29th April, 2004

Hola Chicas y Chicos,

Pedro here once more and what a twisted tale of travel and torment I have for you all!

If you ever need a good laugh may I suggest you ask Roland or Matt to demonstrate their new found love of Tango dancing? The best way to describe them on the Tango floor is as "mozos sin las bandejas tomar los deprimentes" which roughly translates as gays on depressants. They were so focussed, so caught up in the whole boring "move the legs only, no hips, no move the upper body" that they didn´t even notice the two hotties they were partnered up with. Not that it would have mattered, they had no chance with them anyway, as I was there. After the class I took the two lovely ladies out for a few drinks while Matt and Rally Round practiced and re-practiced the two basic steps they had managed to pick up in a mere four hours of solid dance instruction.

So after a week in Bariloche it was time to pile back into the Green hornet with a new crew member, Fi Fi la Fu, an intellegent, attractive, fun loving young lady (still for the life of me can´t figure out what the hell she was thinking by getting into a car with the likes of Rally, Darls and Matt, just lucky I was there to keep an eye on things) and punched it up to San Martin de los Andes.

San Martin has it all. Picture perfect lakes surounded by breathtaking peaks, clean air, hospitable locals and a lovely town centre boasting the best gin joint this side of....well this side of everything, it was simply the best gin joint I´ver ever been into. This place was very unassuming, looked more like a cafiteria than a gin oasis at first glance. Once sat down with a G&T the size of Hoover dam in front of you however, the place was transformed. They also put together a mean Tom Colins and a dirty Martini only rivaled by that of Mattini´s apt cocktail hand.

The gin haze wore off sometime after I realised that Matt, the dumb prick, had misread the bus tickets and we had missed our scheduled bus to Mar del Plata, and before the proposed excruciating 20 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires that was forced upon us due to Matt´s cock up. Not a good possition to be in. Luckily for Matt the bus he managed to get us on to BA not only provided us with ample snacks but also beer, champaign and whiskey. The 20 hours flew by.

Once in BA all was forgiven of Matt. We lived it up in one of the most eclectic cities in the world, although notibly with strong European influence. Great bars, cafes, restaurants, architecture and culos!!!!

In the middle of our big city extravaganza, BA style, we buzzed down to Mar del Plata to check out the beaches, night life, and as it turned out, to experience the unparalleled hospitality of the Iglesias family. The three of us were treated like kings and I can never thank them enough for all their effort in helping us enjoy their beautiful city. It was here, by the skillful hand of Señor Iglesias that we devoured the best BBQ meet I have ever tasted. The asado we had in his house has to go down as one of the best meals ever enjoyed by three hapless travellers anywhere.

Back in BA we continuned soaking up the tasty local treats, for one, a soccer game at Bocca. Bocca Juniors v Nuevo Chicago. Bocca won 2 zip. Brush with fame at the match: saw Maradona moments before he collapsed and was rushed to hospital. All night vigils have been held outside his hospital ever since. Crazy for their soccer in this part of the world, crazy for it!

Just for a bit of a change of pace and to break the monotony of travelling with Rally and Matt I decided to jump on a boat over to Uraguay. Tried to keep it quiet, you know, didn´t want them to get the same idea. Of course beeing little bloody sticky beaks they got wind of it and decided to suprise me by jumping the boat too. So now I have had them following me around like bad smeels for the last week through otherwise delightful wine growing country side, allong gorgeous beaches and up to some inexplicably commercialised hot springs. Uraguay has proved to be a little jewel of a country. Peopled with friendly and helpful folk, an economy which allows for comfortable living for the traveller and some appealing, if not spectacular, scenery. All in all, even with the lads tagging along, a very interesting side trip.

So it is off to negotiate yet another boarder crossing tomorrow, back to Argy to try and grab a bus up to Iguazu. No doubt the boys will end up in the shit again and be threatened with incarceration by the local authorties until I step in once more to smooth things out. Will they ever learn????

Chau peeps and remember that a waiter without a tray may be more than you think .

Pedro xxoo

2nd April, 2004

Howdy everybody,

Well it´s time to let all you people who call that freaky little prick Matt a friend know what is going on with him.

It wasn´t long after we left the comforts of Ushuago that I had the boys trekking in the Torres del Paine national park with all manner of comfort far removed. After five days of hard slog hiking covering, amongst other things, 90 kms of marked trail, a few kms of unmarked trail (thanks to the many "Matty C secret short cuts"), a glacier, a conversation discussing whether the Apollo 11 mission did REALLY land on the moon incorporating who the third man on the moon was (first two: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren of course...who was the third??? I know but have kept the boys guessing for the past couple of weeks), a few blisters, befriending a gay guy and his future "wife" and plenty of beard growing, we made it to the breathtaking Torres. It was quite a spiritual expericence for us as only EIGHTY THOUSAND people make the trek EVERY YEAR!

So after leaving the Torres and chile, with Matt taking on an uncanny resemblance to Kenny Loggins thanks to the lack of shaving, we crossed the boarder into Argy again. We hit Calafate for a few days, taking in the Moreno glacier and copious amounts of beer. Actually that seems to be a bit of a recurring theme with these two, especially for Matt. Every time we get anywhere it is like "ok guys, we made it here in once piece, lets have a beer to celebrate", which is fine by me except Matt says it at every opportune moment. For instance, after he manages to heave his out of shape flabby arse onto a top bunk, or bottom bunk for that matter, it is "beer o´clock".

From Calafate I wanted to take Rols and Matt upto Chalten to checkout Fitz Roy national Park, one of the most beautiful and best preserved national parks anywhere in South America. So what do these two do? Sure they get up early and trek to the mirador for sunrise, but then defile the tranquill scenery by getting their gear off and possing for photos!!!! Freaking lunatics!!!!

After I managed to collect up all the boys clothes we pulled a 26 hour bus ride to get to Peurto Madryn. PM is spitting distance to Peninsula Valdez, one of only two places (Matt and Rols thought the ONLY place, dumb bastards) in the world where Orcas intentionally beach themselves in order to get a feed. Apparently this is one of the most awesome sights you can ever hope to even imagine to see. Of course because the boys piss farted around for a day in PM, by the time we got out to PV the Orcas had had a jolly good feed and fukced right off! Thanks lads! Did manage to see some pengies, sea lions, sea elephants and a plethera of bird life and land mamals though.

From PM we scored a ride to San Carlos de Bariloche (back in Patagonia) in "The Green Hornet" courtesy of Darlius the Dude! This was quite an interesting trip as it ended in us arriving in Bariloche at about 4am, so all crashing out in the car together. It would have been fine if it was just me and my antelers, but with 3 other guys in the car it rates as one of the most contorsionally gifted sleeps ever. We have been camped down here for the past few days. The boys have booked themselves into spanish classes in a vain attempt to help them chat up chicas (god they need some help!!!) while I have been taking in the fresh air and stunning scenery that this part of the world has in spades.

Tonight after spanish class (and a few beers to celebrate that they finished another day of classes no doubt) it is Tango lesson time for the boys. I am tagging along for no other reason than to have a bit of a laugh at their expense. Will let you know how it went.

Hope all you clowns are doing well and remember.....everybody cut everybody cut, everybody cut everybody cut, everybody cut everybody cut, everybody cut....FOOTLOOSE!!!!!

Pedro the Moose xxoo

7th March, 2004

Hola Todos,

My name is Pedro and Matt asked me to scrawl a bit of an email out to you all ´cause he is a freakin´ lazy bugger who couldn´t be stuffed!!! Some of you might know of, or even have met my cousin Jose. Jose was the moose who was living with Matt in Sweden. Jose, like myself, was born in Sweden but raised in the Dominican republic. We both got itchy feet after we finished our respective degrees, Jose in marine biology, yours truely in quantum mechanics. Anyway Jose was keen to discover his roots and headed back to Sweden last year, that is where he met Matt who begrudgedly shared his cramped quarters in Stockholm with the big Elk. After Jose took off I felt I also needed to travel. Unlike for Jose, Sweden did not interest me too much, even though I was born there and still have a lot of family there I feel no real affinity with the place. Being a moose in South America can be quite hard sometimes as there aren´t many of us here and bigotry towards us perstists to some degree, but it is always a converstaion starter and I am comfortable with who I am. Thus I decided to simply cross the caribean to the mainland in order to start my adventures. I won´t bore you with all that has happend to me in the last year, but if you are interested you can checkout my new documentary soon to be released on DVD called "Bien Moose Malo Moose: Getting inside the head of a travelling Moose".

After a year of travelling I have found myself at the end of the world, a little place called Ushuaia, in Argentinian Patagonia. This is where I stumbled accross Matt and his travelling companion Rolando. These two drunken bafoons decided it would be really cool to climb Martial Glacier, the smallish glacier overlooking Ushuaia. After a liquid lunch perched precariously at the edge of the glacier some 1800m asl they decided to investigate some of the glaciers many crevasses. You can imagine the consequences. Luckily for them both I had been descending the glacier after a 30 km hike along the jagged ridges above when they got into trouble. I quickly lowered my horns into the crevass which was slowly swollowing them whole and lifted them to safety. They thanked me with the offer of some left over beer from their lunch and immediately I knew who these two were, thanks to cousin Jose´s descriptive emails.

Since then we have been hanging out a bit. I took them into the Tierra del Fuego national park yesterday for a bit of a hike and to check out a unique beaver colony located within it. For some reason Rolando was very keen to see some beaver and assured me that he was not going to leave South America without getting his hands on some. He´s an odd one. Nothing compared to Matt though, I really don´t know how Jose put up with him for 6 months in Sweden. They asked me if I wanted to travel with them for a while, but I think my sanity would suffer if I spent any more time than I absolutely have to with them. They are off to Punta Arenas in a couple of days and then to take on the treacherous yet breathtaking Torres del Paine national park. I can´t say I will be too sad to see them leave but am worried for their safety....maybe I will tag along for a while, just to make sure they don´t get themselves killed!!!!

Chau for now amigos, keep well and remember that Moose are more than just a tasty dessert!

Pedro xxoo