Purmamarca

Salta itself nestles on a flat plain surrounded by lush green hills. The bus ride north to San Salvador de Jujuy is much of the same - green, lush and beautiful. I'd enjoy it more were the guy next to me not a) fat and b) singing along to his iPod. At Jujuy I change for a bus to Purmamarca, just in time. I sit next to a guy called Diego and amaze myself by managing to sustain a fairly normal conversation. Could being out of Buenos Aires, in the real world, where no-one speaks English, be the stimulus my pidgin Spanish so desperately needs?

This leg of the journey is surreal. The green and pleasant land soon yields to a barren, red landscape as we snake our way up the Quebrada de Humahuaca, carved out by the now dry Rio Grande. Purmamarca itself is tiny, barely four blocks square. It sits beneath the cerro de los siete colores, but is actually in a small dip between three imposing peaks. It is real backpacker country.

For the first time in my life I climb off the bus into the dusty street and look for a hostel. I find one quickly enough. It's new (bonus). The foam mattress hasn't been softened up by years of (ab)use so I can probably get some sleep. I wander around with the camera and sit myself down for a beer in the square. It's hot. A stereo pumps out an Andean pipe music cover of the sound of silence without a hint of irony, but it still can't detract from the basic peace. This is a special place.

Salta la linda

Although it's only been just over two weeks since Uruguay, I already felt like getting out of town again. I am meant to be travelling after all.

Flying across Argentina is an awesome experience - it is both beautiful and vast. The eighth largest country in the world apparently. It certainly looks and feels like a different country when we touch down in Salta. The air is clean for a change, the people look more Andean, and I think they smile more too. The stunning landscape frames them with a peculiar beauty.

I'm trying to travel like a backpacker. I have a backpack, and no hotel or hostel reserved. My guide is the Lonely Planet's South America on a shoestring. First choice in my new guise: bus or cab. I'm a fraud. I take a cab. It´s two quid more. I check into a decent hotel I got out of the Frommers guide and after a nice shower I actually see the bus pass my window. South America on a towrope.

Salta is among the most beautiful towns I have ever visited. I start walking to the bus station to check out plans for tomorrow (not very cool of me I know). I walk through Parque San Martin with it's boating lake, little foodstalls and cable car to the overlooking peak. I feel a long way from Buenos Aires.

Iglesia San Francisco

Heading back towards town I spot the tower of Iglesia San Francisco, a stunningly ornate church. From here I head into the main square, Plaza 9 de Julio. I don´t exaaggerate when I say it is one of my favourite plazas anywhere in the world. Breathtaking buildings line each side, the greatest of them being the 19th century Iglesia Catedral, widely considered the most impressive in Argentina. Inside is even better. I sit and think peacefully for a few minutes. Some might go so far as to call it praying.

Iglesia Catedral, inside and out

The plaza itself is full of people. Schoolkids, workers, viejos. It seems as though the whole town is here, just kicking back and chilling out. Like they know how lucky they are to live somewhere like this, and they need do little more than to just gently soak it up. The other three sides of the square house two museums and the old town hall, or cabildo. There is a wonderful sense of colonial splendour, for once not decaying resentfully.

Plaza 9 de Julio

The place is clean too. You're not hopscotching your way through a maze of dog turds everywhere you go like in BA. It feels safe, even when I ambitiously seek out a restaurant late at night that is blatantly no longer there, and literally cross to the wrong side of the tracks. Salta is great. I am at peace. It goes on the list as somewhere I love straight away and to which I will return. But first I have to leave; a bus ride north, and more spendour, await.

El Superclasico

Football is kind of a big deal round here. And the biggest deal of all is Boca Juniors v River Plate - possibly the biggest game in club football and No 1 on the Observer's list of sporting events to see before you die.

Tickets are hard to come by for gringos, and much is made of the mortal danger you are in if you attempt to go on your own. Tours are organised with tickets changing hands for a 2000% mark up. If you want to go, you have no choice. And I want to go.

It's been a nice sunny week in Buenos Aires and I've been out and about most days. It hadn't even occurred to me that it might rain yesterday, but rain it did. I popped back for an extra cotton jacket to throw over my shorts and t-shirt, it was raining that much. A raincoat would have been a better idea.

There's a conspicuous band of assorted gringos waiting for the bus outside McDonalds, and we chat about football on our way to the game. The rain hammers on the windows. We get out about five blocks from La Bombanera, Boca's colourful stadium that resembles a stack of orange crates. The queue isn't moving, and the rain isn't stopping. Guys are selling bin bags for ten pesos, an even bigger mark up than the tickets. I have to buy one of these too. After about an hour of this, we finally come within range of the stadium itself.

I say within range of the stadium, I mean within range of the River fans. From the top of the stands they are spitting and throwing piss onto the assembled masses. Worse thing is, I decided a few weeks ago that River would be my equipo in Argentina. It would be pointless telling them that now. Mercifully I avoid the piss, and any spit is washed away instantly by the lashing rain.

We're too late for a decent spot in the stands, so armed with a couple of overpriced choripanes we loiter about at the back. We can see the pitch, and soak up the atmosphere. We're covered from the rain, have wrung out our clothes and are out of sight of the piss chuckers. A team of guys spend the hour before kick off re-painting the white lines. Their efforts are in vain as the rain washes them away within minutes. They press on regardless.

The atmosphere when the teams come out is electric. Chanting, stamping, singing, balloon waving, paper throwing, flare lighting madness. The stands above are shaking and moving a few feet or so as the fans jump and sing. I even throw a few bits of paper myself and try to work out what tense they are singing in. I think it's the imperative. I hear the word puta a lot.

The pitch is a joke; completely waterlogged. The referee agrees and stops the 'match' after ten minutes. Great.

Guess who I had in the back of my cab the other day...

My biggest problem with the language has been listening. Most of the time I just hear a jumbled mass of sounds. They speak almost continuously here. There is no ebb and flow, no rhythm like in Italian, and I am really strugling to extract the words I know from what people say. When I do succed, I often mistake one of the many conjugations for a new word. While I puzzle over this, the 'conversation' leaves me behind.

In my limited experience, Buenos Aires taxistas don't really talk in the same way their London counterparts do. At least not to gringos anyway. So it came as a nice surprise the other night when the guy sparked up a conversation, despite my quite blatantly not being a native. What's London like? How does it compare to Bs As? Crime. The causes of crime. (Easy enough given a robber is un robo). Football. All the essential cab based topics of conversation. I am holding my own, just about. More importantly, I am managing to decipher the gist of what he is saying.

The inevitable happens; I completely lose what he is talking about. He's looking at me enthusiastically in the rear view mirror, and I am compelled to resort to a series of sympathetic grunts, raised eyebrows and yes or nos as the tone of his voice indicates to keep my end of the bargain. Then it dawns on me - this is exactly what happens in 'conversations' with most black cabbies too, and I feel a whole lot better about the situation.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

My intention was to spend a month learning Spanish at the start of my trip. I’m reaching the end of my fourth week of lessons. At the outset, I was confident I could utilise the spare brain space freed up by my exit from the gambling industry and quickly assimilate the new information.

It turns out it's not quite that simple. I didn’t fully appreciate how tricky it would be. I mean, why would anyone want to learn a language that has fifteen different tenses?

I've always been a fairly quick learner, so it is unsettling and unfamiliar to sit in a classroom not understanding a word the guy says, and completely unable to see a way out of the maze of ignorance I've unwittingly led myself into.

My normal approach is to try and impose reason and structure upon things. Once you grasp how they work, what their rules are, then you can identify and understand the irregularities. In principle, I think, this works perfectly with a language. In practice, of course, it doesn't. My mind is overflowing with vocabulary, verbs and conjugations.

First I struggle to find the verb, then to decide upon the tense and finally I have to rake through the reams of conjugations and irregularities before arriving at my decision. The result? One word. Try making a sentence like that, or worst still holding a conversation.

Honestly, I really did think I could learn enough to get me by in a month. Hilarious I know. For now, I've just finished my tarea and might just have an early night in the hope that a restorative ten hours' kip is just what my poor little mind might need.

One thing's for sure - no Spanish lessons next week. Instead, I think a week free of commitment, just enjoying Buenos Aires. Up until now, I've struggled to find the time to enjoy it. That together with some serious Spanish consolidation, if the past month's miniscule advances are not to have been in vain.

Cocina Mediterránea

My first course at Gato Dumas, Tartas, Pizzas y Empanadas, was good fun, and we were making authentic Argentinian food. But the teaching wasn’t especially sophisticated, and I couldn’t understand a bloody thing. I didn’t really come to Argentina to learn about Mediterranean food, but last week, that’s what I had.

There were only five of us in the class, and in a different kitchen, we were right in front of the action. Taking the class was Ezequiel - a very good chef and an excellent teacher. He speaks a bit of English, but more importantly speaks clearly, so I could understand most of what he said.

Ezequiel

Each day we cook three courses, and each plate is very carefully thought out and balanced. Day one, we make filo vegetable rolls with balsamic reduction, papardelle with pancetta and chocolate fondant. The filo pastel is really good, as is the fondant, though the recipe doesn’t top the Gordon Ramsey one from the F-Word that I’ve always used.

Pastel de espinaca, feta y almendras

On Tuesday we knocked up Moussaka. I have no hesitation is saying it is the best moussaka I have ever tasted. Carefully arranged in a terracotta dish lined with the thinnest slices of aubergine, it is deliciously moist and succulent. For dessert we make baklava, one of my favourite things in the world. We also knock up a pretty good dish of chicken couscous.

Pechuga de ave con cous cous de frutos secos

My teammates and I

Next up, a rocket salad with goat's cheese. To follow, grilled tuna, but we use bonito (also Spanish for ‘cute’) instead. It’s served with confit fennel, creamy potato cake and garnished with tapenade and saffron infused oil. For dessert we have fruit kebabs with an awesome marsala foam.

Ensalada de rucola con queso de cabra

Bonito grillado con tapenade y torta de papas

Brochette de frutas con espuma de Marsala

Lastly, fried mozzarella, lamb chops and citrus fruits with honey and caramel shards. A great lesson in balancing dishes, plates and presentation. The lamb (undercooked for my liking) is paired with a cabbage and pancetta and a beautiful stuffed tomato. There's nothing too crazy about the other dishes - the cheese needed plenty of salsa, and the dessert spoke for itself.

Queso frito con salsa pomodoro

Costillas de cerdero

Cítricos con miel con sorbete de límon

I certainly didn't come to Argentina to learn about Mediterranean food, but it turned out to be a great reminder that you can learn a lot with great recipes and a good teacher, anywhere in the world. It was nice back in a kitchen, and a timely reminder of what my intentions were for the months ahead. I think I’d said something about learning how to cook…

Colonia del Sacramento

Small, old and very quaint. Cobbled streets and the remnants of a walled town. Tourists everywhere but somehow the nooks and crannies shelter them from sight. If only they could silence them too. Some choose golf buggies to get around the tiny town. Those who aren't American or Australian walk instead. The sun beats down, the mosquitoes bite. At dusk, the town gathers by the harbour to watch the sunset. When darkness falls, the restaurants ratchet up their prices a notch or two, and we duly fill them.

Colonia del Sacramento doesn't feel real. I keep expecting a black shirted Yul Brynner to turn a corner and start firing at me with a six-shooter. He doesn't. Don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful, magical place. But somehow, nagging away at me, is this sense that I'm just not in a real place. I'm talking like that's a bad thing but I guess, on reflection, it's probably not. Either way, just an hour from the scrambled chaos of Buenos Aires, it's not a bad place to bury your head in the sand for a day or two, and with sunsets like that, I might even come back.