up.  Sitting at restaurant, guy walks in – drops a boxed set of expensive looking pens, Mont-Blanc I think, on my table.  Walks away.  I start panicking.  Waitress happens to be coming to take my order – I gesture at the pens with bewilderment.  She looks at them with disgust, moves them to the nearest empty table.  Guy comes back, takes them away.  A little while later – another guy.  Cheaper looking boxed set – does the same thing.  This time, I watch the reaction of other people.  They ignore him, he comes back after a circuit of the restaurant sidewalk area – collects his goods.  I´m thinking some kind of way of selling stolen goods without it being technically buying it.  But next guy – crappy little plastic hand-powered torch.  Wish I´d bought the Mont-Blanc pens now.  No idea how much he wanted, or anything else.  Very strange marketing technique.

Finally living up to my promise to family, in case people get worried – my hostel is Hostel el San Termo.  I think.  Something like that, and it´s listed in the Rough Guide South America.  I think it´s the first hostel from the guide book that I´ve used.  18 pesos.  And the nice lady did my laundry.  Dried it.  Folded it, before I got back this evening.  Didn´t fold the socks together though.  No tip.

Flying to Venezuela on the 23rd.  Unfortunately, everybody to whom I say this, including hardened french woman, raises their eyebrows.  I try to explain that I´m hoping on leaving Caracas immediately – but this doesn´t seem to allay their fears/thoughts-that-I´m-crazy.

But – have had one guy recommend Isla de Margarita.  So, I´ll ignore the experienced nay-sayers, and believe the loud over-confident South African.  And try to remember to find out how to avoid Caracas despite flying in there.

Heaps more photos uploaded.  You´ll love them Nathan.  This time, instead of cool old buildings – I´ve got cool old buildings, and landscapes.  Pretty sure the photos won´t do the Payunias justice.  In some of them, if you look closely, there´ll be a little man, or a little 4×4 – as a point of reference for scale.  When I find an internet place on Isla de Margarita, in the sun, serving booze – I´ll move the best photos into my photo album system – and put captions to explain some of them.

Tonight – I think I saw a big plaza filled with tables.  Maybe I´ll have dinner there.

Oh, and Bem – the champenoise wasn´t that great.  Pretty good, maybe on a par with the first bottle we had the afternoon of my leaving?  29 pesos.  Need to drink the 1985 red I have.  Don´t really want to travel with them – but the nice man recommended one hour standing time.  One or both of these reds is going to break in my pack, with spectacular results.

Oh, hang on Nathan – I think there might be one photo you´ll like.  Don´t know which number – but is bound to make a dirty pervert like you happy.  Little sisters, shame on you.  Shame.

Caught a bus to San Rafael this morning.  Got up in time, forwent the compimentary coffee and croissant and hard little bun.  Instead asked for “something cold”.  Got a glass of water, and think I may have been charged for it.  I hope it didn´t have giardia in it.

Relatively short bus trip – just under 3 hours.  San Rafael, the old lady at the tourist office teased me for not speaking french.  Odd.  Went to what is supposed to be the best parilla (grill) in town.  Had a steak.  Was very good.  Especially as the waiter spoke a bit of english, so I could order it medium-rare.

Walked outside of town, to the area where there are some bodegas.  Carrying pack, on sunburnt shoulders, in scorching sun.  Pleasant.  Got to the first, couldn´t find it.  But, checking opening hours, it was still their siesta, so figured I´d have another look on the way back.  Probably easier to find when open.  Next – got ushered downstairs.  Joined a group of people being educated in wine in espanol.  I mentioned I didn´t speak espanol very well.  I think he asked me if I drink wine very well, and I said si.  Laughter.  Listened to stuff I couldn´t understand for ages, before tasting four wines.  Bought one bottle.  Went to next winery.  I think the guard said I was too late.  Closed anyway, 15 minutes before I´d been told.

Returned to look for first winery, again couldn´t find it.  Internet cafe now – and might be having some luck uploading photos.  Yep – have uploaded some.  Maybe a fifth of them?  Only took two hours.  They´re available at www.kruse.net.nz/temp – but there´s a few of them.  When I´ve got more time, will put links to appropriate stuff in the actual updates.

Today Kruse went to Mordor.

Hello there all.  Today, I went to La Payunia.  Nearly didn´t.  The photos didn´t look particularly interesting.  Sure, supposed to be the least known, but best landscapes in Argentina.  Sure, seven or eight hundred volcanos in the region.  But… didn´t look that special.  Also, guide I´d decided to go with (through indecision/inaction rather than anything else) – nearly cancelled due to me being the only interested party.  But, then the dutch turned up – and all was saved.  A bit pricier than originally quoted – but I decided I might as well.

Took some photos, kinda impressive landscape.  Ran out of batteries – and replacement Eveready´s wouldn´t work.  Then – over each rise was a more spectacular sight.  This place was awesome.  The advertising photos didn´t do it justice, so I doubt my own ones will.  But at least through some biting of batteries and other tricks, I managed to take all the photos I wanted.

Argentina could have been used for Lord Of The Rings.  This place was pre-made for it.  The reserve is pretty much what happens when a heap of volcanoes get together, and just party until they drop.  Black volcanic rock/ash everywhere.  Lava streams – big & small.  Big volcanoes, little volcanoes.  Broken volcanoes,  intact volcanoes.  Black volcanoes, red volcanoes.  I climbed a red one.  It´s side had fallen out, and a huge stream of lava had emerged.  Big, big stream of lava.

Was hoping to upload photos tonight, and even got close.  But computer crashed, and realised that with the speed here, it might take all night.

I also saw a llama.  And a baby llama.  Many many goats.  Held an armadillo.  It did poose.  Ummm…. flamingoes, lizard, no snakes.  Saw some volcanoes.  And some oil rigs.  Got sunburnt and windburnt.  Spent quite some time trying to explain to my hostel owner that I had a silly plastic red tennis-racquet type thing (my electrified fly/mosquito-swat) on my bed when I left, and not when I returned.  Trying to ask if he knew where it might be (assuming kids had taken it to play with, and trying not to sound accusatory).  Finally, somehow, he clicked.  And it had been locked away from the chicos.  He did click quite soon after I said (I think) “It´s not expensive, but I like very much.”

Cerveza time now.  Actually well past, but I get lost on the single main street of this town everytime I walk down the bloody thing.  Really quite odd.  I think I might be distracted by the boy racers having a contest of who can drive slowest (they´re really rather good), or the pick-up trucks, or the gangs of pre-pubescent boys acting extremely machismo.  Excellently machismo.  Hassling waitresses and any other girl.

Today Kruse went into a cave.

Woke up to mosquito. Lay awake for three hours. Got up, hostel owner couldn´t give me change for a 50 to pay my bill. So, decided to stay another night. Figured I was too late for one of the various day trips. But – was wrong. Got myself on a trip to Las Brujas Cavern (Witches´Cavern). Long drive out there. Went into some caves. Very dark. Normal much-used jokes from guide.

Stopped at a place on the way back. Looked at fossils. Don´t like fossils. Looked at a waterfall. I like a good waterfall. And this was pretty good. Would post photos here right now, but USB has been either disabled or broken on this PC. And I don´t want to ask which, cause I took the cellotape off the port to get to it.

But – could climb behind waterfall. Waterfall came off rock in the shape of a persons face/head. 25m tall waterfall. Nice waterfall. And surrounded by toi-toi. Odd.

Supposedly, we´d pre-ordered meals. But, the amount of boring fossil-talk makes me think that during this time, meals were being cooked. Especialidad – chevito. Roast goat. So – have had my fill of goat for a while. Cerveza went down well though.

Think I might have got some sunburn. But got back to the hostel, and shower was pathetic. Unusable. And cold. So, some splashes of cold water – and smelly for another day.

Apologies for the frequent & wordy updates by the way.  Here in rural Argentina, there´s not much to do between doing stuff during day, and when it´s acceptable to start drinking.  It kind of seems to be acceptable anytime – but it also seems to go on until very late.  Every night.  Just a few quiet drinks seems to be happening 1 or 2am, even here.