Travel Guides: All Countries / South America / Argentina
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| | | | On the road
From the Mail on Sunday
Look at a map of South America. Notice how insignificant the southern tip of Argentina below Buenos Aires seems. But then look at a map of England on the same scale, and Patagonia's awesome size sinks in. Now consider another, even more significant fact: in the southern half of Patagonia, there is only one tarmac road.
'The plains of Patagonia are boundless,' wrote Charles Darwin, 'for they are scarcely passable.' And by golly, he was right. Incredible landscapes of remote beauty await intrepid travellers prepared to cross these brown plains. Just don't try it in a rented Fiat Uno. My reason for getting into this lightweight Italian car, which I hired in Rio Gallegos, was to see Argentina's world-famous Moreno Glacier and the Fitzroy mountains to the north.
The Moreno is one of a number of mighty glaciers pouring off the South Patagonian icecap. Unlike the others, it is advancing. A 200ft wall of ice inches into Lake Argentino, groaning and sending out ear splitting reports like rifle shots as it moves ponderously forward. Every so often great frozen chunks break off with a crack, and 150ft of ice slides noiselessly into the water.
The other glaciers are no less spectacular. Uppsala, three times the size of London and named by pioneering Swedes after their hometown, is in retreat. A jumble of icebergs jam the channel below it barging and bumping into one other in a monster game of slow motion pinball. A small town, Calafate, consisting mainly of hotels, has arisen in the vicinity, and the sole tarmac road has been extended to reach this lonely settlement. After that, you're on your own.
A few miles out of Calafate, Route 40 turns north towards Tres Lagos. It was the route I had to take to reach Mount Fitzroy and it was the spitting image of my father's farm track in Wales. That is 100 yards long. I had to drive 100 miles along Route 40.
I finally limped into Fitzroy, which consisted of about three houses, on a bald spare with precious little petrol and sought directions to a filling station. The nearest, I was informed, was 130 miles away in the wrong direction up another farm track.
Begging petrol when you don't speak Spanish, and you can't get it out of your head that your countries were at war 16 years ago, is tricky. But I needn't have worried. 'Inglaterra!' beamed my chosen victim. 'I like Beatles very much!' Pretty soon he was syphoning petrol from his car into mine. I offered him 20 dollars. He accepted. Then I realised I'd left my money in my Calafate hotel room.
Travel guide: Argentina
Land of the tango
From the Mail on Sunday
The brightly pastel shaded houses that line the quayside of the La Boca barrio in Buenos Aires these days attract afternoon strollers and evening revellers to their neighbouring bars and cafes.
But they used to be bordellos that served the sailors returning home from the sea at the end of the last century and it was here that the tango was born.
Wherever you are in Buenos Aires, you are never far from some representation of the music and movement of the tango. The dance can be melancholic or joyful, threatening or flirtatious, but it has an hypnotic effect on the Latin soul. Its appeal has also spread across the oceans in recent years with tango clubs popping up from New York to Tokyo.
The tango actually started as an all-male affair as a machismo display ritual with three, four or five guys taking the floor to compete in demonstrating their masculinity.
Then the girls got in on the act and, through its whorehouse associations, the dance was condemned as immoral in the early decades of this century and practised only among the lowest orders of Argentinian society. Spanish and Italian immigrants particularly identified with its most plaintive aspects which reflected their sense of loss of homeland and anxiety for the future.
It was not until a charismatic tango singer called Carlos Gardel swept to fame that the dance became respectable, largely through the force of his wholesome personality. Gardel's winning smile still beams down from posters and photographs in every club and bar in Buenos Aires.
Then came Rudolph Valentino, with his smouldering interpretation in The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse movie and the rest of the world woke up to the emotional intensity of the work.
Travel guide: Argentina
Explore the fading glory
From the Mail on Sunday
A school geography book I used to have summarised Argentina as 'the land of the gaucho'. But even as a 12-year old, I guessed that there must be more to the country than smouldering pampas cowboys in big trousers.
Before I left for my visit I was reliably informed that Argentina's capital Buenos Aires is the Paris of the South. So I touched down in a tropical rainstorm expecting grand boulevards and mad old women who looked like Dick Emery dragging around toy poodles who looked like Barbara Windsor.
Buenos Aires did indeed have wide boulevards and mad old dog lovers galore. But while both cities might have the same bone structure, Paris has had regular facelifts while her Argentinian sister was in danger of looking her age.
Behind curved windows, First World War barber shops were still offering First World War haircuts. Belle Epoque cafes with ornate display cases laid out hundreds of pastries for a handful of customers. The glory days were receding, but the city was still beautiful.
The sun came out and I was met by my first guide Gabriel, a passionate university professor aged just 28. He bounded across town, sleeves rolled up to do battle with the past, the Michael J. Fox of history.
And history is alive in Buenos Aires. The central square, Plaza de Mayo, reverberated with loudhailers as political demonstrators drummed. Banners of Che Guevara flapped in the hot afternoon.
'They are the piqueteros, the unemployed. We have suddenly 20 per cent unemployment and no unemployment benefit in Argentina,' Gabriel said passionately.
Piqueteros carrying fenceposts waited on the sidelines with scarves wrapped round their faces to thwart police cameras. I looked and realised many of them were women. Never date a woman with a fencepost.
I saw the presidential building Casa de Gobierno, nicknamed Casa Rosada or Pink House. There was the famous balcony where Madonna sang Don't Cry For Me Argentina in Evita before moving to England to marry Guy Ritchie.
Having learned my history from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tintin books, I was lucky to have Gabriel around, if only because Tintin didn't do Buenos Aires.
'The story of Eva Peron and her husband is like a thriller,' said Gabriel. 'See those holes?' The walls were pock-marked with mortar fire. 'Peron's own army tried to assassinate him in the middle of the night.'
Travel guide: Argentina
Step back into a lost world
From the Mail on Sunday
The fact is, I would like to be able to say that I knew immediately I'd found something important.
But it was only when I handed the stone to Ricardo and saw his reaction that I realised I'd found the Holy Grail.
Well, not exactly the Holy Grail, but something similar in the world of Triassic Park.
It was another baking hot day in the desert badlands of Ischigualasto Park, north-west Argentina, and I had found a small, flattened ovoid stone which was a little smaller than the palm of my hand.
I had seen it sitting on top of a low boulder as I walked back from replacing another fossil I'd found.
Picking it up casually, I noticed areas of flat bone showing possible fragments of skull and thought it might be interesting.
Ricardo, one of the three Argentine palaeontologists on the expedition, looked at it intently.
'Where did you find this?' he asked.
I must have looked rather shocked, but luckily I had remembered the first rule of fossil prospecting, which is to mark any site you find.
Together with the three other volunteers present, I was then told to examine the area around, leaving no grain of sand unturned.
Amazingly, two further fragments, each one half the size of a little fingernail, were found by Harriet, a formidable lady from Massachusetts who was able to out-chisel any of the 18 men on the trip.
Normally about two-thirds of volunteers are women but on this trip the ratio was 3:1 men to women.
Travel guide: Argentina
More than just a tango
Argentina, land of polo, beef, cool Falcon cars, the tango, football and the mullet haircut, is becoming an increasingly attractive long-haul holiday option - and for good reason.
Its economic crisis makes it cheap, and despite the political corruption, and odd street protest, it is, unlike other far-flung budget backpacker 'paradises', a safe, non-extremist haven for Westerners.
Although the country's financial straits are a nightmare for the Argentines (how desperate do you have to be to kidnap a cat in exchange for a toaster - one saga that went on during our trip?), their turmoil works in the tourist's favour because they are doubly pleased to have the business, especially in the provinces.
Apart from the capital, Buenos Aires, Argentina's most touristy pit stop is Patagonia on its southern tip. This is where you go if you want to hike up glaciers and see whales.
All very appealing, but we wanted to explore a less-travelled area, which is how we ended up in the Argentine North-West.
This region, about 700 miles from Buenos Aires and near the borders of Chile and Bolivia, includes the Salta and Jujuy (pronounced hoohooey) provinces.
It is arguably Argentina's most traditional area, and although off the beaten track, it is being steadily discovered as a wonderful destination because it is so diverse.
We flew to Salta, the province's capital and supposedly Argentina's most well-preserved colonial city.
The Spanish-style buildings on the tree-lined streets are beautiful but dilapidated, and the fact they are still standing owes more to their construction than any upkeep.
The Argentine authorities seem to have more pressing financial priorities than restoring crumbling buildings, roads and pavements, and maintenance funds habitually vanish with departing provincial governors.
The whiff of corruption and the decay adds to the romance of this place, though.
Travel guide: Argentina
Cry of the wild
From the Mail on Sunday
There's more to Argentina than Buenos Aires, where I was born and brought up.
Like most people from the capital, when I lived there I had seen relatively little of the rest of the country.
So now, with the pound so strong against the peso - a result of my homeland's continuing economic troubles - it was an ideal time to return with my English husband David to some of Argentina's scenic grandeur.
We began our tour at El Calafate in the far south-west of Argentine Patagonia. It's surrounded by vast, wide and incredible landscapes without a person, house or animal in sight.
The small town is next to the turquoise Lago Argentino, the third largest lake in South America, and was a good base to reach the Perito Moreno Glacier, our main objective.
Argentina is huge - more than 2,000 miles from Iguazu Falls in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south.
We stayed briefly with family in Buenos Aires before taking a four-hour flight south. Internal flights are especially cheap for overseas tourists, who can take advantage of special rates.
After our night in El Calafate, I couldn't wait to get to Perito Moreno, the most famous glacier in the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares.
It was like nothing I had ever seen - a huge mass of white ice, making its way through a forested valley.
Travel guide: Argentina
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| | | | Penguins on the pebbles at Dungeness
By way of consolation, I was standing beneath one of the most staggering views on earth. Mount Fitzroy - named after Robert Fitzroy, captain of Darwin's ship, The Beagle, is a mountain from a Tolkien illustration. Infeasibly jagged, it looks like the fortress of some Dark Lord.
The brutal central peak has a lieutenant on each flank, and behind, a row of spiny shards of rocklike sentinels. The tallest, Cerro Torre, is a 10,000ft needle that is one of the world's most murderous peaks to climb. An Austrian and an Italian were the first to manage it, in the Fifties, but the Austrian fell to his death on the descent. I learned this from an Austrian climber whose sudden emergence from the mountains saved my bacon by allowing me to borrow 20 dollars.
My next destination, on the south east corner of Argentine Patagonia, at the entrance to the Straits of Magellan, was a beach named Dungeness, on the Cape of the Virgins. I staggered back to Calafate, the bald spare bursting on the outskirts of town. Its sole garage had a tyre which fitted but was noticeably larger than the others. If the steering wheel was held straight the car went round in circles. In circular mode, I set off the 300 miles to Dungeness.
Dungeness in Patagonia looks exactly like Dungeness in Kent. A shingle beach, cold blue sea, warm sunshine and a bracing breeze. Instead of a nuclear power station, a flaming gas pipeline lies out at sea.
On the beach, I was the only human being for miles. A lone baby penguin stepped out of a bush and waddled up to me, tilting its head one way and then the next, inquisitively. Walking down the shore, I breasted a shingle rise, and there, as far as the eye could see, were thousands of penguins.
Penguins en masse are wonderfully, unintentionally humorous. Curious and timid by turns, they charge into the water in single file when you walk by, then re-emerge dripping, to stare at you again. The youngest ones are extremely fat, falling over in their efforts to keep up with the grownups. Amazingly, I discovered, penguins look both ways before they cross the road.
Sitting back in the car, trying to extricate a tape from the cassette player which had shaken itself to bits, I reflected that Patagonia was worth the effort.
From dance to football
In modern Buenos Aires, the dance crosses all cultural, social and age divisions. At the feria de mataderos on the edge of town, a weekly market cum fair where gaucho cowboys show off their horse riding skills by galloping wildly through the streets, a bandstand had been erected beneath massive plane trees. The crowd that kicked up its heels to the music included stiff backed matrons in full length skirts, girls in trainers and jeans and gnarled veterans in braces and shirtsleeves.
Nightclubs that specialise in tango are known as malenga and at the Club Almagro, just off the 16 lane Avenida de 9 Julio, which carves its way through the city centre, the briefest of miniskirts and tightest of pants were being flaunted.
It was gratifying to see how many of the dazzlingly attractive young girls had brought their fathers. Or seemed to have done.
The professionals who demonstrate the art of tango gather in a few select cabaret houses and the standard is nowhere higher than at El Viejo Almacen, among the antique shops and outdoor cafes of the San Telmo district.
Football and tango are the twin passions of Argentina and, while relations may be regularly strained between our country and theirs on the soccer pitch, the dance floor is the place where all differences are automatically put aside.
And there is no more intimate or intoxicating introduction than the stylised seduction of the tango.
A secret shrine to Evita
Gabriel wrenched from his rucksack a photograph of President Juan Peron and his campaigning wife Evita riding down the very avenue we were on, arms waving to crowds that couldn't get enough of Peron's strange mixture of dictatorship and rights for descamisados - the shirtless workers'.
'What people don't know about this photo is that Eva was so weak from cancer that her arm had to be supported by a metal frame so she could wave to the people,' said Gabriel. The balcony where history was made looked smaller in real life, but then so does Madonna.
We got privileged access to the General Trabajo, a utilitarian former government building where Eva often worked until dawn establishing hospitals, campaigning for votes for women and singing La Isla Bonita in an unconvincing Spanish accent.
Inside was a secret shrine to Evita herself, where she looked down like a religious icon. Even in this glamorous portrait it was a face that appeared very tired and ill.
Next door was a green-tiled cubicle. It gave me the creeps. This is where the national sweetheart stood for two years after her death as experts embalmed her corpse.
'They did a perfect job. When Peron saw the body he thought she was alive,' said Gabriel, while I stared queasily at the drain in the floor.
Another passionate historian, Professor Mario, shook my hand so hard I felt a vein bulge in my temple.
'After the 1955 coup the miltary destroyed the hospitals simply because they had been built by the Perons,' he shouted, bouncing up and down. 'We hid Eva in this shower cubicle.'
I touched the clammy green tiles. In 1955 she should have been alive. No one deserves to die at 33, let alone someone who had built hospitals for the poor.
After his wife's death Peron went power-crazy and lost office. Eva's body was stolen and somehow smuggled into Hungary. I suppose Customs declaration forms don't specifically mention embalmed presidents' wives.
Looking for fossils
The reason was that while many expeditions are accommodated in hotels or hostels, this one involved very basic camping - basic as in no electricity or running water, and the toilet is 'a shovel and a roll of paper with a great view'.
I was here as a paying volunteer with Earthwatch, a scientific/environmental charity which funds 140 research projects around the globe.
We were on an expedition looking for fossils from the Triassic period, 245 million to 208 million years ago.
I had wanted a holiday with a difference, and I certainly got it.
The drive to our research area should have taken five hours but the dirt roads took a toll on four of our tyres.
Suffice to say that putting up your tent in the pitch black in a minor gale when you can't remember where you packed your torch makes for a memorable start.
A typical day began by being woken at about 7am by a few voices coming from the other side of the trees and bushes which sheltered my tent.
Gradually the noise increased as more people joined the group round the camp fire where Mate Jim, a veteran who was on his sixth trip, had another large jug of coffee on the go.
I would get up to another clear blue cloudless sky, and walk along the wadi, or dry riverbed, to the little gully in the bank where Kelly, the tall blonde Californian geologist, and I had dug the hole which served as the 'ladies' room'.
Breakfast was help yourself from a table laden with bread, cheese, pears, ham, jam and dulce con leche, a very sweet spread made from milk caramelised with vanilla sugar which the Argentines adore.
Eggs and slabs of bacon were also available.
The original gauchos
It is quite amazing to see unmodernised buildings - especially the colonnaded ones on the dusty drags in 'wild west' villages outside Salta - still being used the same way as they were 200 years ago.
You can imagine the original gauchos tethering their horses to posts outside local watering holes.
You won't need more than a day to explore Salta. We went to the main square and saw the cathedral, the Museo Historico del Norte and Museo Colonial.
Then we wandered around, sticking our noses through open doors into cool courtyards, snooping round the old railway station and warehouses where wine from the vineyards in Cafayate and tobacco were stored, before being shuttled off to Buenos Aires for export.
Most tourists come to Salta because it is well placed for local excursions.
As well as taking the Train To The Clouds from here, which zig-zags up the Cordillera Oriental mountains before reaching a huge curved viaduct at the top, you can visit Quebrada de Cafayate, a landscape of multicoloured sandstone, the ancient towns of Cachi and Molinos, and Los Cardones National Park.
We went to Cafayate on a road that passed through sleepy, one-horse villages, over the Ampascachi and Pulares rivers, past miles of state-owned tobacco fields and the ghost village of Allemania.
Then the river widens beneath you and the scenery starts to look like the lost world - verdant and green down by the river, parched and rocky up by the road.
This is Indian country, where people live in remote mountain homes, sell their souls to the devil for a lifetime's income, and bury tobacco in the mineral-rich soil for Pachamama, the goddess of mother earth, to ensure good harvests.
Cafayate is a typical South American rural town, with a central square and a church. The trip there, which starts at 7am and includes a tour of the winery Vasija Secreta, takes seven hours, so be warned: it is a long day and you won't be back in Salta until 6pm.
Crushed glacier ice
We had all got off the tour bus to admire this amazing sight from afar when, with a great sense of timing, a condor hovered overhead to add to the moment.
As we approached the glacier by boat, great frozen chunks were breaking off, accompanied by huge cracking noises.
Once on dry land and after a short walk through a beech forest, we were fitted with ice-gripping crampons as we approached the glacier for our mini-trek and told to walk in single file on the ice behind the guides because of the dangers of falling into crevasses.
Every now and then we stopped to look through the most incredible electric-blue ice holes, which revealed streams running underneath.
All along we were surrounded by wonderful ice formations.
At the end of our trek, while we were still standing on the glacier, Jorge, our guide, served us whisky - with crushed glacier ice.
Still in Patagonia, our next destination was Bariloche, more than 600 miles north of El Calafate.
The town is on the south shore of the magnificent Lago Nahuel Huapi and is a popular summer and winter resort.
After the ice walk I was still in an adventurous mood so plumped for a spot of white-water rafting on the Rio Manso in Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi.
Clad in helmet and lifejacket, I found myself backpaddling with five others in order to avoid an approaching rock and navigate safely through one particular rapid.
'That was the hippo's fart,' our guide, Diego, told us afterwards. All the rapids have weird but descriptive names and before long my apprehension had given way to sheer excitement.
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| | | | The biggest Beatlemaniac
That night I ambled through the theatre district, which was doing big business. I don't speak Spanish, but the general theme of the shows seemed to be 'Give Back My Suspender Belt, Reverend!'
If possible, visit the Cavern Club Buenos Aires. The excitable owner Rodolfo Vazquez is the biggest Beatlemaniac in the world and is featured in the Guinness Book Of Records for his 5,612-item memorabilia collection that includes a piece of Hamburg's Star Club.
Rodolfo had the wide eyes of the true believer. I knew how to send him into moral panic. I asked him to name his favourite: John, Paul, George or Ringo?
'My favourite Beatle?' A riot broke out on his face. His eyebrows fled each other. 'As an ideological leader, John,' he said, then looked instantly guilty. 'But as a musician, Paul.'
What about Paul's appalling film Give My Regards To Broad Street?
But boy, was he hooked. He'd even brought over Pete Best, the group's original drummer who was replaced by Ringo. 'He's a great guy, but he could never have been a Beatle.' he said. 'He doesn't have the magic of Ringo.'
Sadly, much of Rodolfo's collection is at his ex-wife's house. That's ex. Who could compete with the magic of Ringo?
Next morning I decided to grab the bull by the horns and see if some of the passion of South America would rub off on me. I headed towards the district of San Telmo for tango lessons. According to Gabriel, this quaint area with its backstreet bars used to be known as the City of Sin, with 30,000 ladies of the night.
Tango was developed as a dance in brothel waiting rooms to keep the clients from wandering off. That explains the close physical contact, but not the clumpy shoes. Perhaps they were for clients who didn't tip.
I was worried that, as in Britain, a dance class might be a front for an unwashed physics teachers' singles night, but in Buenos Aires cool people with partners turned up.
Green, yellow or red sandstone
After the 8.30 briefing on the day's objectives, we would set off prospecting. There were 14 volunteers, four English and 10 from America.
We would walk together to the designated area and then fan out to look for fossils. Surprisingly, this was easier than you might think.
Ischigualasto Park - or Valley of the Moon, as it is known, because of its weird rock formations - is just heaving with fossils.
It has recently been declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco because of its unique importance as a site for Triassic fossils.
The earliest known dinosaur, Eoraptor, dated at 228 million years, was recently discovered here and the area is critical to our understanding of archosaur (precursors of dinosaurs) and mammal evolution.
Ischigualasto is a rift valley, a tilted plain bordered by dramatic 500ft high red sandstone cliffs to the east and green sandstone ridges to the west.
The terrain is similar to Arizona's. It is composed of green, yellow or red sandstone, and sediments of grey volcanic ash hundreds of feet deep.
The constant erosion by wind and occasionally by water exposes the fossilised bones which lie beneath.
Often bones are just lying on the surface. One find came through chasing an errant strip of toilet paper.
Where it settled I found a piece of bone, and following the trail of bones up a little gully, I glanced up and couldn't believe my eyes when I realised that what I had at first thought were just rocks were in fact large bones.
A vast salt plain
Our next destination was Purmamarca, a remote village in the province of Jujuy, north of Salta.
One way to get there is to go on the Movitrack safari, which partly follows the Train To The Clouds' route up the Andean range to Salinas Grandes, a vast salt plain bordered by mountains.
It is an awesome sight, almost eerie, since the only sounds are the breeze, faint jingling of donkey bells and the occasional roar of the trucks which hurtle along the single road that crosses the plain en route to the Chilean border.
Purmamarca has a great market - you'll find the softest alpaca socks and hats here and won't pay more than £1 for them.
The final part of our trip was an overnight stay at an estancia. Many Argentine farms, cattle ranches and plantations (known as estancias) take paying guests, and the experience should be high on your list because of the insight it gives into the culture and economy.
We were lucky to stay at an original colonial estancia, Los Lapachos in Perico, Jujuy, a safe and romantic Gone With The Wind sort of place, surrounded by fields of sugar cane and complete with an old railway and village.
Our hosts collected us from Purmamarca, and took us on a three-hour trek along the river Grande and past the old mining town of Volcan.
Then it was out for tea with friends before returning for drinks on the terrace followed by a traditional dinner of river fish and cheese with molasses for pudding.
This is the kind of thoughtful hospitality you can expect from the Argentines. No wonder people are fast developing a taste for it.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Scott Dunn Latin America (http://www.scottdunn.com, tel: 020 8682 5030) organises trips around Argentina.
Picturesque Patagonian towns
Between rapids the water was calm and we were able to enjoy the park. The weather was so fantastic and the water so alluring that it was difficult to stop oneself from jumping in.
Kingfishers the size of pigeons kept appearing and we were surrounded by all kinds of vegetation, including gunnera growing from the rocks.
After a couple of relaxing days exploring around Lago Nahuel Huapi, we took a three-hour scenic drive north towards San Martin de los Andes.
This is one of the most picturesque Patagonian towns, situated on the edge of Lago Lacar and an ideal place for exploring Parque Nacional Lanin.
Having once read that Jane Fonda had unsuccessfully tried to climb the Lanin Volcano, I ruled it out. I was not feeling that sporty!
We decided instead to drive to the foot of the volcano in search of the indigenous monkey puzzle (araucaria) forest.
It was fantastic to see these magnificent umbrella trees, which are indigenous only to Chile and Argentina, in their natural habitat.
At six the following morning we were on the Rio Chimehuin with our fly-fishing guide, Gabriel, and all his equipment. I felt like the Michelin woman in my big fisherman's wetsuit with braces.
After a brief casting practice we set off downriver in search of big trout.
Wading was not made easier by the force of the river and the slippery stones. While crossing a particularly fast-flowing section my feet were taken from underneath me and I was in danger of being washed downstream.
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| | | | The jungle trail
The tango seemed an odd mix of formal and racy, shins wrapping round thighs while faces stared stonily ahead. Like playing footsie at a funeral.
Teacher Pablo took my hand. I duly stepped on his toe.
'Watch me, not your feet!' he implored. 'Because your feet will always be there, but I may run.' Too right. With my heels I could have ended his career.
Next morning I flew through blue skies to the rich rainforest of Iguazu, crawling with howler monkeys, tapirs, ocelots, pumas, parrots and more than 500 species of birds. The jungle was so thick that as our plane dipped over trees I couldn't see any runway.
Perhaps they expected us to climb down vines.
Iguazu is famous for its impressive waterfalls on the Brazilian border, as seen in Roland Joffe's film The Mission.
The jungle trail has ' Danger: Jaguar' signs, but 'You'll be Lucky' might be more realistic. According to yet another guide called Gabriel: 'There is a problem with breeding jaguars as they don't feel the attraction to their partners when they have been in the same group for a long time.'
Great, just what the world needs; an endangered species with seven-year itch.
We walked along the top of the falls, just four feet from a family of coati-mundi, strange snouty beasts as though a mouse had got lucky with a badger.
Gabriel showed us mimosa bushes - which closed their leaves when stroked - pepper plants growing upwards and the dama de noches plant, which only blooms at night, filling the darkness with scent.
Skull of a Dicynodont
These turned out to be parts of the skull of a Dicynodont (a mammal-like reptile about the size of a bull which turns out to have been one of our ancestors).
At other times, only small areas of bone are showing above ground and patient excavation with small brushes and dental picks is needed.
All finds were carefully examined by the palaeontologists, and anything significant was taken to the laboratory for more work.
After returning to camp at about 4pm, we were free to socialise. Local wine was served by Mate Jim until you stumbled off to bed or fell off your chair.
Supper was cooked by whoever volunteered. As there were 23 of us in all, usually a few people did it together, and it was a bit like Ready Steady Cook, improvising a meal out of what you could find in the provisions tent.
Actually, meals were excellent and surprisingly carnivorous, with prime Argentine beef or free-range chicken.
Everything was cooked on the fire, either grilled or in large, cast-iron pans.
Happily, washing-up was always done by Raoul and Jose Luis, the good-natured field assistants/car mechanics/water fetchers/firewood gatherers.
After supper we'd sit around the fire talking, drinking and gazing in wonder at the spectacular light show of sparkling stars.
Tinto Jim, an ebullient Texan, gave astronomy lessons to anyone interested.
Loved the silence
Gabriel immediately pulled me up by my braces, along with several litres of water which had found its way into my suit.
I almost wished the river would take me to ride the rapids again but, with a suit full of water, I probably wouldn't float.
Once we found a good spot, I was casting away as if I knew perfectly well what I was doing. I couldn't have been that bad since I got several bites and one that stayed on the fly.
Hoping to pull a huge fish out of the water, as we often saw in pictures around town (so many proud fishermen with humungous catches), I was greeted by a tiny, sweet and innocent rainbow trout, which we kindly let go.
We were told that due to the unusually hot summer the rivers were low and it was too hot for the trout, though I think my small catch rate had more to do with my technique.
I obviously couldn't fool the trout, which could see me a mile away. However, I didn't despair and have already bought some flies for the future.
I loved the silence, standing in the river, casting and watching trout jump in front of me (even if I couldn't catch them).
Patagonia is absolutely fantastic, with so much to offer. It doesn't surprise me that Ted Turner has bought two estancias there, that Luciano Benetton has huge expanses of land and that there is a rumour that Sylvester Stallone also has a patch.
I was so sad to leave such a beautiful wilderness. I'm definitely going back.
TRAVEL DETAILS;
Trips Worldwide (http://www.tripsworldwide.co.uk tel: 0117 311 4400)
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| | | | Abseil through a waterfall
A butterfly with transparent wings like stained glass windows sat next to me. Above, the 'furious fig' or strangler fig throttled their host trees. I'd seen all this in Tintin, and would have liked a bit of Tintin-esque action, say, finding a talking Indian amulet followed by a short guerrilla kidnapping and home for tea.
We consumed jungle staples like vitamin-rich mat tea and delicious cheese bread made from tapioca.
Another big jungle product is yucca - a nasty houseplant in England is natural washing powder over here - and bamboo, which grows eight inches a day. I tried watching it grow but decided I preferred its urban neighbour, drying paint.
Things livened up when an adventure company, for reasons that were probably obvious to everyone else in my party, lashed me into a harness, hoiked me up a monster tree and told me to jump. I flew 50ft above the ground, just like Tarzan, only screaming 'Help'.
Then they asked me if I wanted to abseil through a waterfall. Lack of Spanish meant it was an offer I couldn't refuse. I'm glad - it was fantastic.
Next day I transferred to the ecological Yacutinga jungle lodge, for tourists who push their own hire cars to save petrol. This amazing candlelit jungle hideaway has an orchid nursery, romantic cabins and a catwalk where you can birdwatch nose-to-beak.
Our guide Rosendo was terrific to hang out with because he had been born again - not, mercifully, via churches and tambourines, but after almost dying on the operating table during a dramatic bout of peritonitis.
Now out of hospital, Rosendo was, unsurprisingly, one of the happiest people I've ever met. He showed me a scar I could put my fist in. He offered to let me test this, but I was worried it wouldn't come out again.
At night he led us into the cayman swamps, where boa constrictors drop out of trees for fun. He gleefully recounted tales of the pombero, a local ghost who comes out of the jungle to lasso women with his personal rope of human origin.
The pombero could have a career in working men's clubs if he ever makes it to Yorkshire.
Contribute to research
As the evening got colder, we'd drift off to our tents and I would put on as many layers as I could get on under my sleeping bag.
The first week's temperatures were somewhat extreme, from ice on the water in the morning to very hot and dry during the day.
Oh yes, back to my small stone.
It seems that what I found was a skull which had been crushed into the flattened ovoid but nevertheless is expected to be complete, and in a good state of preservation once the surrounding stone is painstakingly removed in the laboratory.
It is a new carnivorous Cynodont, a mammal-like reptile, showing a very high grade of evolution towards mammals. In other words, one of our ancestors.
Earthwatch manages to fund its research projects through volunteers, who pay to work on projects alongside scientists and technicians.
I realised how vital this funding was when I was told that if it wasn't for the Earthwatch volunteers, the field work in Ischigualasto simply wouldn't happen.
I thoroughly recommend this holiday if you want to do something different, visit areas not easily accessible to tourists and contribute to research which is important locally and globally.
I know I will always be grateful for one of the best experiences of my life.
I feel privileged to have been able to take part in a scientific expedition and to have lived for two weeks in such a beautiful area of the world.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Earthwatch offers working holidays on the Triassic. For further information on the Millennium Award scheme and details of all holidays, visit http://www.earthwatch.org/europe or tel: 01865 318850.
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| | | | Real men with vigorous moustaches
We left Yacutinga by rowboat the next morning, drifting quietly upriver like the African Queen, though thankfully with more emphasis on kingfishers and less on malaria.
Last stop was an example of old Argentine glamour, a stay in an estancia, a weekend getaway in the vast green stretches of Argentinian pampas. Any South American aristocrat worth his beef herd used to have one of these.
El Ombu de Areco is in the heart of gaucho country. It was built for General Pablo Riccheri, who invented national service then went to the country-to sit in a clawfoot tub and laugh.
At night, this stunning colonial building was perfumed with honeysuckle. My room had a clawfoot tub, antique furniture and traditional gaucho's salamander stove.
Unfortunately the other guests were braying toffs and a madman who chased me round with his e-mail address. They say the English aristocracy take their elegance everywhere. That's as maybe, but they could start packing their nasal hair trimmers.
Come morning, we saddled up for gaucho riding. The gauchos were real men with vigorous moustaches, check shirts and breeches, the Village People of the pampas. We cantered across the broad countryside rounding up cattle, surprisingly easily - cows normally leg it when a horse approaches.
I will remember this ride for years, cantering across vast fields with birds of prey hurtling round us. I can't get closer than 50ft to a hawk in England, but in Argentina they don't bat an eyelid. A flock of green parrokeet settled right next to us.
Then, in broad daylight, tiny owls dive-bombed our dogs.
This was the life. Riding back to the ranch I felt like Bobby Ewing. The estancia's swimming pool looked inviting after a hot ride, and I RSVP'd.
After a swim, a bath in a clawfoot tub and a gigolo (all right, I lied about the clawfoot tub), we sat down in the garden to an asado, the Argentine national dish - dripping beef-flesh barbecue. I haven't had such a visceral day since Paul McCartney released Mull Of Kintyre.
The Argentines - passionate, political and mostly called Gabriel - definitely know how to live. It wasn't the Paris of the South after all, it was Dallas.
TRAVEL FACTS:
Trips Worldwide (0117 311 4403/info@tripsworldwide.co.uk and http://www.tripsworldwide.co.uk) offers tailor-made holidays to South America.
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