Like a Rolling Stone

This is it. The plan is all beginning to fall together. I'm sat on a bus, alone, with no company other than my ipod, lonely planet, book and the view to keep me company. Don't know anyone on the bus, and don't know of anyone I know being in my destination city. This may sound a little strange to some but although I've been having a really great time so far, I feel like I have been pulled along by the general ebbing will of the Rio to Buenos Aires backpacker conveyor belt. Allow me to elaborate on this term. Backpacker conveyor belt is the term used for well travelled routes around the world, and it's likely that most of the people you meet are going one of two ways. When you arrive at a new hostel it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll have met a number of people staying there before and everyone coming the other way will virtually lay out where you go next. Everyone says things like "oh yeah, everyone goes to Ilhe Grande/Iguassu etc." and in many ways you find yourself in this backpacker bubble where everything is pretty much sorted for you. Although for new or nervous travellers this can provide a great source of comfort when travelling, it's something that I have been finding somewhat frustrating. My trip was intended to be independent, intuitive and challenging, where I get to interact with locals, learn to speak the language and find my own adventures.

For this very reason I have somewhat broken free from the said bubble, and taken off in a different direction to a city called Rosario. Rosario is said to be an interesting cultural city generally overlooked by the backpacking community. It also happens to be the birthplace of your favourite freedom fighter and mine: Che Guevara. The commie from another mommie, and perhaps synonomously, someone who's life really changed when travelling along an almost replicated route (by me, he got there first).

For this reason I'm sat on the bottom floor of a 15 hour night bus with a renewed sense of momentum and a rather uncontrollable grin on my face. Since all of the other bus travellers have opted for the top floor this leaves me the whole bottom floor to myself. Bliss. Well apart from the Bruce Lee film banging out in dubbed Spanish over the speakers. The bus attendant appears to have noted my elected solitude and keeps bringing me hot cups of Matte (a herbal drink that is very popular with the locals). Without documenting my whole bus journey, while waiting to cross the border to Uruguay (briefly passing through) one of the border guards/soldiers came and chatted to me about life in Bromsgrove (city on my passport) and my travels, while the other soldiers search the bus for drugs, wild animals, nemo and illegal immigrants. Hopefully a sign of general interest and friendliness to come.

Last night was another intense night of partying leading to another night of sleep deprivation. This wasn't improved by my waking at 6am in the dorm to the sounds of a reputedly loose English girl moaning, gasping and descriptively articulating the handiwork of a man I have now knicknamed Morris Magic Fingers. A curious yet rather common aspect of dorm life, that will probably require my recently lost earplugs to be replaced. For now, however, like the proverbial rolling stone, i'm just sitting back watching the world fly by under a myriad of orange and pink sunset soaked clouds. Everything else can be dealt with in due course.