Its been a little while since I last got my act together and wrote to you. Apologies for that, but it really has been a crazy time. Since last writing I have partied incessantly in Cordoba, survived on a tenner in a beach town in Uruguay, boogied to bongo music in Montevideo, and been homeless on the streets of Buenos Aires. But instead, I want to write about a bus ride I took. Not the most exciting introduction, but it sums up what having a gap year is all about in my books, and why some people might as well stay home.

While settling in to the bus to Montevideo from Colonia, a pretty port town across the river from Buenos Aires, I was joined by a short, well dressed gentleman who promptly said “hello” in English. He had no reason to know I was English, but was happy to assume I would bend to his whims and speak to him in his mother tongue. Said well dressed gentleman, who turned out to be from London, had visited every single country in South America. Wow, I thought. This guy must have some stories! We sat and began to chat as the bus pulled out along the coast and chased the sunset to Montevideo. “Not much to see, don´t get excited” said the man. “Uruguay´s pretty boring.” For the record, Uruguay is far from boring - the people welcome you with open arms, and the waves lap at your feet on beaches that look as they would had Adam and Eve been dipping their toes in there for the very first time (plus the added comfort of air conditioning and bars that take visa!) But back to the bus guy… It turned out that despite having spent most of his adult life travelling South America, he stayed always in the plus hotels, didn´t speak one word of Spanish, and thought South Americans were impolite and generally in need of a haircut.

If you are going to travel, and I strongly recommend you do, then the first and only seriously important rule is mingle; mingle and try to let the new culture wash over you. I may have found myself in a fishing village in Uruguay without any cash because my dumb western brain was looking for a cash machine. But I managed and I had fun. My friend may have had to cancel on me and left me without a house to stay in BA at short notice, but I found another. And I had some great conversations in the process. Finally, I most certainly wouldn’t have ended up dancing salsa in the streets of Uruguay to the sound of bongo drums for the “Dia de la Mujer” (Lady´s day!) if I had stayed in the Sheraton!

And on that note, I head off to catch a bus to Sucre, Bolivia. 15 hours of fun await with nothing to do but sit, sleep and watch the world go by – plenty of time for a good mingle!