News travel fast. The word is out – all the mozzies have found out where I’m staying. And boy, do they love my blood! So much that I got malaria when working in Kenya and because of the that the Icelandic bloodbank doesn’t want my blood. And I was going to be a good citizen and donate blood regularly. Hrumpf. I have now got beautiful bitemarks in various places. To my utmost pleasure there is minimum risk of getting malaria in Argentina. And if so I would definitely recognize the symptoms.

Some things about travelling I always forget after a while. Like how annoying a mosquito bite can be. And how uncomfortable sunburning on the top of my head can be. And that I really don’t need all these pairs of socks, I could have packed an extra book instead. And just wear flip-flops. Well, I guess some things I’ll just never learn. I mean - it still takes me by surprise how stupid eating popcorn in bed actually is.
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Travel literature is an interesting thing. And rummaging through leave-or-swap bookshelves in hostels and backpackers guesthouses can be highly amusing. There the selection ranges from make-the-world-a-better-place-through-personal-enlightenment selfhelp books to read-about-me-and-my-great-achievement books. My land and my people by Dalai Lama can be found in the living room of any backpackers of any worth, books by Jon Krakauer and Tao by Lao Tse can often be found sitting on the shelves and Touching the Void by Joe Simpson and The famished Road by Ben Okri are traveller classics.

The endless accounts of overland travels and my-years-as-a-volunteer written in poor penmanship have made me firmly unswerving in not to write about my travels, so no risk of that. I have a hard enough time committing to write my journal, which is more of a scrap-and-sketch book than a diary. I have read heaps of these books; descriptions of surgical operations made in Sierra Leone on a door as an operating bench by a recently graduated doctor, with fluctuating electricity from a dodgy generator; risky jeep rides through mountain passes in Bhutan (which, by the way, decided this week to become the first tobacco-free country in the world. Everything’s possible in tiny, landlocked monarchial kingdoms, what to do – make the king resign?). And so further.

Recently I read a book about an overland trip from Cape Town to Cairo, no masterpiece, but the guy went to some places where I’ve been, which made it an interesting read. He even stayed at the same guesthouse as I stayed at when in Nairobi, but everyone seems to stay at Iqbal. Even though it’s at the wrong side of the tracks, or in this case the wrong side of Riverroad and has a security guard at the front door 24 hrs. But the staff’s nice and there’s often water in the showers all day (how much more can you ask for!).

Reading a poem about Iceland by José Luis Borges when in Argentina, in Spanish, is a bit surreal. So is walking into a bookstore and here songs by Björk played on the store’s sound system.
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I have planned my travels for the next month or so. I don’t like planning, my plan is usually not to have to many plans, I just want to take off and see whatever there is and decide as I go along where I’ll go next. But when I don’t pay for the accommodation I have to book it beforehand, can’t ever have it all, can you?

Am going to Mendoza tonight. Mendoza is the main city in the winemaking heartland of Argentina, has over 2000 wineries and produces 80% of Argentina’s wines. Mendocinos, inhabitants of Mendoza province, call their home La Tierra de Sol y buen Vino, the Land of Sun and good Vine, sounds inviting. I also intend to leave Mendoza five days later, but my sence of time is blurry enough as it is. Am looking forward get out of Buenos Aires - and to winetasting, ‘cause Argentine wines are often very good. An dirt cheap, so I am going to indulge in a drop or three of the region’s wines while in-country. Argentina has been the world’s fifth-largest wine producer for some time but the domestic market drank almost every drop of the stuff. Now however Argentina is exporting a few dozen big-brand labels and Argentine wines have become a common sight worldwide.

I’ve decided after some mind boggling thinking to leave my computer in Buenos Aires, which means less frequent and shorter entries, and fewer of them in Icelandic. It also means not being able to change the music on the MP3 player, so it’s just the radio for me then. Don’t like the thought of that, but I think it’s worth being able to travel a lot lighter. I tried to travel without music in India for a few weeks, it ended by me raiding the shelves in Music World in Calcutta, going bonkers from the selection. Of cassettes. So now I’ve got loads of space-consuming cassettes and a broken down old-fashioned Walkman which I bought in Uganda, another time I was losing my marbles because of too long without music. Maybe some more Spanish will seep in if I listen to the radio enough.

Am not revealing any more of my plans at the time, because somehow plans always change. Mine at least tend to change a lot.