And Buenos Aires done

Today I lost my wallet, somewhere between Buenos Aires and Lima. I only lost some Argentinian pesos, but I've also lost yet another debit card. Luckily I have the Travelex card, but it is expensive to use, almost $5 everytime I take out money on it. And if I lose that, well, then...

I am in Bogota at a hostel. It is difficult to organise couchsurfing at the last minute when you have no mobile phone, but I hope to be at A´s, a German couchsurfer living in Bogota, tomorrow. I think I will feel better when I get there. Now, I admit to being a little bit freaked out. I am very tired, it is nighttime and when I went to leave for a walk, the host at the hostel told me to leave everything here in a locker (but I have no lock) and to be careful. So I didn´t go far, just to a shop where I could buy an avocado and a loaf of bread from outside the grilled door of a shop.

Travellers here have stories worse than me losing a wallet. One girl has been pickpocketed (in a group of people) twice in South America. Another also lost his credit card and spent a lot of money to get it couriered to him. But they all seem very nonchalant. It is only me who is timid.

There are many Australians here.

I think some of you will laugh when you read this, but I found a boy in Buenos Aires. This is why I am so tired, not much sleep. It was a true travel adventure. Hector started talking to me at the tango restaurant he works for in La Boca, where I was drinking a glass of wine. He got to me while I was finishing my wine and asked if he could come with me as I left even though I think we had only spoken a few sentences. He doesn't speak any English. I was feeling sick, down, and lonely, so I said yes. We started out with the idea that he´d walk me back to San Telmo but he quickly said we would go to his place to leave his jacket (I think that was the indication, anyway). So I decided to go with him.

He turned out to be super, super sweet. And indefatigable. It felt like an adventure to stay where he lives, in a room. His room is off what seems like the roof of a building. There is a shared kitchen and bathroom. To use the toilet, I had to slide a heavy door, attached to nothing, across the doorway to indicate it was in use. There was no light. Late in the evening he took me to the shared shower, a single stream of water, hot for a little while, then cold. This shower was an attention he paid me. I was happy to stay in bed, but he got me up, provided me with soap, shampoo and conditioner and guided me to the shower. Then he had to have a cold one.

When we got to his room, Hector kept plying me with tea. He left me and bought cold pills. He wanted desperately to feed me but I wasn´t hungry. I couldn't even eat a whole alfombra, the special Argentinian chocolate-coated cookie. He went out again and bought hamburgers, but I still insisted I couldn´t eat. He kept asking me if I was trying to be thin, but truly I was not hungry for once in my life. He also kept cleaning everything up right away: when I took off my skirt and put it on the floor, he took it and draped it over a chair. The television was on and his computer, playing music. He downloaded some Pink Floyd for me. We could barely talk to each other. I could understand nothing he said and my sentences were so poorly put together and badly spoken that it was difficult for him. So, I know almost nothing about him. I guess the prospect of sex gives someone infinite patience. I would have found trying to talk to me unbearably frustrating.

But his kind attentions were persuasive. When I finally got to the point of crawling into his bed and I took my skirt off, he said 'Wow´. I still had my leggings on.

I was so impressed by his intimacy and respect for me that I agreed to meet him again the next night, at his restaurant. However, I finally got in touch with W and organised to meet her and a couple of friends to go see a 6.00pm planetarium show. So I spent the afternoon trying to find the market at La Boca again. I was lost and worried I wouldn´t find Hector before I had to catch a bus to take me into Palermo to meet Wanda. At the last moment I found the market but Hector wasn´t at the restaurant. I left a note for him with his fellow hawkers/waiters asking to meet me at my hostel at 10pm. I felt a little silly going out of my way for this stranger, but he was so kind it felt like the right thing to do. He found me at the bus stop at La Boca, having gotten my note, and did indeed come to get me at 10pm that night.

This second night was not quite as effusive as the first, but still lovely. Hector bought me pizza and gave me beer. I was late to leave for a 5am taxi at the hostel to take me to the express bus to the airport. Hector paid for my taxi and gave me a small tango metal statue and two alfombras to remember him by. He took my email address and kept asking me for my return date to Australia. I think he wants to email me when I get home.

I think I like the way these Argentinians raise their boys. Like M in Venezuela - who grew up in Buenos Aires - Hector was all chivalry and attention. Lovely. And, might I say, lucky me. Lucky that I attract these sorts of men and that I know whom to go home with.

The planetarium show was sold out, so W and her friends and I drank beer at a very lush, old-fashioned velvety bar with wood floors for a couple of hours and then went home. It was also lovely to see W again, who, you remember, hosted me last year.

Obviously meeting Hector greatly increased my mood, but I am back to being flat and anxious. It was nice to be in Buenos Aires because it was familiar and I felt safe, despite the warnings. In Bogota, however, all is again new, English is hard to come by. I put myself in the hands of taxi driver at the airport. He was lovely and treated me fairly, kindly, even, but not a great way to travel in a ´dangerous´country.

Travel blog 2: Return to South America

I am here in Buenos Aires again. It is cold but sunny, an improvement on both Melbourne and Sydney. Sydney was so cold, UniNSW conference rooms so cold, that I came down with a cold. So, I am not in the best spirits for travelling.

I was not able to find a host in Buenos Aires, so I am in a hostel. It is a particularly nice hostel, though, all sort of tango arty, with high ceilings, painted walls, red with murals, tiger-print furniture in the common lounge.

Last night I met with E, who I spent a couple of hours with last year. It was nice to reconnect with this gentlemanly Asian couchsurfer over beer and `Arabic´ food. I ate the smallest falafal sandwich I have ever seen. Sort of large dolmade size! Good thing I had had a large lunch of pizza and empanadas (roquefort and cheese and onion). I was treated to lunch by a young woman I met coming off the plane. We took the bus together to San Telmo, where there are a bunc of hostels. I was very proud to have been able to read the map and know when to get off the bus.

J, the Australian girl who has family in Buenos Aires whom she is visiting, took me to lunch in thanks for lugging one of her big bags around San Telmo in search for hostels. She didn´t end up staying at the hostel with me, though, as a cousin came to pick her up from the suburbs and whisk her away. An interesting young thing, she has a brother whom she lives with in her parents house when they are living in Buenos Aires for 4 months of the year, whom she has an AVO against for domestic violence. She considers herself a feminist and works as an exotic maseusse. Best of luck to her.

I spent a while in the sun in a square in San Telmo today, drinking very nice and expensive hot chocolate. Tango music started to play and tango dancers danced for us, then the woman came around to collect money in a hat. Now I will go to La Boca, the area I loved best last year.

12.00am, Monday 16 August, R's ....sun

Back to old patterns: I got picked up by a Pakistani. Not quite like the Bangladeshis in my younger days travelling in foreign cities, but close enough. Actually, the guy was 30, which is considerably younger than the types who used to pick me up. He talked to me at the beach today and then tried to hold me in the water. So that's it - from now on I turn into a bitch and walk off after saying hello. It would be nice if girls were as chatty to strangers as boys are.

So here's my advice if you want affirmation you are beautiful: travel alone. But if you don't want the men who in their desperation think you are beautiful because you deign to talk to them to touch you, then travel with a companion. Or stay at home.

Today was truly back to travelling - I walked for around three hours in blazing sun - lovely. I went to the park, past the Catalan art museum that looks like a palace, and walked around the waterfalled plaza below Olympic Stadium. It is a vast, mostly empty space, with patchy grass, yellow and black poles, views overlooking the city, a promenade, and the fountains - steps pouring with water. Olympic Stadium looks like a coliseum.

Across the way I saw mysterious black stone constructions on top of the hill. What was it? A fort, a neighbourhood? What? I decided to see if I could get there and find out. I walked on a track through fresh-smelling oleanders and brush until I got to... a cemetery. It is very beautiful and very distinct. The constructions turn out to be kind of graveyards: walls built of small round stones housing rows and rows of boxes. The boxes are covered by a plaque engraved with a family name and most are enclosed within glass, behind which are plastic flowers, vases, statuettes, photographs.

The cemetery is full of these grave monuments, as if it is a ruin of an extensively-walled city. The cemetery itself is enormous, as I discovered. It extends around and down the hillside, and as I walked lower and lower, down staircases leading to more sections of walls, traditional gravestones, mausoleums and statuary appeared. Some mausoleums were like little cathedrals.

I got lost in the cemetery and I didn't want to wind back up the hill, so it took me around 2 hours to finally get down the hill and emerge somewhere that was not train tracks or the port. I finally came to a major road that circles the city. When I finally got back to civilisation, I found myself in a less upscale part of town, with plain though colourful buildings and unglamorous people, like drunken mechanics.

I wandered about, trying to find a street sign, but I finally had to ask someone for help. She pointed to a roundabout on my map and told me I was there. Not too bad, I walked some way back up the mountain. I started my climb on two outdoor escalators, which brought me to a hillside suburb of apartment blocks and local cafes.

I am so tired now, I must to bed. More later.

11.15am, Sunday August 15, Bellapon bakery

I was going to resume no-coffee travelling but the cafe con leche at the tapas bar last night was so good that I refuse to say no. So I am in a bakery, with a chocolate-filled croissant stick and a cafe con leche. Also I buy a loaf of pan gallec. I sit at the first table from the door, not too far from Plaza Espana.

Yesterday I arrived safely at R's place, thanks to a friendly airport worker who spoke English and was getting off at the same stop. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have figured out when to get off the bus despite my map.

Pratt is an interesting suburb, almost like a movie set, with narrow streets, lined with apartment buildings and first-floor shops. There is something about the narrowness of the streets, the level closeness of street to sidewalk, and the colourfulness of boxy buildings that make the neighbourhood look a little unworldly - but cute and welcoming.

Today I aim to walk up a mountain in the Parc de Montjuic and then go to the beach.

?, Sunday August 15, R's kitchen .... easily awake

Oh, being back in the travelling mode in which I get woken up by the morning sounds of other people and get out of bed without regret, without difficulty!

Last night I had to stop writing and jot down notes because I was so tired (so some of this is a little bit of a repeat as I fill in details). I didn't describe the feeling of being on a motor scooter: a little bit scary because my hands were holding on behind rather than in front of me, a little bit moon-like because turning my head in a helmet while moving quickly drags wind, but otherwise great.

The back of a motorbike is an excellent place from which to see a beautiful city speed past without the hindrance of windows and doors, and also an excellent place from which to feel a cool breeze on a warm night.

A motorbike is not the place, however, in which a physically awkward person is to feel graceful. When I do such things as get on and off a motorbike I think about Geena Davis and how she used to make clutziness sexy in her movies.

So tooling down the streets of central Barcelona on a scooter was, obviously, quite divine. We passed the Placa d'Espanya, the two Gaudi buildings, blocks and blocks of old, old apartment buildings with balconies and awnings (awnings!).


Barcelona!

At first the city seemed empty but this was because everyone was in 'the village', massing through the decorated streets.

R and I enjoyed the festival for a bit, wandering in the barely-there gaps between people while drinking beer with lemonade (the fizzy kind) - this allows people to drink more. Eventually we walked to the tapas place for dinner, where we sat at the tapas bar, plates of potato, vegetables and meats encased behind glass above our heads, and ate potatoes and mushrooms and drank more beer. After dinner we continued our slow ramble, conversing mostly in English. R's English is close to intermediate, while I can't understand a word he says in Spanish.

At 11pm a lively band began playing in the Japanese-themed street. There had been other bands playing in various streets throughout the evening but this band located the night party, with mostly young people spilling into the block with beers and talking and dancing.

These young people were good-looking, stylish, a variety of types. I watched girls with dreadlocks in bright summer dresses, girls with bias cut hair or thick square glasses. A cute and smiley girl behind me in a peach sundress, with bright light purple glasses and ahort black hair was jumping, dancing and singing with the joby appropriate to the moment. R only occasionally danced and I made eye contact with the addictive girl. She eventually introduced herself. Marina. Marina's friend was standing against a building, and one can't let a girl dance alone. So we jumped to the music together, the kind of music you can't not help jumping to.

Marina is the type of girl I'd be mimediate friends with, I think, in different circumstances. But R was hot in the pulsing crowd, so we left after 4 or so songs to walk a little more and then go back to R's suburb, Pratt, by way of La Rambla, Barcelona's Champs d'Elysees, a wide stone-paved strip lined with umbrellaed tables.

These sun- and music-drenched cities of the Spanish-speaking peoples are addictive, though of course I am here in Barcelona on an ideal weekend.

1.30am, Saturday, August 15, in bed ....perfect

It is a beautiful warm night in late-summer Barcelona and the Festa Major de Gracia is on. I don't think I could have had a more Barcelona experience than I have had this first night in this cheery city.

1. I rode into town on the back of a motor scooter.

2. I saw a parade. It had drummers and sparkler-like fireworks spewing with loud bangs from huge twirling contraptions. It was like a movie parade.

3. I wandered the alley-like streets of the Gracia neighbourhood, ambling in street-filling crowds under the colourful canopies of a neighbourhood festival.

4. I ate tapas.

5. I drank cheap glasses of beer mixed with lemonade while standing in the streets listening to Spanish music that made me want to jump up and down with dancing pleasure.

The draw of the Gracia festival is the street-decorating competition, whereby residents use recycled materials to deck out their streets according to theme. One street - the one that usually wins, R tells me - created a medieval mead hall, complete with a 'stone' castle entrance made from newspaper-stuffed frames, walls lined with various coats of arms, and wonderful paper chandeliers emanating plastic-gel flames.

One street was themed Japanese, with paper and foam cherry blossom trees, a sand garden and a colourful canopy of dangling origami dragons and plastic lotus flowers. Another street had plastic disks hanging from the canopy, first in shades of peaches and pinks, then blues and purples, greens and yellows. It was simple and very beautiful.

Two streets had autumn/Halloween/Carnivale themes, with orange leaves and black bats, while another canopied its blocks with papie-mache autumn branches, another simple and effective design. There was also a woodland sprite street, complete with a large papier-mache fairy statue kneeling above a fountain.

These streets, mind you are packed. You slither through the bodies of people that cover entire streets, inching your way from one block to another.

With R, I ate tapas (in Spain!), sitting at the bar/counter. We had potato in a garlicky mayonnaise and mushrooms coated with garlic, oil and parsley. Delicious.

Later in the evening I couldn't resist dancing to the strains of a Carribean-inflected band at the end of a street. The street wasn't so crowded, the night, I suppose, being still very young. I found myself dancing alone next to a purple-spectacled girl with short curly hair and a pink sundress. I was drawn to her, also dancing alone, and we shared smiles. I wanted to know her and finally talked to me. She spoke English. I'm sure we would have been great friends!

Barcelona is full of a diversity of people decked out in a variety of styles. Everyone (young people) looks great, be they hippy, funky, professional or street.

I would have liked to dance longer - and if I was here with MS or S we'd be dancing all night, I'm sure - but R was hot and not into dancing, so I only danced for 15 minutes or so.

Wonderful!

7.35pm, Friday August 14, Terminal 7 ....at last

I am on the road again! It is very welcome. I had a day of sleeping in, laundry and wrestling with Auunt K's computer and scanner. But the sun came out in the afternoon; I had my last piece of NY pizza.

Yesterday, before heading to Bronxville on Metro North, I bought an arepa con queso from a Columbian cafe in Woodside and chatted a little bit of Spanish to the waitress. The arepa was delicious and very filling. I wasn't hungry again until late in the afternoon, which found me in Bronxville with L, J and baby L, all also starving. We found a deli, where I had a great, sweet bread pudding and a knish with mustard. Not a real knish unfortunately, but the square kind sold on the street. I never did get to Yonah Schimmel's knishes this visit. I have just finished a pumpernickel bagel, however.

Just before, the news had a feature on the Australian healthcare system, highlighting how Australia’s tax-funded healthcare costs less of the Australian GDP than America’s private systems costs the American GDP. Australians live longer and are happier with their care than Americans. About time we start hearing that kind of rhetoric. Though the story did add that 42% of Australians also have private insurance, attributing it to avoiding long waits and choosing a surgeon of one’s own rather than Howard's tax levy.