Big bears in Buenos Aires

Into the wild! The journey has truly begun now we have left Buenos Aires. We left on the 7.45pm night train on Monday, bound for Bahia Blanca, 600km south.

We paid AR$44 each for the privilege - around £6.50 - and nobody could accuse us of not having got what we paid for. The train itself was something else, it could have rolled straight out of a spaghetti Western. Instead of individual seats the carriage was full of little padded benches, there were metal slatted pull-down shutters over the windows and sparks occasionally flew in off the tracks if they were left open. But thirteen chilly and more or less sleepless hours later (although the situation was improved by Chris's hammock) we arrived in Bahia Blanca at 9.40am Tuesday.

We had a great time in BA with our hosts Noelia and Fran, and of course Tomas the lovely but extremely silly dog, and learnt a lot about the political and economic situation here in Argentina chatting over good food and drink! All fascinating to hear about and we look forward to learning more. We also all agreed that being young is way cool. We found nothing but the same Argentine hospitality in our BB host, Walter, who did not mind at all that we went straight to sleep upon arrival.

Before we left BA we met up with a guy, Jonny, who is a big part of the Graffitimundo organisation we took a street art tour with on Friday and who knows pretty much everything about street art and its importance for the communities here. It is totally different from the UK in that, while technically still illegal, prosecutions are extremely rare. Even politicians use graffiti and street art as a major part of their campaigns - something we're seeing a lot of as there is a presidential election next month. The relaxed attitude means artists feel comfortable taking their time and are able to paint during the day, and the results are incredible. We've seen some pretty good examples down in Bahia Blanca, too.

Last night Walter very kindly invited us to his parents' house to join in a family asado, barbecue, which was like no other barbecue we have ever experienced. The grill was built into the garage wall - dads: yes, you do want one - and the food was incredible. Just a short stay in town, though, and Thursday morning we shall be up bright and early to hopefully catch a lift south; we are hoping to hitch-hike to Puerto Madryn or Trelew in one or two days. It all depends on the lifts. Happy hitching!

SARAH