Here it is, our very last video diary.

Not only does it have a clip of me on horseback (unawares), it also shows more of the estancia in San Antonio de Areco, some truly fabulous tango dancing, and clips from the Carnival in Gualeguaychu!
Irresistible!

Check it out on YouTube, or simply watch it below:

PS: We’re home! So happy!! So tired…

Last night we had an absolutely marvelous dinner at the Faena Bistro. Seriously, it was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten – a glorious mix of molecular gastronomy and Argentinean traditional. So so delicious.

But I thought I’d use it as an example to show you what the difference is between going out for dinner with a working pancreas, and going out for dinner as a diabetic:

* 7.30pm: We arrive early to shoot a few of the dishes before the other guests arrive (nothing like a bright flash going off every 30 seconds to spoil the mood). I haven’t eaten for a few hours (in preparation of the big meal), and I suddenly start feeling a little light-headed. Turns out that walk to the subway station (which was supposed to be 5 blocks and ended up being 10) was more strenuous than I thought, and I’m going low. Fast. There’s nobody else in the restaurant and everybody in the kitchen speaks Spanish. I have extremely limited Spanish skills. I mutter the phrase, “Soy diabetico, quiero jus de frutas,” which I think means “I’m diabetic, I need fruit juice” to myself a few times, then brave the kitchen.

Thank goodness one of the chefs understands a little English and can get me a Coke. Crisis averted.

* 8.15pm: Our first course arrives – candied spiced walnuts, homemade pretzels, miniature cheese scones and a white martini smoothie (in a shot glass). While I’m enjoying the range of extraordinary flavours, I’m thinking to myself, “How many carbs are in this, I wonder?”

* 9pm: I decide to simply take the plunge and take a rough amount of insulin that will ‘probably’ cover most of the 6 savoury course tasting menu (I’ll deal with dessert later). Roughly two carbs per course, perhaps? Fried egg foam has me flummoxed. But there’s rice and breadrolls, both of which I recognise.

* 10.20pm: I realise I way under-calculated the amount of insulin I should take, and take a second jab, this time hopefully including the dessert, a modern-day interpretation of lemon meringue pie with a soft biscuit base, lime ice-cream and lemon cream (that looks a lot prettier than it sounds – see below).

I am given some top-class stares from the waiting staff and the other guests as I jab into my stomach as discreetly as possible while lifting my already-rather-mini-skirt. I calculate in the 10 blocks we’ll have to walk after taking the subway home, so take a little less insulin than necessary.

* 10.25pm: More dessert! Mini Magnums and three raspberries on a stick. It’s a once in a lifetime meal, so I eat it all…

* 10.30pm: And now it’s time for my long-acting night-time insulin, so another public injection. They must think I’m a heroin addict!

* 10.45pm: The subway that was supposed to close at 11pm actually closes at 10.45pm… So there goes my 10 blocks of walking! We’ll have to take a taxi.

* 11pm: Hop out of the taxi a few blocks early so we can walk off some of the feast. The few blocks are further away than we thought, so end up walking around our neighbourhood for half an hour; but with full bellies and happy hearts, we’re not complaining.

Let’s talk about exciting, shall we?

* In the last week, Mark and I have stayed at the lovely Casa Sur Hotel in Recoleta, and visited the somewhat-crazy Recoleta Cemetery (check out these insane mausoleums – beautiful and a bit creepy).

*We’ve travelled to Gualeguaychu (3 hours each way, at 5pm and 3am!) for the Carnaval, Argentina’s largest carnival and an impersonation of Rio Carnival (which we’ll be missing, alas).
It was incredible – such excitement and passion and energy in the air! I’ve never experienced anything like it. Check out our very abbreviated Best Moment (the battery died) and Mark’s pics – ooh la la!

* We stayed at the pretty amazing Faena Hotel and Universe, in Puerto Madero (also in Buenos Aires), where we watched a breathtaking tango show (truly – it took my breath away). Here are another couple of pics, and a moment – see them tango in action!

* And THEN, as if that wasn’t excitement enough, we find ourselves at the simply stunning Jardin Escondido, Francis Ford Coppola’s very own villa, and recently voted one of Tatler’s 101 Best Hotels in the World.
Wow.

* Tonight, we’re eating at the Faena Bistro, with a chef who trained and worked with Ferran Adria at El Bulli, for seven years.
Next week, it’s back to the real world.

But the excitement is not quite over!

That I am well aware that I’m the luckiest girl in the world, and I’m so deeply grateful for the last almost-six months of travelling, but…

I’ve had enough of uncertainty. We’ve had an incredible run of hotels lately – the El Ombu Estancia, the lovely Casa Sur Art Hotel in Recoleta, and now the fabulous Faena Hotel (and Universe) in Puerto Madero. It’s been simply sumptuous. But now today we had a bit of bad luck in that our easy route to Rio de Janeiro didn´t work out, so we have a fair bit of missioning ahead of us, and things are still up in the air.

And all of a sudden I’m longing for some certainty. We’ve started looking for work back home, so all that is hanging in the balance, and we’re still not 100% sure where we’ll be for our last week, so there’s that to think about. The idea of a home and a fridge and a whole lot of sameness all of a sudden seems very attractive!

Perhaps this is what happens at the end of a journey. You start to wind down, to recalibrate back to a real-life frequency so that when you get home you don’t long for adventure every day. I’ve started eating as healthy as possible and exercising so that I can get back into real life mode, as opposed to traveller mode (which looks a lot like eat-everything-in-sight because you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, a dangerous habit to get into!) And I’ve started thinking of home, and family, and friends, and how lovely it will be to be connected again.

Don’t getme wrong, it has been simply incredible, and I wouldn’t exchange a second of it. But one week more will probably be the perfect amount of time till my homebody self re-asserts herself!
And now? We´re off to a tango show! I’ll post a clip tomorrow.

I think the part I love most about the videos we record (apart from the very obvious perk of being able to watch them in a year’s time, when we’ve forgotten some of the tiny details), is that it gives you a chance to see what we’re seeing, only-slightly-second hand.

So here’s this week’s video diary, with some extraordinary views of Iguassu Falls, a glimpse of our helicopter ride, some streetside tango in Buenos Aires, and a quick look at the estancia we stayed at:

And while you’re at it, here’s an Empanada Tour we took in Buenos Aires (totally informally – we wanted to see where the best empanadas were to be found. Empanadas are delicious meat-filled pies. Yum!)

You can also take a look at our version of the Best Steak in Buenos Aires (we’ve been eating a lot, can you tell?) and Horse Riding on an Estancia (Mark on a horse for only the second time in his entire life!)

And, lastly, take a look at the El Ombu Estancia itself… Just lovely.

I tell you, I could get used to this.
The past three days we´ve been living the life at Estancia El Ombu just outside San Antonio de Areco, about two hours from Buenos Aires.
What does that mean? Well.

We´re staying in an original estancia house(which is kind of like a large, beautiful, colonial horse ranch) with high-ceilinged bedrooms filled with antiques, a massive shady-treed garden, and horses just outside our window. Every morning we have a long, lazy breakfast and then spend the day lounging by the pool or reading in the shade of the trees or watching the gauchos (authentic Argentinean cowboys!) corralling cattle or horse whispering. Seriously.

Lunchtime sees us having an asano feast (traditional barbeque, i.e. loads of delicious free range meat) either in the restaurant or under the trees, while being serenaded by guitar players and Spanish songstresses. And then it´s time for a siesta before our sunset horse ride through the surrounding pampas…

And then dinner, under the stars.

Really, I could get used to this. The pace of life is slow and peaceful, the views are endless and sun-drenched, and we feel thoroughly spoiled. I´ll post pics and video in the next few days – once we´re back in the city.

Yip, tomorrow we head back to Buenos Aires! I´m excited. We´re going to explore the Recoleta area, which everyone tells us is the best. I´ll keep you posted!

Everyone told us we would love Argentina, and Buenos Aires in particular, but I didn’t really believe them… Neither of us are city people, and so far on this trip we’ve tried to skip out of most cities as soon as we can. Too much noise / pollution / traffic, not enough charm.

Not so with Buenos Aires. We’re staying in the charming barrio of San Telmo, which is all cobblestoned and run-down-colonial, and it’s full of cafes and antique stores and markets and fresh fruit and bread and meat and cheese. Everyone seems to wake up at 10 or 11am, and it all feels very laid-back and chilled. A real treat after all our travels.

Now that we have a return date (10th of February, even earlier than anticipated because we could only change our flights to that date or the beginning of March, and our budget won’t give us till March), it seems to have sunk in just how far we’ve travelled and how much we’ve seen. Mark and I have been taking it reallllly easy for the last couple of days – the easiest we’ve taken it in months, in fact. We’ll do something in the morning, rest during the hottest time of the day (it is HOT), and then do something late afternoon, early evening, slipping into a late dinner and a couple of hours wandering around the various areas of the city. Of course, the heat has been a problem again (with such temperature-sensitive insulin, why is that not a surprise?) We made the foolish mistake of walking around during the hottest time of the day on our first day here, which deactivated my insulin… Only I didn’t realise till the next morning, when I woke up high and figured out that my night insulin wasn’t working. Which led to a whole day of upside down blood sugar. Bring on a fridge! Please.

The fact remains, though: this is a cool city. There’s the tango, of course, and the steak (simply superb), and the people drinking coffee at every turn, but there’s also a lot of character and charm, and it feels like you can get up close to it, like you can have an emotional connection to it (unlike Paraty, in Brazil, which was just too pretty to connect to). We’ve also had the rare pleasure of a friend for the last few days! Our dear friend Steve is in Buenos Aires at the moment, so we’ve spent the last couple of days wandering around the city, eating empanadas (these delicious pie-like creations), going out for long dinners, and generally talking talking talking. Steve’s also been travelling for months, so it’s been really interesting discussing how we all feel about our travels and our imminent return home.

More on that later.

For now, here’s a taste of San Telmo, where we’re staying:

And if you’re curious about our wonderful stay at the Hotel das Cataratas, right across from Iguassu Falls, here’s a little clip to show you just how close to the falls we actually were!

PS – Remember our crazy experience with the Reincarnated Beatles in Indonesia for New Year’s Eve? For some reason the clip didn’t load properly, so if you’re still curious about them (and you should be!) check them out here.

I must admit, I’m tired.
Really tired.

We travelled from Iguassu Falls to Buenos Aires last night, an incredibly easy hop over the border from Brazil to Argentina (an absolute dream, actually – we didn’t even have to get out of the car!), a couple of hours wait in the bus station, and then a 20 hour bus ride.

20 hours.

Tiring.

It was a super comfortable bus, kind of like business class airline seats, with lots of room to spread out and some great scenery passing by before the sun went down. They even served food! Which was more problematic than you might think… Argentina is an hour earlier than Brazil, so we started getting hungry around 6.30pm (7.30pm on our body clock). For some reason, they didn’t pick up the dinner to serve us until 9.45pm (10.45pm on my body clock!) and I was hungrier than I can ever remember being. I was sitting there clenching my fists to keep from grabbing the bus attendant and shaking him. I tried telling them I was diabetic and needed food, but they didn’t seem to understand my urgency. I tell you, a hungry diabetic is a scary thing – I wasn’t low, I had supplies against low blood sugar (juice and fruit, not much good for hunger), but I felt crazy with hunger.

When it finally arrived, I ate everything in sight in about 3.5 minutes. Cheese, ham, biscuits, roll, pasta, all of it, gone!

So we pulled into Buenos Aires this morning, found our lovely spacious room, and are slowly settling in to the charming area of San Telmo. Only. We’ve just found out the sponsorship we were hoping for for our internal flights hasn’t come through, so we have to pay a small fortune to get ourselves from here back to Rio de Janeiro for our flight home; and it looks like we won’t be able to afford our one final indulgence – a trip to Patagonia, to see the Glacier Moreno, the last advancing glacier in the world.

And I’m disappointed. I think I’ve been very good and grown-up about the disappointment of having to go home early, and miss out Peru and Ecuador, I’ve swallowed it down and understood that things happen as they should. But this? This feels sad. I’ve been wanting to go to Patagonia for such a long time, it’s the one thing Mark and I have been referencing constantly.

Bleeurgh.

So now I feel tired. Perhaps this is travel weariness, perhaps it’s finally hit. I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow, after a good sleep and a steak, I’ll be all raring to go and discover this gorgeous city. But for now? Time for a lie down, methinks.

Any wise words of advice?