The Waiting Room

A rusty taxi speeds down cobbled streets and empties it's contents under a street lamp. Two tourists are bundled through the glass door in painful panic, and white robes usher the newcomers into the waiting room.

A familiar smell of cleanliness and chemicals fills the air, and patients settle down dazed and distant. Friends and relatives tap their feet and exchange worried glances, whilst in the corner, a little girl plays with her favourite toy, oblivious to her sterile surroundings.

Playful posters instruct on everything from tissue disposal to hand washing, and the wall clock ticks another slow second.

Unpronounceable names are called, and a theatrical performance begins, whereby mime translates days of sleepness nights and experiments with backpackers' pills. Kind smiles and patience brings a diagnosis and a drip, and promise for morning health. Bodily fluids are placed in universal plastic pots, and the waiting begins once more.

Dawn brings anxious butterflies to the hospital, until another white coat brings a piece of white paper. Ushered back to the consultation room, the doctor translates a foreign medical langauge into a second foreign language. Grappling for understanding, it soon transpires that the words they waited for were the same.

Clutching scribbles of advice and a handful of prescriptions, they head to the pharmacy, for orange potions and white powders to cure the indefineable illness. And soon stepping back out of the medical world, they head back to Bolivia.

Foreigners in Filadelphia

With the smoke still rising from the ashes of Europe, fearful families sailed for South America. Following whispers from distant Paraguay, they found their safe haven amongst fellow Mennonites, who had already fled Soviet persecution.

They built sleepy streets under a baking sun, and sixty years later still continue to greet each other in low German. But whilst the vastness of the Chaco has kept save a threatened communty, such self-imposed isolation has bred a hostile suspicion towards The Other.

Here lies a cruel irony, as the mennonites prospered amongst thousands of welcoming indigenous people, who now clean their houses and cook their dinners. Despite relying on this interdependent relationship for decades, the indigenous population are still deemed entirely untrustworthy; some groups are in fact too lazy to be employed at all.

Such knowledge taints a stroll down the dusty streets of Filadelphia, which soon begins to bear an uncanny resemblance to Harper Lee's Maycomb. Blues eyes and pale skin disguised our identity for a moment, although inquisitive gazes soon turned to frowns on realising that we were not infact visitors from the German homeland.

Rejected entirely, we sought our escape, and failed; the elderly ticket seller merely mumbling of her dislike of foreigners. Third time lucky, and we clutched our golden tickets which would take us across the border, and towards post-1945 tolerance.

In Defence of Asunción

Slipping across the border, Paraguay appears to be everything those on the outside say it is; chaos infused with an abundance of cheap electronic and corruption. Nestled between the continent's richest and poorest nations, it achieves neither the grandeur of Argentina, nor the romantic charm of Bolivia. Yet away from the cluttered hawkers stalls and makeshift tents which line the road out of Cuidad del Este, and unwatched from the outside world, city dwellers delight in Asunción.

A soft tap stirs my first morning in the capital, whilst a kind whisper invites me to breakfast. Slipping out of soft sheets, I follow the scent of freshly brewed coffee. An hour later I am being guided around the city's sights by my host's company driver, who proudly points to the continent's oldest this 'n' that. Soon the high-fliers are heading home for lunch, leaving London's lawyers to inhale processed sandwiches at their desks.

The sun retires early this winter's eve, leaving brave locals to battle mild temperatures for a poolside barbeque. Inside, friends gather on worn leather sofas over bottles of Chilean wine, passing plates piled with local treats.

Thousands of miles away, a computer screen clock marks the start of a new day. Unnoticed, the city worker types another minute closer to the dawn deadline, and thinks nothing of his calmer counterparts.

The City of God?

Standing in a hostel reception, a pale girl shakes uncontrollaby. She has seen the statue of Christ, and thrown herself infront of speeding cars to be with God. A few hours later in the same building, a teenager will drink one too many vodkas and spray vomit across his sheets.

For this is Rio, where Christ and vice battle beneath a cloudless sky.

Such extremes form the sandy spine of the city, where rows of religious statues cast their watchful eyes over the sex shop next door. Just streets away, an ageing church demands confession from the glowing red motel beside it.

Across town, Paradise exists at Ipanema beach, where the fallen wrap their barely-there bikinis in ´Redeemer´sarongs. For the faithless, Christ has been enveloped in affordable kitsch, glowing green, blue and yellow all the way home.

And so riding the `Redeemer´ bus the morning after, one cannot help but feel that in this city of God and the Godless, there is at least a sunbed for everyone.

Ten Hours in Chuy

Born and bred on an island nation, my concept of border crossing generally involves check in, fly, immigration, go. Even on the mainland, driving through Europe involves nothing more than a stampless wave to the border guards. Try getting from Uruguay to Brazil, however, and you will find yourself exploring the strange anomoly that is Chuy.

Having jumped off the bus on the edge of town, we were unceremoniously stamped out of Uruguay and into no mans land. A brisk walk down shady streets led to the Brazilian bus station, where bored staff wait behind a rusty wire mesh. The dusty timetable is for display purposes only; there is no bus for the next 10 hours. And so we pay in Uruguan pesos for our Brazilian bus, and head back towards the main street.

Here lies the true border, lined with ´Duty Free´ shops piled high with panini presses and home entertainment sets. One side of the road hosts a broken ATM, which gives Uruguan pesos and US dollars. The latter are rejected on either side, whilst Brazilian reais free flowly from nowhere.

Attempting to flee the confusion, a fellow purgatory resident directs us to a pensión on the Uruguan side (the Brazilian side of the road is more expensive, of course). Greeted with strange looks by our bearded host, he nonetheless guides us up creaky wooden steps and through a hole-in-the-wall sliding door. We are left to contemplate our new abode, where a bunkbed reaches the ceiling, the dusty 70´s TV sits unplugged in the corner, and a lone mosquito drifts through a rusty window. With nine hours to go, I begin to read the list of ´house rules´hanging on the wall, and take note that we must ´keep the room clean´. Eight hours left, and I slip into faded sheets and wait for dawn.

Shuffling to the bus stop at first light, we are accompanied by nothing more than a limping dog and brooding clouds. Without hesitation we jump on the bus, hoping to be driven far away from this uncertain place. A few miles out of town, we speedily reverse; the Brazilians forgot to stamp our passports.

A Coca-Cola Country

Forever bus bored, as a last resort I turn to my drink carton for an informal Spanish lesson in all things juice-related. However, I am regrettably informed (in English) that my Latin American sugar rush is in fact owned by the mighty Coca-Cola Company. Sigh. This infamous logo brings with it images of slaughtered union workers in Colombia, drained farms in India, and a host of other sticky situations said company would prefer to hush up. And so I hastily blacklisted one more ´Argentine´ beverage, before entering Uruguay in the hope that this little nation had escaped such a partnership.

But rather than allowing Coca-Cola to subtly infiltrate its national drinks market, Uruguay has gone one step further, and stamped the garish logo all over it´s sandy soil.

Quiet beaches are presided over not by a trusty lifeguard or signs warning of terrible tides, but by Coca-Cola flags ten feet tall. The classic emerald green kioskos of Colonia have been painted over in the recogniseable red, whilst rusty brand memorabilia has infiltrated the charming clutter of antique stalls. Even the local rositerias have been united countrywide by one advertising board, detailing the delicious fresh pastries on sale, which must be washed down with a fizzy splash of e-numbers.

Uruguay is often regarded as living in the shadow of its giant southern neighbour. But in reality, is it not the imposing Coca-Cola umbrellas which are casting a darker shadow on the streets of Montevideo?

The Importance of Wilderness

Bleary eyes open as a sleepy bus grinds to a halt. Peering between the cheap red curtains, a dark expanse of nothingness is revealed; dusty shrubs illuminated by a few hundred stars. Yet the door slides open, luggage is dropped onto tarmac, and a cheerful passenger trundles off into the distance. With no buildings in sight, eyes dart backwards and still spy nothing more than an empty road. Leaving the remaining passengers perlexed, she continues her steady walk. The bus pulls away, and a dozen hours later a Patagonian town will appear out of this unforgiving landscape.

And after a hundred hours of bus journeys, I sit at the end of the earth and contemplate the wilderness which lies in every direction. Here the power of an impatient car horn is lost against a new soundtrack - chunks of ice plummeting from a glacier wall, woodpeckers incessantly drilling in the trees, sea-lions smacking their weight against the shore.

A nice stroll in the park is replaced by a battle against the unforgiving winds, which playfully toss tourists to the ground. Those who press on face stinging snowfall and a labyrinth of tree roots clinging to the boggy ground. Some inevitably pack up their tents and head back up north, having finally realised the embarrassing fragility of the human self.

But for those who remain, a sense of awe is awakened in the visitors´mind. Against our human failings, nature thrives. Vivid red leaves paint the mountain side, preying birds soar, and we are left stumbling home to the fireside.

Watching us from between the clouds, the jagged peaks of Fitz Roy provide a faint menace, reminding us that no matter how many buses and guidebooks we bring to Patagonia, this is one place which has already been conquered.