Screwing the System

Goodbye Bolivia. Good Morning Argentina. More accurately, Good evening Bolivia, Good evening three hour wait at the border while they riffled through my knickers and feminine hygiene products in search of cocaine, and then good evening Argentina. It was too dark by the time they'd decided there weren't any narcobarons in the queue to see if there was an appreciable difference in scenery although Chris was adopted by a dog as soon as we set food in the land of Steak and Wine so it didn't seem to be so very different.

The first sign we had that we really weren't in Bolivia anymore Toto was that they had a free coffee maker on the bus and invited the passengers to partake of it -quite why you would want coffee on an overnight bus is anyones guess but the gesture was appreciated- and a real life working toilet that wasn't hermetically sealed off. Such is the contrary natureof my bladder that I didn't actually use it but by all reports it was marvellous.

Upon arrival in Salta we discovered how Argentina pays for these neat contrivances and that is with the sort of inflated bus prices that makes Chris emit frightened squeaks like a bat trapped under a saucepan. Suffice to say the Diminutive Red Guidebook is totally and hopelesly out of date on this matter. A thorough examination of finances concluded that if would be all but impossible to eat, sleep and travel comfortably. Something had to give; the question was what.

Fortunately Chris and I have become masters of a principle called Screwing the System (It's actually called ****ing the system but there may be children present). Screwing (ahem) the System involves making financial savings where none should be possible. For example, by walking round town for an hour to find the crummiest, scuzziest hostel not mentioned in the guidebook and then haggling the price down, by filling water bottles up from water jugs in restaurant, and by never leaving a dining establishment without an assortment of sachets in one pocket and the toilet roll in the other. It had been a sort of guilty game in the Andean nations, where everything is so cheap anyway that it takes a special sort of financial pedant (yes fiance, I'm talking about you) to thieve mayonnaise and napkins, but in Argentina we are grateful for the practice for we are now in deadly earnest.

The latest STS wizard wheeze is to stay in hostels with kitchens. Anyone who went to university with me, I know what you're thinking, but the trick here isn't to steal asparagus risotto from the communal fridges (Honorable Mention here to Mr Stephen Molloy wherever he may be, who was the creator of said risotto which at one point was feeding at least 8 undergraduates on the sly). The trick is to go to the supermarket, buya load of potatoes, and then feast on them. I went a bit crazy in the supermarket, having not seen a proper one for months, and cooked a feast which promptly poisoned Chris (future wife FAIL)- this turned out to be an even more cunning plan as he ate nothing at all the next day which saved a FORTUNE.

This set me to thinking about how you could create a conglomerate of all the South american countries and theoretically live for free if you incorporated certain national characteristics across the board. For example, you could save tens of pounds a week if you didn't go to the bathroom anywhere except for Argentina (no toilet tax and as much toilet paper as you can stuff into your jumper), if you only drank wine in Bolivia (one quid a bottle- there's no pound sign on these keyboard by the way) but only drank beer in the cloud forest of ecuador (60p a litre); if you only went clubbing in Cusco (entrance free, rum and cokes free), if you stayed in the hotel in Puno (six dollars between us) or preferably were adopted by a Quitenan family - and bought all llama based souvenirs and pan pipes in La Paz- if you did all these things, it is theoretically possible to live in south america for nothing. And this being the case, I am increasingly tempted to try another year.