A sharp taste, a distinctive flavour, a notable odour...

TANGY! Or is it Tango-ey? Whatever it is, it's Buenos Aires. Capital Federal, La Reina del Plata, the town of unknown population. It's great. Cars stop at the line at red lights! Water can be drunk from the tap without dying! There are pedestrian buttons, and drivers respect the little green man! There's a little green man!!!

Of course, the taxis have a meter, which gets my goat. They point at the meter as if I'm stupid when I lean in and say "[insert direction here] - ¿cuanto cuesta?"

It's European, cosmopolitan, full of the Argentinian street-jewellery sellers that you see all over Bolivia, and they have every reason to crow about their Tango. I'M sweating when a couple in the street, at a show, in the bar finish their dance!

AND it's just that much closer to home. I'm doing all I can to enjoy these last smatterings of holiday fun with Fiona before the crash of responsibility comes... um, crashing down and I'm home again with my family and friends. I really have learned what it means to be Australian, to belong to a place, have my heart where I was born no matter where I am. I also have the tingling feeling of future hugs, "salud"s and chuckles of long-time knowings with those I love.

Oh, and Iguazu Falls. Look it up, find footage, ask your well-travelled friends, but you'll never ever understand the falls without having been there. The enormity of the spectacle - not just the sheer volume, which is mesmerisingly seductive and heady, but the beauty of its hundreds of both tiny and massive squirts just blew my synapses. Really, it's something! AND something else! It's great, but the fellow at the counter says "Get your ass outa here" in his indecipherable Argentinian Spanish. So chau.

Love, Michael.

Thought I'd better include one of Fiona for all youse Fiona fans out there. This is second day Amboro too. Pretty as a picture, or photograph as the case may be.

And this is last day Amboro, near the end of the trek and our guide waiting patiently (and amusedly we hope) again for us as we get the perfect photo.

What a nong, I lost my thong, better than Disney, these kids love frisbee, far from the city I found this kitty.

Well, finally here are some shots that we took on our holiday, starting near and in Amboro National Park (the photos, not the trip itself - that started with a bus trip to Santa Cruz).

Buena Vista is one of my favourite places. It was really friendly, not very gringo, and evn though it's the gateway to Amboro there's not alot of tourist industry. People get on with the daily job of living with milk vats coming in from close to town at 5am, and minibuses (trufis) honking around the pretty plaza all day to pick up locals and us to Santa Cruz and towns inbetween. Of course all that isn't going to be documented in these photos, but the big scary jaguar (with his own mobile phone!) that nearly devoured me whole, will be.

On our way through to Amboro on the first day our guide stopped us at the school of the villiage where he grew up. We had lunch there and when the kids came out of school they were shyly keen to chat, and when we showed them the never-before-seen frisbee they took to it like leaf-cutter ants to... well, leaves.

The famous incident (it's known from Guarayamarin to Potosi) of the lost left sandal during our second day in the Park is depicted here with me at the beginning stages of the search. The deceptively peaceful riverbed takes a nasty slope near that rock on the right (of course Fiona followed the guide much to the left where I thought "Gee, that looks much shallower there..." I couldn't keep my foot in my sandal when I started to go down because I was carrying over my backpack, with camera and hearing aid and so forth and so on, so... I ended up shivering for about half an hour sifting the sand near and far. As I've written before, I found a right-footed size six thong, which lasted the rest of the trip. Fiona was impressed at my stoicism. Geez I'm good.

Pass the port, I've lost my sport, at least I'm not going to court, but I've been maligned more than I ought.

O.k. My luck was changing but now it's ... still changing.

How much energy can somebody put into positive thinking before it leads you to psychotic tendencies?

I was delighted to see my passport again, like a lost friend... in Guantanamo Bay, at the Migration Center here in ... Cochabamba! Why do I highlight that my passport is in Cbba? Well, I was just making absolutely, without a doubt, no question about it sure that La Paz immigration hadn't sent my passport here on some whim of efficiency or some unsurprising stuffup before I head there to plead and yell and state my case as angrily as possible - the only way to succeed as highly prescribed by Migration Cbba.

Well, was it efficiency or a stuffup when it was in fact here when I went with my long suffering friend and ex-student Celia, who has done much visa-related calling and visiting on my behalf?

It was a bit of both. Immigration's legal team in La Paz hold on like death to their decision that my visa application was submitted with expired documents regardless of the unprovable fact that Cbba Immigration had forgotten that they had my completed application for 4 months before they realised and thought "how are we going to get out of this one?". Luckily for them those helping me way back then (last year) didn' t bother to ask for proof that they were handing over my passport and all my documents for submission. So now when I sigh "but you HAD all this beFORE my documents expired!!" they smug away with "prove it." So they sent it back for me to "fix" before they hand over a visa.

So, this brilliant rotund fellow at Immigration the other day (when I sighted my passport going mouldy in the ever dilapidating compulsory migration folder (which of course costs money)) has been zipping me around to Interpol, the police station and the hospital the last couple mornings after I approached him in between admiring but panicked visa-appliers (this lawyer's happy clients) and said "Yo necesito su ayuda. Ellos tienen me pasaporte para un año ahora y yo quiero salir esta pais finalamente!!" Not quite proper Español but he got it, and I don't.

I'm pretty sure that the costs of the new docs and whatever this fellow is going to charge (he keeps telling me how much the docs will cost when I ask him what his fee will be...) will be substancially less than a bribe at the border, and safer because I like how he kisses the female Interpol officer and slips her my $100B all at once withOUT getting arrested.

Anyway, I was hoping beyond hope that I'd not have to actually go to La Paz and scream my proverbials orf and that has at this point come to pass. The lawyer man told me I'd have my visa by this afternoon (Friday) and will be able to leave the country at will (the plan was Sunday after my desperdido (farewell party) on Saturday. Well, to thrill youse even more with the incredibly interesting details, one of the medical certificates won't be ready till Monday morning because it takes 24 hours and the offices are shut on the weekend - which surprises me!! *and he hates to make the "not" joke but has to because the context of Bolivia isn't immediately apparent to everyone in the world* NOT!!!

So. Lawyer man could be the recipient of a nice bottle of Fernet if he plays his efficiency cards right. I'm confident (a dangerous state) because of the happiness of his fretful clients during the time I've been with him.

Well, Fiona won't be happy when I tell her that it's at least Monday now before I see some sort of visa - which (and this is where my positive energy falls short and the psychotic episodes begin) could turn into Tuesday, or Wednesday, or August for all I bloody know!

On a happy note, I can't wait for my party at Tirana on Saturday (where Mauro works). Not sure what the ratio of Bolivianos to Gringos will be and it will be a telling viewpoint of my experience to see. I better get presents.

Anyway, in a stark change of topic I highly recommend you all look at the "Oz in 30 seconds" competition (http://www.ozin30seconds.org/vote/videos) and vote for Rupert or the one you like the most.

See you in 2009 when my visa is... yep. You get the exxageration jibe.

Fiona and I are back in Cochabamba.

Our trip around Bolivia was wonderful. And the anticipation of being back home in Australia on Friday is fantastic. But that's the thing with anticipation - it's usually unrealistic. So, as there are no actual plans to be back in Australia by Friday, we'll be looking sometime around September.

Yah, photos. I gotta DO that!