Uruguay

Just back from 9 days in Uruguay, such a cool place to visit, the Uruguayans are very welcoming and soo laid back, nearly to the point of horizontal!

Everyone drinks copious amounts of mate, carrying a thermos and mate cup and bombisha everywhere they go!

Most people use a scooter as their primary means of transport. No one wears helmets outside of montevideo, and if your riding pillion you can't hold onto the rider or the scooter as it seems to be a sign of weakness! The only people that helmets are acceptable on are children under ten, and you often see whole families squeezed onto tiny scooters.
In Colonia the majority of the local boy racers cruise the strip on their scooters with their friends on the back, the drivers more often than not drinking beer and smoking weed.

There are also a lot of classic cars driven around and many pristine examples of cars from the 70's and early 80's.

The beech near to the Brazilian border, walking for miles with not another soul in sight.

I found this on the beech, not sure what it is but I think it may be a jellyfish of some kind as it had long stringy tentacles coming from it.



The picturesque fishing village of Punto Del Diablo, it is their winter season at the moment so most accomodation and the campsite are closed, in typical Dave style I found this out upon arrival and also that the ones that where open were fully booked, as it was dusk we decided to rough camp in the woods near to the beech. Waking up I found a huge scorpion and numerous large spiders had made a home for themselves in amongst the backpacks, no more camping this close to the equator for a while after spending an hour giving every individual item in my pack an intensive scorpion check.

A cool house in the new town area of Colonia! Loving the marshmallow style architecture.

The town of Colonia is very picturesque, and the sort of place your memory card fills up quickly with great shots.



A whale skeleton in a back garden of a private house in Colonia, I was doing a classic piece of peeping tomming!

More Buenos Aires

Floralis Generica. This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen, when the sun rises it opens up, and when the sun sets it closes how cool is that! The only way it could be cooler is if it followed the sun through the day!

A family living on the street, having a mid-day siesta.

Mat's favorite tree in Buenos Aires! There are quite a few of these Gomero trees around the town, this being a particularily large specimen.


We visited Recoleta cemetery were Evita is buried, there are some very impressive tombs with stained glass windows and impressive masonery work! A possible option when Adri has had enough of me staying in the apartment.


You can see into many of the mausoleums, were coffins candles and pictures of the deceased can be seen.

Loco gringo!!!!!!!

We went to La Boca to look at the touristy market known as the Caminito, at the same time there was a match on at the Bombonera between Boca juniors and Velez sarsfield, the fans are very passionate and the away supporters were bused in whilst chanting insults at the police and Boca residents. I'm looking forward to going to a local derby between Boca and River Plate one-day.



This young lady accosted me in the street in Boca for a wee tango, and is fairly typical of the attractive women to be found in this part of the world!

A mate session in the apartment

La Plata and beyond

A shanty town on the outskirts of La Plata, how people can live in such conditions is beyond me, the river running next to it could be smelt before it could be seen and was a combination of open sewer and chemical plant run off.
Argentina is a country of contrasts especially when it comes to money, you'll see street kids covered in dirt with no shoes strung out from paco, next to Mcdonalds or a designer boutique.



For the tree surgeons amongst us! This is the drunken stick tree called so because it has a bit of a pot belly on it! They also have the most lethal thorn/spikes on the stem and branches, a cross between rose thorns and dinosaur protection!


Some kids playing an impromptu game of football in the plaza, and they were fairly shit hot, the four of them could have taken a dunoon amateurs select easily!



This is the cathedral in La Plata, it was only completed in 2000 after about 80 years building work, sounds like the Scottish parliament! We took a tour of the crypt and went up the steeple on the left hand side to within 30 feet of the top, great views all around as far as uruguay to north.


There are many, many classics on the roads of Argentina, this is a fine example of some sort of 50's pick-up.


Drinking the first mate of the holiday, a bit bitter at first but like smoking the more you persist the nicer it gets! Only joking, smoking is a disgusting habit, highly addictive and makes you smell, don't do it.

Buenos Aires

What a culture shock landing in Buenos Aries after a day of plane rides and airport sleeping, the first thing that strikes you is the heat, even at 10 at night. My bag had been left in Frankfurt, so lufthansa gave me a courtesy bottle of champagne to lessen the impact of having to wear the same clothes for the next few days.

Mat and Sarah met me at the airport, which was a blessing with my lost bag and bad spanish and indifferent airport staff.
Just the taxi ride from the airport to Adri and Mat's apartment, the argentines are lunatics behind the wheel, proper crazy, swerving across 5 lanes and then back again stuff! And the cars are something else every manufacturer and decade since the 50's is represented, plus they range in roadworthiness from new to something a scrap dealer wouldn't take off your hands!

Leaving Scotland

After spending the past 8 1/2 months cutting in the rainforests of the west of Scotland, with the occasional day of sunbathing in a spruce plantation, time for a change!