Placenta shampoo, or 'adventures speaking Spanish'

A rainy day in Bariloche, in the Argentine Lake District. After 3 months of almost non-stop heat and sunlight we have finally hit a pocket of English weather! Joe has struck off up a mountain in his walking boots anyway, but I've been a pathetic girl and stayed in to wash my hair and get the dinner ready. Am finding it hard to adjust to being cold again, what a wuss. This does not bode well for camping next to a glacier.

The last three weeks have been a fun whirlwind, and am still trying to adjust to being without sister and friend on the road. Its been amazing to have some company: Hannah, Victoria, Marc, Gustavo, we miss you all! From the tropical Iguazu waterfalls the party of four headed south through the jungle to some beautiful wetlands and on to Buenos Aires. After a few days penguin-spotting in the Peninsula Valdes, Joe and I are now planning our road trip through Patagonia for Christmas and New Year.

Argentina is wonderfully easy and pleasant to travel around: the food is amazing (tasty steaks and empanadas), the wine is cheap and people are friendly and much more 'European', both in heritage and things like music tastes (lots of Rolling Stones, no more electro-samba!!) Everyone you meet claims some Irish/Italian or similar heritage. I feel my Spanish is also improving, although I did just recently manage to buy some shampoo with extract of placenta and tortoise oil. Oops

Aside from the lovely company, my highlights of the last few weeks have been the amazing Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires, the wildlife at Iguazu and the huge skies of the Peninsula Valdes. The cemetery was incredible - not dissimilar to other 19th century cemeteries like Pere Lachaise, Highbury and dare I say it, Nunhead, but the mausoleums were just out of this world. Lots were like small sunken churches, all marble and imposing columns but with the coffins in the middle of the floor standing amid shafts of sunlight from broken stained glass windows. In some they were stacked into what looked like bunk beds and covered in stained shrouds like doilies on old-fashioned cakes. The place was amazingly atmospheric - the contrast of the hugely extravagant sculptures and architecture of the tombs with the decay of crumbling angels and macabre open coffins covered in cobwebs.

I had expected the waterfalls at Iguazu to be incredible, but what I hadn't expected was all the wildlife, despite the millions of tourists: coatis, armadillo, and so many and varied brightly coloured butterflies. The falls themselves were dotted with swifts flying under the water and nesting in the clumps of greenery. Along the raised walkways you could see kites and herons and big black catfish in the river. And out first taste of Patagonia has left me dying to see the real wilderness down south. The Peninsula Valdes is like a huge wasteland, covered in low scrub and sand and resembling the moon, or some dastardly quarry that's home to a Bond villain. But the beaches are home to sealions, elephant seals and penguins, and the light is so intense, I've never seen anything like it. The blues of the sea look almost unreal. So it is with much pleasure that after a few days trekking here among the lakes we're off exploring down south in the tyre-marks of Che Guavarra.

Anyway, time to get the kettle on and call out the mountain rescue for Joe.