The summing up

I am sitting in an internet cafe in Lima, the leaden sky pressing down on the busy streets of jostling cars. I have had a cold for the last five days after being infected by Seb and my stay in the mountainous town of Huaraz, famous for being framed by the Cordillera Blanca where "Touching the Void" is set, was therefore curtailed. Im my boredom, Ive worked out how far I´ve travelled in South America.

As you remember, I started my trip in Buenos Aires and headed south across the arid, flat pampas, unsure of what the future would hold. Puerto Madryn and fishing escapades later, I found myself in the "land of mist and snow", Patagonia, gawping at glaciers and climbing mountain crags. The cold, bleak immmensity of the landscape got to me in the end and I yearned to head back to civilisation. It came in the form of the street vendors and sooth-sayers of Santiago, in the "cafe con piernas" and deep seats of Starbucks. My love for Argentina meant that I would cross back into the country of the gauchos twice on my way up Chile, visiting Santiago and the beautiful Salta. Mystery lay in the "magnetic" valley of Cochiguaz, near the Elqui valley and exquisite beauty in the star strewn mantle thrown above me. San Pedro was the tourist nexus of the north, drawing me in and spitting me out again within two days, my jeans a little more ripped from sand boarding and the valle de la luna. Trains have been a continual disappointment in South America, and Calama was no exception. It wasn´t a lurching steam engine that awaited me, but prostitutes on street corners and an Italian with a beard who went by the name of Alberto.

"Dawn in russet mantle clad" walked not "oer dawn of yon high eastern hill", but over the rosy, rotund faces of the Bolivian women in their top hats, my most enduring memory of Bolivia. The mountains of salt led on to Tupiza and Tarija, nearly falling off a horse and sampling some foul Bolivian wine. Refreshed, I travelled on to Potosi and the bowels of hell, only to emerge suffocated and humbled. The white walls of Sucre provided the perfect setting for independence celebrations and prepared me for the din of La Paz`s streets, "the shanghai of the Americas". The cross into Peru was imperceptible, both of the Andean peoples of Lake Titicaca descending from the Tiahuanaco tribe. Enjoying David´s company, I gained an interesting insight of how people live on the islands of Uros, Amantani and Taquile, so different from Puno where people entice you into their hostels in the hope of foisting a sub-standard tour upon you.

Arequipa was a pleasure, Cusco a chore. The first was as elegant and relaxing as the second was vulgar and stressful. It was made up for though, by the first sight of Machu Picchu as the sun rose over the surrounding mountains that had lain inviolate for so many centuries before the arrival of Bingham. Much of the area did not even appear on the map of the famous Italian cartographer, Raimondi. I have travelled progressively more slowly as time has passed, and by the end I was content to just keep on keeping on.

Argentina was my favourite country, but does not compare to Bolivia in terms of difference and "culture shock". The people of Madagascar seemed more akin to Europeans than the Quechuan speaking locals of Uyuni or La Paz. In all, I have travelled 13,000KM across dry pampa, silken grass land, barren mountains and icy precipices. The sand dunes of the Chilean and Peruvian coast would seem to stretch on forever and then suddenly give way to snow-capped peaks and green foliage. The pampas north of La Paz was an even greater contrast, home to flitting kingfishers, parrots, dolphins and caimans.

I´ll certainly miss the four sol dinners (though Ive eaten too few and am surely running low on funds), the staggeringly high, six thousand metre mountains, meeting new people at every destination and the feeling of freedom you experience when you pack up you meagre belongings and get back on the road. In terms of culinary highlights, the steak of Argentina stands out, as does the ice-cream of Bariloche, the humitas of Bolivia, Israeli food in La Paz and above all, Cappricio cafe in Arequipa where oozing slabs of artery blocking chocolate cake would be served up with nonchalance.A place to be remembered and its not even in the Lonely Planet.

The smelly socks will not be missed, though, nor the swiss-cheese trainers and jeans that haven´t bear the scars of chimichurri sauce and ceviche juice. I believe some bugs may have found a willing home there. The bread here in South America is nothing short of crap; a sort of sweet, crumbly dough that doesn´t bear up well to the rigours of jam spreading. God knows why they have a word for homemeal bread, pan integral, because nobody eats any. To be added to this growing list are holes in the ground where you are expected to urinate, toilets without seats, carrying toilet paper around in your bag wherever you go, supermarkets that don´t cater to the individual, pharmacies that refuse to sell plasters, illegal driving, continual strikes, contempt for the Gringo, poor water pressure in the showers, hair in the plugholes, marauding Israelis, laundries that shrink your clothes and people who have no sense of civic pride. It made me yearn at times for some sort of benign dictatorship that would make the buses run on time. There are no trains left to run on time.
As Orwell said, everything feels heavier in England and people with knobbled faces apologise for being pushed or jostled (apart from London, of course, the least English part of England. Will people be protesting in the streets about Britain´s complicity in the torture of terrorist suspects. I doubt it...the Ashes are a far bigger concern. It may rain, but its still home. TAKE ME BACK TO DEAR OLD BLIGHTY....