MY GOD IS THE SUN: GUARDA DO EMBAU AND RIO DE JANEIRO

I suffer from many things in life: Bad taste in men; an addiction to Purdey's vitamin drinks, a phobia of sandwiches; and watching too much of the reality show goggle box (I'm sorry but I love it)! Another thing that I suffer badly from is S.A.D. S.A.D or seasonal affective disorder is where a persons moods are effected by the weather or seasons.  It can effect people in both summer and winter, but for me, I am effected by winter depression.  The winter with its long cold days has slowly become my enemy.  With every passing year my fear of this season has become worse.  A dark cloud comes over me and the simplest every day things in life become a huge task.  I pray for the winters to end and for this feeling to pass.  In bygone times civilisations use to worship the sun: The Romans; The Aztecs and the Vikings.  I can see why, for now my God is the sun. I follow him where ever he may go and worship him as he glows in all his glory, and pours rays of happiness upon me.  Yes my God truly is the sun.  He is one of the main reason I travel so much, and was a very big reason for me to head to Brazil!

I left Montevideo on a 19 hour bus journey which consisted of complete boredom as I was on my own, had no music to listen to (No phone remember?), and I couldn't read (I get car sick)! I also nearly got hypothermia due to the fact the bus company seemed to want to kill all its passengers by blasting us to death with air con (Why do they always do that)?  I arrived in Florianópolis shivering.  As I had no phone (I know I keep going on about it!) the only information I had to get to BB and Prue was a name of a town and a hostel they were staying at scrawled on the last page of my book.  Add to that I have also entered Brazil.  Its a whole new ball game people!  When I first arrived in Latin America  3 years ago I spoke no Spanish at all.  I spent most of my first weeks feeling like a monkey that points at things and mimics a lot with big hand gestures and stupid facial expressions to get myself understood.  In Brazil they don't speak Spanish.  They speak Portuguese.  I don't speak any Portuguese!  I am once again a monkey! I'm feeling thirsty and in need of refreshment so go to a kiosk and order myself a lovely fruit smoothie with my monkey language and pay for it.  I can't wait!  A minute later I am handed a huge ice cream cone  with a chocolate finger sticking out the top! "How the Hell did this happen! I wanted a refreshing fruit smoothie instead I'm stood here shivering in a bus station with an ice cream with a God Dam chocolate finger!" I think to myself.  Of course I don't say anything.  I'm English we don't like to complain.  My next task is to buy my bus ticket.  I go to the desk and say where I want to go to.  Everyone looks at me. I say the name again.  Still everyone looks at me.  I see it written on a sign behind the desk and point.
"Oh! Guarda do Embau" says the man behind the desk while everyone else laughs.
"Yes! Guarda do Embau" I say thinking "That's what I said in the bloody first place?"
I'm now on a bus feeling pretty proud of myself, when after a while it occurs to me that I haven't got a clue where this "Embau" place is.  Maybe I have already gone past it? I go up to the driver and I point at my ticket.  He shakes his head.  "What the Hell does that mean?" I think to myself. I go back to my seat.  Twenty minutes later I repeat the process and the driver shakes his head again and gives me a look to say "Sit down stupid monkey pointing girl!" After a while he indicates to me with his hands and the next thing I know me and my bag are shoved off the bus onto the street and I'm stood there thinking "Where the Hell am I?"

After asking a dozen people for directions in monkey language and not understanding any of the responses I arrive hot, sweaty and tired at the hostel, to find a fat guy passed out on the floor in just his Y fronts, while a big Labrador is strecthed out on him.  Next to him are 2 young guys in board shorts sat in a hammock smoking a joint.
"Hola. I am looking for 2 English girls? Are they here?"  I say slowly and clearly.  The two guys look at me blankly. The fat guy is still passed out.
"Prue and Becky?" I ask pleadingly hoping they will understand.  They look blank again for a second and then the one with the Mohawk hair, face lights up.
"Yes Prue! Becky.  Prue, Becky friend? Carla?"
"Yes! That's me! Well actually its Carly, but Carla will do!" I respond with complete happiness that I have made it, and everyone seems happy.  Even the fat guy passed out on the floor opens his eyes for a second to see what all the noise is about.  The stoned guys show me to the room door where BB and Prue have left me a note.
"We have gone to the beach.  Come and meet us.  Cross over the river and we will be in front of the stall with the Brazilian flag."
"How exciting.  Hand written notes" I think to myself  "Its sounds like a little adventure maybe this not having a phone business isn't that bad after all."

I quickly shower and change and head for the beach.  Like the note says I have to cross a river first, so I strip off to my bikini and wade through the water which is up to my chest.  The river and the beach are surrounded by forested mountains, which have a dream like effect from the distant.  Its all very dramatic and magical.  I can see why the girls have chosen this place. I walk around but I cannot see a flag, until in the distance I see a limp shredded Brazilian flag in front of a stall.  I head to it but cannot see the girls.  "Maybe they have gone for a swim?" I think to myself.  I sit and wait, and then I wait some more, and then some more! I feel like everyone is staring a me as the girl on her own on the beach.  "Where the Hell are they?" I think.  Suddenly hand written notes don't seem that adventurous or exciting anymore.  They are just God dam stupid notes actually, that's why God invented Mobile phones! OH yeah! Its that thing again! A Mobile phone, which would have been really handy at that moment in time to text them and ask them where they were, but Yes! I don't have one! I'm in a really fowl mood and have been sat on my own for well over an hour when I see another Brazilian flag straight in front of me. "Oh shit!" I think to myself.

I eventually find the girls in front of the flag.  We do the usual girly happy to see again shriek and hug.
"Did you find the place alright.  Were there some guys there when you arrived?" asks Prue.
"Yeah! There was some fat guy passed out in his Y fronts and two stoned guys" I reply.
"The fat guy is the owner.  He got drunk last night.  Did one of the guys have a Mohawk?" Prue continues.
"Yes."
"That's F**k junior! He is like a mosquito flying around me.  He just won't leave me alone" Prue carries on talking about the traumas of having a Brazilian mosquito as an admirer, when I interrupt.
"Wait a minute! F**k Junior! F**k Junior! What kind of name is that?"
"Its his name! He changed it by dipole to Derek F**k Junior or something like that" responds Prue.  I later find this out to be true when a couple of nights later on the beach F**k Junior proudly displays his bank card with that very name branded on it!  I soon see what Prue is on about, as every time we return F**k Junior is around her like the mosquito she described, trying to touch her and get her attention.  When we go out at night he is there too,  trying to keep any other male predators away from her. One day after many other advances, Prue looses it with him.
"Will you leave me alone! Your like a mosquito!"
Instead of being offended by this F**k Junior seems very happy at being referred to as a mosquito and even starts to laugh and make a buzzing noise like one.  Nothing seems to deter this guy.  I actually think he was in love with Prue, as he could never take his eyes off her and looks at her like some love sick puppy.  Part of me for a second felt slightly sorry for him and then I remembered that he was called F**k Junior by choice and then all sympathy went out the window!

We spent our days in Guarda do Embau sunbathing on the beach, drinking fresh Coconuts, surrounded by what felt like paradise. Our nights were spent drinking too many Caipariania's and dancing to the early hours of the morning at the only real bar in town.  We could of quite easily stayed there forever but then there was Rio waiting for us and no one can ever refuse Rio. Rio de Janeiro, from all my travels is probably the most beautiful cities of them all.  You have everything any modern city provides but then on your door step you have golden sandy beaches, surrounded by jungle mountains.  There is even a lake.  Rio is about many things: beauty, fun, excitement, but the main thing Rio is about, is SEX! It oozes it from every pore.  Its like everyone is on heat or something? Everyone is on display permanently, be it someone that is fat, thin, young, old beautiful or ugly.  No matter who you are or what you look like, everyone is giving off some sexual vibe and  there is no better place to see it than the beach.  The beaches of Rio are a city within themselves and like a city they all have their different sections. There is the Gay section; the family section, the beautiful people section; the intellectual section, the list is endless. Yes the beaches of Rio are truly the places to be seen, and with not a lot on either.  OK so you never go naked or even topless but you don't leave a lot to the imagination either. Me and girls had now become fully accustomed to having our asses on full display and even kind of liked it!  The men were just as bad with some of the smallest swimming trunks in history (You could tell what side they dressed too, and I wasn't even perving! You couldn't help but notice)! We were sat on the beach one afternoon when we were looking through some photos we had taken earlier.  Prue was complaining how awful she looked in the photos.  Now Prue is a very beautiful girl, but I could see what she meant.  She  was not making the most of herself.  "Why do you always look so good in photos?" she exclaimed to me.
"That's because I'm a complete and utter poser Prue, and you need to learn The Carly School of Posing!"
I'm not ashamed to say I'm a poser.  I am by no means a great beauty but I feel everyone should make the most of what they have got and posing makes you do that.  Besides I have spent 5 years of my life in relationships with professional photographers.  You learn quickly what makes a good photograph and what doesn't. So I taught Prue The Carly School of Posing that day in one of the most posy places on earth: Ipanema beach.  The rules of The Carly School of Posing go something like this:

* Never slouch. It looks horrible! As a person that slouches a lot in life I have learnt not to on photos.  Extend that spinal column.  It makes you look thinner as well.

* Always bend one leg, otherwise you look like a statue!

* Turn slightly to the side.  Its more flattering.

* Put your hands on your hips, never on your waist as it can make unflattering ceases in the stomach.

* Tilt your head, a little.  I don't why! I just do it!

* Lastly always have quite a smug look on your face, that says "I don't really give a Dam if you think I'm a vain, self obsessed, poser, because I'm making the most of what I have got, which at times isn't a lot (Believe me)!So there!"

THIS IS THE CARLY SCHOOL OF POSING! AMEN!

Another things Brazilians are obsessed with is music.  Well dancing and music to be precise.  We really wanted to go to a real Brazilian music night, not some night set up by a hostel where you down a load of cheap shots; end up being sick and wake up the morning after with some faint memory that you might of kissed an 18 year old on his gap year (That has never happened to me)???? We had been told by one of our guides about a Forró night that all the locals went to and not really any Gringo's. Perfect! Forró is a form of music from Northwest Brazil, just so you all know. We took a taxi to the address given and found ourselves outside a huge old building with a lot of locals milling outside.  It felt very intimidating as we looked out of place and everyone was looking at us.  This only got worse when we walked inside.  A huge dark hall was filled with dancing locals.  There was only one problem with this.  They were all dancing as couples!!!! Now the last time anyone danced together in Britain was probably during World War 2 or your Grandparents at family function when they start doing some embarrassing slow waltz or something.  I have never danced as a couple in my life, nor have the girls.  We are prettified.  We look like rabbits in the head lights. We quickly head to the bar for some courage from a Caiparinia. We stand round the side of the dance floor, sipping our Caiparinias like girls at a prom with out a date.  We watch the dancing.  Well if you can call it that.  Don't get me wrong there is some fancy foot work but a lot of its seems like they are grinding on the dance floor.  In fact they praticially look like they are having sex!
"Well I won't be dancing!" says Prue
"Me neither" Says BB looking uncomfortable for once. I then recall I had danced as a couple once before.  In Bogota in Colombia, in a Salsa club.  I remembered the initial terror of having to dance and how it cleared and in the end I'd had, one of the funniest nights ever.
"I will!" I said "I just need another Caiparinia first!"
Prue is the first of us to be asked to dance.
"No I can't . I'm English.  I don't know how!" she says looking very stiff and proper. A guy then comes and asks me and gets the same response.
"Then why are you here" he asks and walks off.  I realise then how terribly English we are being and feel angry at myself.  Five minutes later another guy comes and asks me to dance as well, but this time I decide to remove the rod from up my ass and go with the flow.  He holds me by the hips and pulls me close to him, so that we are cheek to cheek.
"Feel the rhythm and follow my lead" he says leaving me shocked that he can speak English.  We start to move and I find myself for the first minute mainly standing on his feet, but he is kind and encouraging and we continue, till at the end of the dance I find some rhythm. The music stops and he says "Thank you" and I'm left there standing on the dance floor, wondering why he hasn't tried to make a move on me, as that's what I expected from dancing like that and then me having to make awkward excuses at turning him down! But no!  Nothing! I'm only alone for a second before I'm dancing the next dance with another guy.  With every dance I feel like I'm getting better.  The trick is to move from the hip and follow the guy in the grinding process.  It feels weird at first to be doing such an intimate, sexual dance with a complete stranger who is so close to you, you can feel his sweat fall on to you.  The end result was the same though with every guy saying thank you at the end of the dance and leaving you alone.  It made a refreshing change from having your ass felt up by sleazy drunk guys on the dance floor, even if I was pratically having sex on the dance floor.  I look around and see that Prue and BB have let go of their fears too and are now enjoying a dance with some locals too.  At the end of the night as we take a taxi back I'm feeling happy.  It was good to let go of our English up tightness for a night.  "Hmmm! I grinded 8 guys on the dance floor tonight! Not bad for a Tuesday night!" I think to myself.
Next stop Ilha Grande.

MONTEVIDEO: ROBERT PATTISON

I'm sat having breakfast in the hippie commune in Punta del Diablo.  Me and Prue are feeling kind of fresh as we managed to go to sleep at the all so reasonable time of before 1am instead of 5am.  When I say sleep I'm using that term loosely as its very hard to get any sleep when you have a full live band playing directly below your room and then dance music after that until the early hours.  There was also some girl screaming like some one had been murdered at God knows what time, and then a stampede of people running to see what was going on.  For all I know some one could of been murdered' but by then I was in such a foul mood to really even care.  So yes! I was sort of feeling fresh that morning? While trying to eat some porridge oats with milk out of a mug (Yes! This is my breakfast!), one of the Uruguayan guys stomps up to me.  Its Martin.  Me and Prue are not his greatest fan, as one of the first things he said to us when we were introduced was that he "Hated English people!" (He sure know how to make a first good impression)?????  He also has a permanent scowl on his face, which makes me want to hit it a lot.  Me and Prue refer to him as "A Punk!"
"Hey! What's your Face Book name?" he abruptly says.  "And Good Morning to you Martin! Yes I'm find thanks!" I think to myself while looking at him and wanting to hit him again!
"Why?" I ask
"My friend wants to find you on Face Book!" he replies still in the same manner.
"Which friend?"
"My friend Nico!" he responds.  I look at him blank.
"The Croatian!" He continues.  I still look blank.
"The guy you where hanging out with the other night!" Something clicks in my head.
"Oh you mean Robert Pattison?" I say.
He looks blank for a minute and then begrudgingly says "Yes Robert Pattison!"
"Sorry I was really drunk! I actually don't remember his real name!" I say, thinking "How bad am I?"

A day or so later I go to an Internet cafe to check my emails and Face book.  There is a Face book request off a guy called Nicolas with unpronounceable surname.  I check his pictures.  It's Robert Pattison, though I don't think he actually looks like Robert Pattison, but the name has stuck now, and is in my head.  I except his friend request and think nothing more of it, as I only met him one night and he left early the next day. We had no Internet in Diablo unless we went to a cyber cafe, but we were far too busy doing things like getting a tan and drinking rum and coke, so we never really checked the Internet, which was actually quite nice for a couple of days.  We spent a night in Montevideo and the next day decided to get the bus and the ferry back to Buenos Aires.
"Carly! The bus has Wi-Fi" Said Prue as we sat there on another journey.
I decided to check my emails, and there it was, a very long message from Robert Pattison staying how much he had enjoyed meeting me, wanted to see me again and if I was in Montevideo I could stay with him and he would show me around.  "Shit!" I thought "Just typical! I'm on a bloody bus leaving Montevideo!" I wrote back and said I was leaving Uruguay for Buenos Aires and that I was sorry.  Like most stories in my life, it usually ends there, but this time it didn't.  Robert Pattison, would still write to me; everyday; lots of times in a day, and I to him.  To be honest I was a bit thrown at first.  You see in England, actually most men in the western world, you get a text message or face book response maybe three days after you have sent them something.  Well hey!  They don't want to seem too keen, as you might want to marry them and have their kids or something! God forbid!  This was a complete but refreshing change.  You say something: You get a response!  You ask something: you get a response! And guess what? I don't want to marry him or have his kids.  Amazing!  I think this is called "A normal conversation!" Robert Pattison was the first guy in a long time that was open.  He showed no cowardice or fear, or played any games.
I quoted at the beginning of this trip to South America a quote from Mark Twain.  I still stand by that quote:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do."

So with that quote in my head, at the end of the week with the girls in Buenos Aires, I decided not to go Iguazu falls with them (I'd been before anyway) and packed my bag and returned to Montevideo.

I arrive at night.  I'm wondering if I will recognise him?  What if he isn't as I remembered?  What if he wasn't there? My bus was late! He might not be? I would just be stuck in a bus station in Montevideo on my own with no where to go.  I entered the bus station feeling a bit scared as I searched the faces of the crowd and there he was, and then everything felt OK.  I went to hug him and I instantly could tell he was shy.  He was quiet and wouldn't look me in the eye. I made most of the conversation, talking about lots of rubbish, like I normally do, as we took a taxi back to his house.  I was nervous too. Not only about meeting him but I had to meet his mother too!  Yes! His mother! You see Robert Pattison mum lives in his house too! I'd  been quite shocked when he first told me and had second thoughts about the visit, but it seems that most people live with their parents in Uruguay as the cost of living far out ways the wages.  I had in my head visions of some big Latin woman with huge breasts and a miserable face who would hate me from the minute she meet me because I was a Gringa and was with her son.  The reality couldn't have been more different.  Robert Pattison had told me his mother was cool (He calls her the gypsy woman) and he was right. Teresita, (Her name) which means little Theresa and couldn't be more fitting.  She was a small petite woman with big dark eyes  and a smile that could light up a room.  Even though she couldn't speak a word of English I instantly warmed to her.  She was friendly and warm and would bend over backwards for you.  She chatted constantly at me and I tried hard to understand what she was saying, of which most went over my head.
The other member of the family that I had to meet was the dog: McShooney!  Actually he wasn't called McShooney.  He had no name!  Mcshooney was a black mixed Labrador, who was blind in one eye.  Robert Pattison had found him in the street a couple of years ago and so had taken the stray home and he had been with them ever since.
"What do mean he has no name?" I asked shocked!
"No he doesn't" He says calmly smoking a cigarette "We just call him the dog!"
"Then why did you refer to him in an email to me as McShawney?"
"Oh! I just said that because it was like an English version of the noise he makes in Spanish."
I'm stood there confused now.  "Does the dog have a name or not? Well I'm just going to call him McShawney from now on because every one needs a name even a dog" I say.
McShawney is later modified to McShooney as that is how it sounds when Robert Pattison says it in his Latin accent.  So that is how a dog with no name became to be know as McShooney!

The more I get to know Robert Pattison the more I get to like him.  He is slightly crazy like me.  He is slightly eccentric like me and he is slightly geeky like me.  I find him very intelligent.  His English is amazing and there isn't anything he doesn't know about an computer.  He also has a great love of music too and we sit for hours on end listening to music  and exchanging notes.  Sometimes he whacks out the guitar as well of which he also good at playing.  I am quite happy in his company and am glad that I came back to Montevideo.

Another thing that Robert Pattison likes, like most South Americans is Football.  It is a religion over here, and they are fanatical about it, and I was about see, how fanatical. Robert Pattison was keen for me to watch his favourite team play: Peñerol, Uruguay's national champions. As I'm quite a keen football fan too, we arranged to go to a match one night against their biggest rivals Nacional.
"I got us tickets for the real supporters area behind the goal.  It is the best place to be" Robert Pattison told me.
As we were  entering the stadium (Which by the way held the first ever world cup final) Robert Pattison turns to me and says "Keep close to me!  There are some very bad and crazy people at these matches do not loose me." I look at him and think he is being over protective, I soon see he is not.  We walk up the steps to the inside of the stadium.  Its a mass of grey concrete and all I can hear is drums.  As we walk further up the stairs the drums get louder and at the top there is massive group of aggressive looking men, most them bare chested with tattoos all over them. They remind me of images I have seen of brutal Mexican gangs. They are cheering and shouting and in the centre of it all, men bang on drums like warriors going to war.  As a person that doesn't like admitting to ever being scared, at this moment I am petrified! I hold Robert Pattisons hand tight, as we try to find our way through the crowd, scared that if I let go I will not make it out.  We eventually find are way to part of the stand away from the central chaos and I can breath again.   We then wait for the match to begin.  What followed was every thing I expected from a South American football match and much more.  Peñerol and Nacional  hate each other, I mean really hate each other.  The teams come out to boos and hisses from each opposing sides fans.  Its at this point, that a flurry of fireworks and streamers (Probably toilet roll I think?) are let off and thrown and the stands of fans becomes a mass of light, music, cheers and movement and a beautiful sight to behold.  The match was kind of slow and I was finding what was going on off the pitch more interesting, like for example the man in front of us smoking the biggest joint you have ever seen, that I felt I was getting stoned from just by smelling it. There was also the vast array of bad tattoos and hair styles, which I couldn't help but stare at.  I mean it's 2014, who the Hell in their right mind thinks a permed mullet is OK? Robert Pattison has a little laugh to himself now and again as he listens the fans chant songs to the Nacional fans.  Now I really couldn't understand any of them apart from the fact that they wanted to do something bad to the Nacional's players mothers.  Hmmmm? The second half gets more interesting as Peñerol concede a penalty against Nacional.  This causes a bit of tension on the pitch as well as off it.  One of the players kicks or punches the an opposition player.  I'm not sure who started it as I'm too busy looking at a guy with a spikey mullet when the incident occurs.  From there on in things kind of escalate.  There is a lot of nose to nose shouting at one another and arm waving, until some one karate kicks someone and the whole sub bench joins in along with the management.  This is where the riot police come in to separate the two teams.  In the mean time the fans have climbed the barriers and are starting to try and climb the metal fortress that surrounds the pitch and after that they have to clear the moat. Yes you read right! The moat!  Football matches in South America is like full on warfare, so castle like defences are you used!  This goes on for some time, to the point that I feel the match will be stopped, but eventually they kiss and make up like good children and it continues.  The final result:
Peñerol: 0                           Naccional: 1
Did I enjoy it? Yes!  Warfare football is far more entertaining than the Premiere league any day.

Check out the match on this video clip.



After a week I had to go.  I had already stayed longer than I should of and I had to catch up with my friends.  So I sadly said goodbye to Teresita with the amazing smile and McShooney the dog with one blind eye.  Most of all I hated to say goodbye to Robert Pattison.  He came and saw me off to the bus station and was just as quiet as when I arrived there a week before, but this time it was different.  We were both sad.  It is never easy to say goodbye to anyone, but I feel like I spend most of life saying it to people, never to see them again.  I didn't want it this time.  I have grown so tired of it, but I had to get on the bus and so once again, it was goodbye.  Goodbye is part of being a traveller, but as I keep saying it is better to regret the things you have done than the things you haven't.  No regrets.  By the way, Robert Pattisons real name? Nico or Nicholas as his mother calls him.
Next stop Brazil!

BUENOS AIRES: STOLEN

Remember the days before mobile phones? The days when people had to actually talk to one another, without the means of Face book, email and Whatsapp! I know! I don't remember either. Your mobile phone these days is like your right arm (left as well if your left handed or ambidextrous, which would be both)! It's like your whole world revolves around this little electronic device and the thought of not having your mobile with you 24/7? Well, it would be the end of the God Dam world, and this is what happened to me recently. I had my right hand cut off. I had my phone stolen!

Me and Prue returned to Buenos Aires, in time to meet our friend Becky Brown or BB as I like to call her, who was arriving that night, but first we had to check into the apartment we had rented for the week. We actually figured that it worked out the same to rent an apartment for the week as it was staying in some sweaty dormitory in a hostel with a load of 18 year old backpackers. Being English we were there on time to pick up the key which surprised the apartment guy when he arrived.  Though I think anything might surprise the apartment guy as he was a little too wired from some acid rave thing, the night before.  He was a strange thing; small with the frame of a child and was wearing some awful double denim outfit, with goth boots! He showed us into the apartment. Now I'm use to staying in places that well?  Maybe aren't up to most peoples standards.  OK! Shit holes! But they are cheap shit holes, OK! So as we get into the apartment I think we are in a palatial place.  When I say say palatial palace this means for me that there are no rats, I don' think I'm going to wake up with bed bugs and there is hot water.  Amazing! Prue has other ideas.  The selling point on this place for us was the fact that it had its own little swimming pool. Prue walks straight out to the pool, where she finds it shaded by a canopy (We were told it would have sun).  The pool itself is extremely dirty and looks like it hasn't been cleaned in a century, maybe more. Prue is not happy and rightly so as we also find a piss smelling towel in the bathroom, though I'm still thinking palatial place.  Prue is not.  What follows is this: A very feisty, determined English woman trying to clean a pool with a brush and then using the handle of the brush to hit the canopy back to the side, while then demanding to speak to the boss.  Child man hands over his phone.  Prue then starts a hostage style negotiation on how the rent should be lowered with the boss.  Its at this point child man has reached his downer from the night before, becomes very stressed and starts smoking a cigarette vigorously. Oh and what was I doing you ask?  I was being terribly English sat downstairs in the bedroom, not wanting to complain and pretending it wasn't happening.
The end result: Reduction on the rent!
Prue: 1           Apartment boss: 0
Conclusion= Do not mess with an English woman on a mission, well not Prue anyway, which I became glad of, especially after her saving us some money and the fact the toilet and the sink started leaking the next day (That's why there was a piss smelling towel in the bathroom)!   Total bastards!

BB arrived in the usual BB manor; happy; excited and wide eyed even though she had been travelling for well over 24 hours.  It was the only Saturday night we had in Buenos Aires and BB was still keen in her over tired state to hit the town.  So we put on our best glad rags and decided to hit the terribly fashionable area of Palermo.  Now we had been told by an Argentinian friend of ours, Alejandro  (Remember him from my last trip to BA, if not read the post here) who was no longer living there, that we had come to Buenos Aires at the worst time of year (Actually he didn't quite say it like that! He said we were f**ked instead: Soooo Ale)! This is because during January most people leave town for the beaches of Brazil or Uruguay because its too dam hot!  Most places shut down and its like a ghost town. "OK, but it still a city" I told myself "There will be something going on? It's Buenos Aires, the party city?"
Only in the beautiful, classy city of Buenos Aires could we end up in a bar that reminded me of Macaulay's bar back in Warrington during my teenage years (Basically rough as shit)! We had been lured to the bar by a sweet talking Argentinian guy with deep blue eyes that you wanted to jump into like the sea.  He was obviously employed by the bar for that reason and it worked! Well that was until you got into the bar and paid ten pounds to wear a band which meant you could drink all you wanted.  When I say drink I mean it was like paint stripper mixed with food colouring which made most of the drinks bright pink! Hmm?  I feel like I'm on a club 18 to 30 holiday, but we have paid our money now and we are going to make the most of it.  Besides we are British and we will drink any old crap! We have two Argentinian guys with us who have tagged along.  They don't speak any English but me and Prue can manage small talk with them.  BB on the other hand doesn't speak any Spanish what so ever or does she? Because its at this point that we are first introduced to the Becky brown school of language.  The Becky Brown school of language consists of this:

1.  You don't speak any other language other than English and you only speak to all foreign people in English.

2.  You smile a lot.

3.  You are extremely nice and lovely so everyone completely loves you even if they can't understand you.

4. You really just don't care, whether you can understand someone or you them; your in Latin America having an amazing time.

The Becky Brown school of language does work though.  There were times throughout the trip where me and Prue were concentrating so hard to understand what people were saying to us without much of a clue, that BB would just turn around to us and say "I understand!"
"How the Hell do you understand when you don't speak any Spanish?" would be are response.
"Because its in their faces!  I can tell what they are saying from their faces and their emotions" she replied, and you know what she could.  The Becky Brown school of language, definitely beats Rosetta Stone any day.

Even enough paint stripper drinks couldn't disguise the fact that we were in the shittiest bar in Buenos Aires.  The final straw came when we were trying to dance to some crap house music and saw some heavily pregnant skank teenager dancing and drinking paint stripper behind us.  Time to make a sharp exit, before she gives birth on the dance floor.  We find ourselves in a big night club that looks a whole lot better than club 18 to 30, though by this time we are so drunk anything would look good.  Its from here on in, things become a little hazy.  I remember getting my phone out to take some pictures of us all posing like idiots that would later be probably put up on Face book, where people would probably put that they like them, when really they are thinking, total idiots.  About 10 minutes later when I think I'm dancing amazingly to some Latin beats (I'm not!) I go to my bag to look at my phone to see what time it is.  Nothing! I fumble drunkenly around my bag, but its a small bag.  You could tell if it was there or not, easily.  I also know its impossible for it to have fallen out.  I've been pick pocketed! Bastards!!!!!!  I would of screamed but I think I was too drunk to really of registered what had happened.  Its the fact that I'm so drunk that I decide to go looking on the floor for it, even though I know its been stolen.  I'm kind of clutching a straws.  I'm just barging in between people with my head to the ground and I think at one point I'm on my hands and knees on the floor.  I look up and see the others and wonder what a fly on the wall would think. BB's jet lag seems to have kicked in and she is delirious on the dance floor with her eyes shut, arms open, dancing like some crazy hippie.  Prue is now being dry humped by one of the Argentinian guys on the dance floor (I believe the Latins call this dancing) and I'm crawling around on my hands and knees looking for a phone I will never find.  Another great night out then?

 The next day I wake with a bad head and the realisation that my phone is really gone.  I'm in mourning.  I'm also having flash backs to when we got home from the club.  I recall BB Skyping her parents and them asking me how I was which my response was some thing like "Not so good as some F**cking bastard has stolen my phone! I'm so f**cking angry" (Luckily her parents have a good sense of humour) and then having a rant on live chat with O2 when they informed me that I could not get a new phone or Sim card until I got back to the UK! (I think I told the woman at O2 that she had ruined my life and she was going to go to Hell)! Oh God!  I won't have a phone or a British Sim for over 2 months!  Oh holy mother Mary of God!  In the whole time I have travelled I've never not had a phone.  Its my Internet, my texts, my camera, my music, my blog as well as my phone. Arrrrgghhhhhh!!!!!! Its my everything!  OK! I know its not the end of the world.  No one has died! There are worse things in life.  Anyway living without a phone for 2 months will be liberating, won't it?

We have been having a bit of trouble with wankers on our trip.  They are everywhere.  In our beds, bathrooms, on the streets, everywhere!  We first started to encounter them in Buenos Aires.  They are just horrible and they are so hard to kill! Oh! Sorry! Am I confusing you?  I am not a serial killer unless you are a Buddhist; then I would be classed as one.  I am not referring to men as wankers, though a lot of them are! I'm referring to Cockroaches!  Me and the girls have started calling cockroaches wankers.  I think everyone should do it.  Its very refreshing!  For example nothing can beat the sound of your friend in the morning screaming, "There is another one! There is a wanker in the shower.  I'm going to kill it!" followed by the banging of a flip flop and "Die wanker! Die!" As I said, a very refreshing way to start the day.

I can see why everyone leaves Buenos in January.  Its hot! Really hot! Thank God for the dirty swimming pool!  No really! Thank God for the dirty swimming pool.  Anyway its not too bad as me and Prue cleaned it up a bit and found how to work the filter.  Its a perfect haven in fact.  Now that Prue has demolished the canopy with a broomstick the sun is shining through and as its our own private pool and garden we decide that means our rules.  so in no time its topless sunbathing all round.  Yes!  We finally get to go topless in South America.  In fact its hard to keep your clothes on once we are in the apartment.  we jump into the pool after a day of walking around the city into its ice cold water.  Its so refreshing. There was a moment after one night out, that the heat was far too much for me, which is a rare thing.  It was oppressive and I felt I couldn't breath.  There was only one thing to do.  I stripped completely naked and jumped into the pool.  I was soon followed by Prue.  The water was amazing. So there we are a couple of English girls splashing around naked in a pool in the middle of Buenos Aires in the early hours of the morning, drinking wine.  I'm not sure whether the neighbours could see us? They probably could and thought "What the Hell are those English chicks on?" but in the words of Becky Brown "I don't really care!"
Next stop Montevideo.