Don’t you hate it when the internet drops out just when you click “publish” on a long blog post? One that you didn’t save to the clipboard because you didn’t think you’d need to? And lose the lot? I had just finished a long post about the last three days of our trip, but don’t think I can resurrect the finer details of it. The essence of it was that we wanted – and got – a thoroughly relaxing end to our holiday.

In fact we relaxed much more than I expected during this trip. Our last big journey through Europe in 2007 involved six cities in two weeks, and while great it was exhausting. This journey we wanted to spend more time in destinations and less time travelling between them. We succeeded admirably, and while we had quite a few big nights out we actually had more quiet nights in just reading, chatting or watching a movie. We spent hours in cafes quietly reading, and through the trip I read four books cover-to-cover: Haruki Murakami’s Dance Dance Dance, Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight and Phillipa Gregory’s The Other Boelyn Girl. All very good to sublime (Murakami is a genius) apart from Twilight, which was a passable page-turner but hardly worth all the hype.

Rather than visit somewhere different for our last three days in Chile, we decided to return to the most peaceful hostel in the most beautiful city we’d seen: Valparaiso. Unlike our previous visit when we had the place to ourselves, this time it was near-full (about 15 guests) but still retained its sense of calm. We had one sociable night at a barbeque with the other guests, which was boozy and lots of fun. We had a very quiet following day, where we only left the hostel to go for lunch at a nearby restaurant with heartstopping views over the city and bay. We did nothing else that day except sleep and read, and then hung out that night with some other guests in the back yard. We went shopping for souvenirs in Cerro Allegre, Cerro Concepcion and the nearby resort town of Vina Del Mar. We read some more and enjoyed the sun.

I didn’t miss television at all while away. Nor radio. I didn’t even check what was happening in the world much, and didn’t mind not knowing what was going on. I relaxed more than I have for ages. And I don’t have an ounce of stress about going back to work on Monday.

What more could you want from a holiday, eh?

Before you start to worry, nothing bad happened to us while travelling. However we heard several first-hand accounts of theft, robbery and even a mugging in just three weeks.

We weren’t really concerned about safety until Buenos Aires (BA), when our taxi driver from the airport spent the entire 40 minute journey cautioning us about the many ways in which BA cabbies can rip you off. It’s worth noting that we ignored all the taxi touts at the terminal (there are lots of them, they are aggressive and some say “official, official” while waving a definitely non-official taxi card in your face) and made our way to the official Airport taxi service, which has a blue booth just outside the arrivals hall. You pay your fixed-price fare to the city at the booth and then wait until the driver arrives to pick up the receipt and take you to your car. The kiosk attendant warned us to stay very close to the booth in case a false “driver” attempted to come and pick us up. Thank you to Lonely Planet for that advice – as we later heard, it might well have saved us from misery later on.

There is a big problem with counterfeit banknotes in Argentina, usually with AR$50 and AR$100 notes but all notes apart from AR$2 and AR$5 may be false. The most common taxi driver con is when you go to pay for your fare (which would usually only be AR$10-25) with a AR$50 or AR$100 note. The driver takes your note, secretly switches it for a fake note then hands the fake one back to you and says he doesn’t have enough change. You then pay with smaller bills and the driver pockets your genuine 50/100 as well. Our driver suggested we write down the last two serial numbers on the note before handing it over, that way you would ensure you got the same note back. We tried a different tack, ALWAYS ensuring we had the correct amount in small notes or coins, and did not have any problems.

Another method of outright theft is for the driver to simply zoom off with your bags still in the boot if you get out of the car before him. Our driver recommended we not exit the car until the driver had turned off the engine and got out of the driver’s seat. We were also advised not to travel with the windows down, as a stranger on foot could reach into the car and grab your bag. He admitted this had actually happened to him six months earlier while waiting at traffic lights. He was convincingly scary, and for the first three days in BA we walked everywhere, not even taking a train!

You might think the concerns are overblown, but we heard two accounts of robbery by taxi driver while in BA. One from a young guy who went out one night, did the right thing by getting a taxi back to the hostel but was threatened and robbed by the driver on the way. Another older man we struck up conversation with in a cafe said that he had been robbed by a driver who picked him up at the airport. He followed one of the touts who promised to take him into town for a fixed price of AR$100, but instead drove to somewhere in the grimy suburbs and demanded AR$200 before continuing further. The man paid, fearing even worse treatment if he did not.

The most serious account happened during our second stay in Valparaiso in Chile. Chile is considered one of the safest countries in South America, and we certainly never felt in danger at any time. Of course you still need to be sensible: don’t travel to dodgier areas at night, or take a taxi if you do, don’t carry too much money on you, hold your bags close at all times, etc. Tori, a tall and young American woman was out taking photographs in the impossibly picturesque streets of Valparaiso. She was alone and she was holding a very expensive camera by her side, but it was mid-afternoon on a moderately busy street only a very short distance from the hostel, so on balance should have been safe.

Tori was approached by three youths who asked if they could bum some cigarettes. She obliged and carried on walking down the street. Suddenly she was grabbed from behind and the cigarettes shoved in her mouth, a hand held roughly over her face. Shocked but quick to react, she pulled a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the attackers in the arm which caused them to push her to the ground and run off with the camera. Fortunately some police officers were nearby and they managed to catch the kid with the camera, which was returned to Tori. They also took her to the hospital where she was attended to for some large scrapes and scratches, but otherwise unhurt apart from the shock.

In another story also heard in Valpo, two Australians travelling together through South America for over four months had no problems anywhere until just three weeks from home, when their room was broken into and their valuables stolen (including passports). Pickpockets are also a threat on the metro and around tourist areas of the bigger cities, apparently, but we didn’t hear any stories of falling victim to them.

We were very glad that nothing happened to us, though as we were travelling together we were much safer than if we were alone. I will seriously consider extra measures when travelling by myself through Asia, such as carrying a second “sacrificial” wallet with not much in it in case I get robbed. Stuart, who has travelled extensively through Asia, had done similar things for years because even the old standard of a money belt is pretty obvious these days.

But don’t let the fears worry you too much that you don’t consider visiting South America – it’s great! Everyone we met while travelling, whether on a short trip like our or a six month odyssey around the entire continent, absolutely loved it and would happily see more if they could. I’m in that boat: I’ve already pencilled in various two-month itineraries that would allow me to visit Peru-Bolivia-Ecuador, or Argentina-Uruguay-Paraguay, or Brazil-Surinam-French Guiana…

The next day (Thursday 17th) was a day of travel. We had heard very good things about Tigre just north of Buenos Aires, or more accurately the large river delta just above it where people live in stilted houses and the only way to get around is by boat. Rather than go the easy way back to BA by fast ferry and then train to Tigre, we decided to head north by bus to the small town of Carmelo where a ferry connected directly with Tigre. It was a different way to get there and would give us a chance to see another part of Uruguay.

Unfortunately, Carmelo is a dreary shithole that we could not wait to escape. Dirty, dusty streets where in some areas perhaps half the buildings are derelict. An uninspiring central plaza. The leafless trees that lined every street were a nuisance because it was impossible to walk the footpath without dodging a tree every ten metres. Aggressive stray dogs followed us the entire time, which of course suggests how much dog shit there was to avoid. And easily the worst meal we have eaten on this holiday… we did the right thing: wandering town at lunchtime looking for a place that actually had customers (which was hard, as there were barely five places open at all). Things looked well when we scanned the menu and finally ordered different daily specials, but the food itself was appalling. My roast chicken was so dry it could suck moisture from the air, and came with an over-salted potato salad that was inedible. And Joel was served a truly unidentifiable piece of gristly, fatty meat. It had a very odd taste, somewhat akin to pork but unlike anything either of us have ever tasted (and I’ve tried a few unusual meats). It was meant to be beef. Speaking about it a day or two later with a friendly host in BA, he said with some caution “I don’t THINK they eat dog in Uruguay”. But he wasn’t certain.

With relief we boarded our ferry to Tigre, and were surprised that we spent nearly all of the two and a half hour trip actually travelling through the delta. Stilted houses of every type were dotted throughout the channels, from very modern and large mansions to ancient and decaying shacks. As we got closer and closer to Tigre the houses got closer together, but it was not until we only minutes from the town that we saw our first car. Out in the delta, boat is the only way to get around.

The guidebook had suggested that Tigre itself didn’t have much to offer, so we had booked a hostel that was actually somewhere in the delta. Something different, something interesting, right? I assumed it would be fairly close to town, perhaps 15-20 minutes, and all we had to do was get one of the local ferries to take us there. Due to the late arrival of the ferry from Carmelo we just missed the 5.30pm boat, so we made sure we got on the 6.30pm which was the last local ferry of the day. In fact we were almost the last people on, and crawling inside the long barge we noticed it was very full. Probably overloaded, actually, judging by the fact that the waterline was barely one foot below the window sill. That didn’t stop our pilot from drag racing with another ferry as we left port of course, and my heart leapt to my mouth when the nose of our craft plunged underwater while passing through someone else’s bow wave. Fortunately we surfaced, and after a few people got off the waterline rose a little and I was able to relax a bit.

Did I mention it was dark? And raining? Because we’d missed the earlier boat it was twilight when we took off, and within half an hour there was little to see through the windows but blackness. Our pilot drove at speed through the night, sometimes missing jutting piers by only a couple of metres, with just a hand-held flashlight and years of local knowledge to guide him. After 45 minutes I gave in completely to the experience and was enjoying this journey into nowhere – we had no choice but to trust the ferry crew with our lives. After 90 minutes, I was beginning to wonder if we were being delivered back into Uruguay… eventually we entered more open water, which I think truly was the demarkation line between the two countries. There were choppy waves all around us, and the pilot’s torch was having a hard job seeing them in the gloom. After a few more heartstopping moments the attendant tapped us on the shoulder and we got set to land. Running through the rain with our bags we saw the warm, inviting lights of our hostel up ahead and raced to the warmth.

And discovered that on this night, our newly-built hostel (a resort, really) which could house over 70 people was empty apart from us and the manager. The manager, Geraldo, had no english. And the satellite internet was down. We ordered a beer. That night we played pool for a while, then cards, while watching Latin American Idol which Geraldo was watching on the big screen TV. We then invited Geraldo to join us for a drink or two while he pumped music through the speakers at high volume. Nothing else to do, really, though we made the most of it as best we could.

The next day there was no power, which meant no hot water either. We boarded the return ferry at midday, which took almost two hours to get us back to Tigre. We certainly had a very detailed tour of the delta over these two days! By this stage we had no interest in exploring the town and just wanted to get to our next digs in BA, so we went to the train station and slept as the train headed south.