D. J. Stanton
May 27th 2023
Buenos Aires
Leaving Chile behind brought immense relief, especially as we traded relentless smog and canine barking for the promise of Argentina and the unofficial blue dollar rate. Flying over the Andes offered a breathtaking view of Aconcagua before we touched down in Buenos Aires. Clearing customs with a British passport was remarkably smooth, and we soon secured a vintage four-star hotel room in San Telmo for a fraction of the cost. The city instantly captivated us with its vibrant blend of European architecture and Miami flair. We wandered past the Casa Rosada, navigated the intense energy of political protests outside Congress, and devoured phenomenal tomahawk steaks which cost next to nothing (and red wine) from the local parrillas. They made every meal an indulgence. From watching couples sway to the melancholic tunes of a traditional milonga to soaking in the football-mad atmosphere of La Boca, the capital felt alive and endlessly vibrant in our first two weeks there.
Recoleta
Wandering through the ornate necropolis of Recoleta felt less like visiting a graveyard and more like exploring a miniature city of the dead, where we brought along a film camera to capture the timeless mood as we traced the labyrinthine marble alleys to find Evita Perón's famous tomb. Though Eva Perón remains the undeniable focal point for most visitors, tucked quietly beneath a deceptively modest crypt five meters underground, the surrounding stone streets shelter an entire pantheon of Argentina's history. Alongside her resting place lie towering mausoleums dedicated to dozens of former presidents like Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Bartolomé Mitre, the Irish-born founder of the Argentine Navy Admiral William Brown, renowned writers such as Adolfo Bioy Casares, and tragic figures like Rufina Cambaceres, whose ornate Art Nouveau statue stands eternally before her door. Every neo-Gothic vault, weeping angel, and crumbling column tells the grand, complicated story of a nation's elite, turning a simple afternoon walk with a clicking shutter into a mesmerizing journey through past centuries.
May 16th 2023
Farm Life
Arriving at the bus terminal in Lobos, we were met by our host Gabriella, whose Canadian-accented English provided a welcome relief after weeks of broken Spanish. She navigated a bone-rattling dirt track out to her family estate in the vast Pampas, where a enthusiastic pack of five dogs greeted us at the tractor gate. Our self-contained annex was a dream, complete with a walk-in stone fireplace and actual hot running water. The romance of the rural setting quickly collided with hard reality as we were thrust into the nightly ritual of bottle-feeding Daisy, a vocal calf who demanded precise formula chemistry, alongside backbreaking days spent mucking out barn stalls and repairing perimeter fences.Between the manual labor, we integrated into the rhythm of the ranch, absorbing the contrast between our daily chores and our hosts' worldly past. Evenings brought grand invitations to the main house for flaky empanadas, velvety Malbec, and slow-cooked asado grills prepared with religious devotion by Marco, a towering former gaucho. A routine chore clearing out an old, spider-draped garage turned into a bizarre history lesson when I unearthed a rare 1961 copy of Fidel Castro's La Revolución en Marcha. Whether we were deciphering political manifestos in the dust or lying awake at 3 a.m. to a chaotic symphony of protective farm dogs, radical adaptation was officially becoming our primary trade.The ultimate test of our resilience arrived when Marco saddled three horses and challenged us to ride gaucho-style with zero safety gear. Holding the reins in one hand, I found myself white-knuckling a chocolate stallion at a terrifying thirty miles per hour down a gravel road while Marco yelled for higher hips and passing pickup drivers nodded in approval. Somehow surviving the sprint with only a torn pair of trousers and a bruised leg, I earned a subtle nod of respect from the local farmhands. We wrapped up our three-week stay with a final feast of tender beef, emotional farewells, and a mysterious text from a nearby host named Daniel offering an open-ended stay, ready for whatever wild chapter came next.
"It was then he knew he f'd up..."
June 12th 2023
Abbot
Escaping high-rise luxury in Buenos Aires, we headed to Abbot to stay with Daniel, a local host running a secluded farmstead. We arrived in a rattling 1998 Fiat and were greeted by Pisco, a wiry, hairless Xolo dog who looked like a mythical goblin and immediately attached himself to Julia. I found it only right to donate my batman shirt to him. Farm life here was raw and unvarnished. When food ran low, Daniel casually hauled a frozen pig carcass onto the outbuilding table, methodically sawing through bone to prepare cuts for traditional pollo al disco while we watched in surreal, shell-shocked silence.
Between painting asado pits and clearing scrap metal, we stumbled into an unexpected historical treasure hunt. The outbuilding housed a pristine 1800s cast-iron Singer sewing machine brought by Italian Fascists who fled Europe in 1944. Driven by curiosity, I eventually cracked open the rusted lock on the abandoned stables to reveal a hidden trove straight out of an adventure film. Inside sat an ornate rapier sword, an 1899 St. Andrews golfing iron, brass-bound trunks, and a striking oil painting of a flamenco dancer, though finding five live carbine rifle rounds in a drawer quickly cured my appetite for antiquing.
As an unseasonal heatwave crashed into a brutal winter storm, the farm turned to freezing mud and our thoughts shifted to moving on. The hardest part of leaving was breaking Pisco's heart. Over three weeks, the little dog had formed an unbreakable bond with Julia, following her everywhere and even tracking us miles to the local train station. To keep him from running onto the highway in the freezing rain, Julia had to coax him into a spare room and click the latch shut. His desperate wails echoed through the storm as we picked up our rucksacks and trudged down the dirt track, leaving another wild, unforgettable chapter behind us.
Stacking a thousand kilos...
to prop up a wall
we found treasure
Fascist treasure from the Italian family that escaped here after WW2 (Illustrated)
Salta
July 4th 2023
Stepping off the long bus into Salta, the thin, crisp air at 1,100 meters signaled a dramatic shift in our northern journey. After exploring the city's raw charm and conquering a punishing speed run up Cerro San Bernardo, we rented a battered manual car to push toward the Bolivian border. However, our grand plans hit a literal wall of smoke in Purmamarca. A fierce indigenous protest had blocked the national highway with burning tires and human barricades to protect ancestral lands from corporate mining. Turnbacks were non-negotiable, forcing us to abandon our Bolivia dream and pivot instantly on the fly.
Refusing to let the setback defeat us, we redirected our rental car south toward Cafayate along Route 68, carving through the jaw-dropping red canyons of the Quebrada de las Conchas. The winding drive led us straight into the legendary Seven Waterfalls hike, a death-defying scramble up slick vertical rock faces alongside a local guide and three stray dogs. The adventure turned terrifying when I slipped on a mossy ledge and barely saved myself from a fifty-meter drop, only to throw my body across the wet stone minutes later to grab one of the stray dogs by the leg right as it slipped over a thirty-meter precipice.
Surviving the climb with every finger and dog intact, we explored the ancient stone fortress of the Quilmes people and listened to native pipes echo inside a giant natural rock amphitheater before returning the car. Watching warm, multi-generational family farewells at the Salta bus terminal that evening softened the sting of our failed border crossing. As the overnight coach rumbled south, I realized that our chaotic detour through the canyon had delivered far more magic than any planned route ever could, proving once again that true travel is defined by how gracefully you adapt when the map falls apart.
Bio Domos, Sugar Crusts, and the Lumberjack Life
July 27th, 2023
After our Bolivia plans collapsed at a protest blockade, we retreated to Córdoba to battle the administrative nightmare of visa renewals before snagging a lifeline in Villa Dolores with a host named Fede. Arriving at his rustic stone house, we were greeted by the hilarious revelation that yet another insanely talented French volunteer had preceded us, cementing our theory that we were accidentally following a phantom trail across South America. When Fede left for two weeks, we took charge of his eccentric trio of cats and dived headfirst into his eco-construction project, swapping urban anxiety for the tactile rhythm of building Bio Domos in the shadow of the ancient Traslasierra mountains.
Under the guidance of a wise local carpenter named Gabby, we spent scorching days digging foundation trenches by hand and charring timber posts over oil-fueled fires to rot-proof them for a central corridor. Evenings turned into masterclasses in regional gastronomy as Fede taught us the high-stakes art of Córdoba-style empanadas, complete with spiced beef, raisins, and a signature sugar crust that caramelized in the ferociously hot oven. Between wrestling with sticky dough and losing intense nightly games of Settlers of Catan, the grueling physical work transformed into a deeply satisfying routine of shared meals and hard-earned local trust.
When our time with Fede ended, we moved just down the road to stay with Magda and Beto at their pristine alpine cabins, swapping earthbag building for the primal art of firewood management. Guided by Beto's passionate, lumberjack-style precision, I spent my days reading wood grain, splitting pine rounds for quick blazes, and stacking dense quebracho logs for long-burning warmth. Paired with Magda's warm hospitality, Beto's legendary slow-cooked asado feasts over the coals, and the crisp mountain air, our second host stint offered an unforgettable masterclass in rural Argentine living before the open road called us south toward Patagonia.
Flight of the Condor & the Llama
July 29th, 2023
Following a lengthy interruption from a Llama ( he did try to steal my girlfriend) , the final push to the ridge was a punishing test. Our lungs burned in the thin alpine air as Julia and I scrambled over the jagged granite boulders, our thighs aching from hours of relentless climbing. When we finally hauled ourselves onto the exposed peak, the mountain dropped away into a staggering panorama of deep valleys and snow-dusted ridges stretching out toward the horizon. Sweaty, wind-whipped, and completely exhausted, we collapsed onto the rocks to catch our breath, completely unaware that the real climax of the climb was about to sweep in silently from the sky.
A sudden, rushing whisper of air was our only warning before a massive shadow swept across the rock face beside us. We ducked instinctively as an Andean condor banked low over the ridge, passing so close we could hear the wind humming through its stiff wing feathers. The scale of the bird was unbelievable, spanning nearly ten feet from tip to tip. Its jet-black wings ended in long, splayed primary feathers that twitched delicately to catch the thermals, while a stark collar of fluffy white down wrapped around its neck like a snowy scarf. Without a single flap of its massive wings, it tilted its bald, ancient-looking head toward us, locking a dark, curious eye on our motion-frozen figures as it carved an effortless arc through the sky.
Standing motionless on the wind-swept summit, we held our breath as the giant aviator glided just meters above our heads before banking hard against the draft and riding the thermal back into the clouds. The encounter left us speechless, stripping away the fatigue of the long climb and replacing it with a quiet, exhilarating awe. In a world where we had spent weeks fighting for control over stubborn machinery, unbroken soil, and unpredictable journeys, being quietly observed by a living relic of the Andes was a humbling reality check. Watching its dark silhouette fade into the blue expanse, we stood a little taller on the peak, knowing that the brutal trek up the mountain had granted us a rare front-row seat to pure, untamed freedom.
August 19, 2023
Lobos del Mar and the Patagonian Horizon
Trading the dusty heat of northern deserts for the icy gales of Patagonia, we flew south to Trelew before settling into the coastal outpost of Puerto Madryn. Carved directly out of the barren tundra, the town greeted us with gale-force Antarctic winds and a surprisingly pristine apartment that cost under fifty pounds for six nights. Resting high above the Golfo Nuevo with warm underfloor heating and a private balcony, it offered an improbable luxury after months of rural shacks. Standing outside at dawn with hot mugs of coffee while trawler lights twinkled in the dark bay, we recharged our batteries, ready to dive headfirst into the freezing wilderness on our doorstep.
Determined to experience the local sea life, we squeezed into tight wetsuits and plunged into the freezing swell alongside a wild colony of lobos del mar, or sea wolves. Treading water against the heavy currents, we were instantly accepted by sleek, curious pups that darted around our masks like energetic underwater bouncers. The adrenaline continued out on the Valdés Peninsula, where we pushed a clunky rental car down unmapped dirt tracks to witness four-tonne elephant seals sparring on the pebbles. We capped off the road trip perched on a high cliff edge, watching mother and calf southern right whales breach gracefully in the calm nursery waters below.
As breathtaking as the southern coast was, the relentless march of the Patagonian winter was rapidly shutting down farms further south, forcing us to pivot our route north toward Mendoza. Watching the wild coastline vanish beneath us on the flight out, a heavy fatigue began to settle over the thrill of the open road. Constant moving, packing, and adapting to unpredictable environments had taken a toll, leaving us exhausted but deeply grateful as we descended into the clouds, hoping whatever waited on the tarmac in Mendoza would be worth unpacking for one more time.
August 22nd, 2023
Wine Trails and Fawlty Towers in Mendoza
We arrived in Mendoza and immediately immersed ourselves in its high-altitude wine culture, pedaling wobbly rental bicycles between historic bodegas under the blazing sun. Wanting to stay longer, we accepted a volunteer role managing a glamping site in Luján de Cuyo, right at the foothills of the Andes. However, the moment we arrived, the host's mother handed us a set of keys, climbed into a car, and drove away. Suddenly, two English travellers with rudimentary Spanish were left entirely in charge of a remote resort with paying guests pulling up the driveway.
What followed was a wild crash course in hospitality survival. We spent our days rehearsing key Spanish phrases, handling cash payments, and troubleshooting noisy air conditioning units for weary travelers while keeping up with relentless physical labor. Between scrubbing fine desert dust from the dome windows and building Swedish fires in our cabin, I found myself balancing on ladders patching roofs and swinging pickaxes to dig trenches, dropping tools whenever new guests arrived needing a welcoming smile.
Although there were moments of magic, like sharing a charred pumpkin and blue-cheese fondue by the fire on my birthday, the line between volunteering and total exploitation blurred. The breaking point arrived when the host expected us to dig six-foot plumbing trenches near guest beds while he spent the weekend in the city. Realizing we had reached our absolute limit, we drew a firm boundary, packed our rucksacks, and moved on, having learned a crucial lesson in standing up for ourselves on the road.
Aconcagua
drove 6 hours for a shy mountain...
Regar
September 28th
After weeks of traversing the arid stretches of the north, we found ourselves amidst the verdant, water-logged fields of San Rafeal. The transition was jarring—from dust to deep mud. Under the cloak of a heavy September night, we joined the local farmers in the critical ritual of nocturnal irrigation. Armed with only a humble flashlight and a rusted hoe, I followed Louie into the knee-deep water, the cold chill of the mountain runoff biting through my boots. The silence of the countryside was broken only by the rhythmic splash of our movements and the distant call of an owl. In that focused beam of light, the mundane task of guiding water through dirt trenches felt ancient and sacred. This wasn't just manual labour; it was a delicate dance with the lifeblood of the valley, a lesson learned in the dark about the true cost and beauty of growth in this unforgiving landscape.
Getting better at this woodsman thing
Abductions
well , not quite
October 15th 2023
Salt Flats
The Salinas Grandes were a blinding white that seemed more to resemble the white of a snowcap than the middle of a flat, salty land. The silence was absolute, humming with a wind that would pick up and then suddenly drop again. I decided to take a solitary walk out across the knee-high water, leaving Julia at the entrance. I wanted to see where some of this place led past the salty water, which was preventing me and some other local tourists from exploring further. After a time I came out the other end, and I stumbled across these abandoned mining tracks 20 minutes into the walk. Around an hour later, after a bizarre video phone call with my parents, I realised that a cloud cover had come in deeper than these last photos would show. The horizon had shifted for me...
The phone powered down (I was convinced it was fully charged), and every direction looked identical. It was an endless expanse of crystalline geometry that can only be described as purgatory. During the time spent lost out there for what seemed like an eternity, I felt judged by my past. I will be honest: I feel lucky to have survived this place.
The panic firmly flared as the compass spun on a dime (what madness was this?). This place is well over five times the size of the UK, and that had just begun to sink in. I began walking in what felt like the original direction, my boots crunching loudly in the stillness, feeling the fourth, fifth, and sixth prickle of true vulnerability as the light began to diminish. I decided the walking was not helping, so I just stayed in one place, sitting on the daypack.
Luckily, the stars began to show, which was positive and incredible, as it indicated to me that by sunrise, if I just stayed still and warm enough, I could find the horizon again. It took another six hours of methodical patience and water conservation before the dark gave way. I could see my focal point at sunrise off into the distance once more and I headed back in that direction before finding my footsteps from earlier, and as it appeared like a mirage at first... I then found the train tracks. Then a good Argentine family with a car at the entrance found me walking towards them , hitting my wall. They saw I was weak and deshavelled. Luckily Julia had headed back to our homestay, obviosuly worried to death. I was weak, but the water and lucky run in with the family meant I hadn't needed urgent medical care for severe dehydration. Thiswould normally had have to result in a IV or drip being adminstered which in this rural part of the world would not have been likely. The local doctor checked me over once I made it back to the village catching a ride with the family and I was good to go. I felt fine, physically. Just a little stupid and like I had fasted for a week...A mixture of patience and dumb luck saved my life. Beware: these places are beautiful but very dangerous. I kept thinking after: Would you walk out into the middle of a sandy desert, idiot?
Mendoza
October 30th 2023
I snuck into a local football game between rivals. No goals while I was there ( I think it ended 1-0 to Mendoza) but the pitch invasion and the party after were incredible...