Now Tigre was not actually on my to do list originally but it just so happened that I happened to meet a Swiss girl at the hostel who managed to be able to convince me that it was well worth going to. I didn’t even know where Tigre was if I’m honest!?

Being as I was once again on a limited time schedule I thought to myself well why the heck not do so for a few hours? So the next day after our guided tour of ‘La Boca’ me and Cristina went out together to Tigre. It was actually convenient for both of us as she had a friend she was meeting there (Mariana) who was going to be our tourguide for the day so off we went on the local subway and took us about fifty minute’s to get there from where we were staying originally.

Tigre is beautiful. It’s got water everywhere that divides it throughout and obviously the locals that live here must be reasonably well off after seeing the places that they live in here. The set up here is how I imagine Venice in Italy to be but with a wider lake that runs through it’s city. Locals use boats as there form of transport to get their shopping, go to and from work and get around in general. They are that far away from everything but it’s a location you need to see with your own eyes to believe. How things run here astounds me. The pictures below hopefully give you some idea of that anyways. I feel blessed to of visited here and it’s somewhere I could see myself retiring one day. Mariana took us all around it in as little as just a few hours then me and Cristina set off to try and get some more photos within Buenos Aires before everything had started to close.

We had gone to Tigre on a weekday and it’s one of those places if you want to see it for it’s true worth then go on a weekend when it’s more busy. What I will say is that the boat tour is well worth doing so make sure you do it! Particularly the name of the boat reminding me of a certain somebody back home that I miss like mad. See above! The tour is also cheap and has a restaurant based onboard, well ours did anyway! Beautiful place, beautiful town and what also felt like one of the safest areas I’d visited so far. Get to it people!

Now the last bit about my time in Argentina was a lot like Evita’s only it was me doing the crying and not Argentina! I had for the first time since Chicago got my times mixed up for my flight up to Colombia that I had booked in Bolivia previously. This hit me very hard indeed.

Now me being me and thinking I was invincible this whole trip so far got given a serious wake up call when out with Cristina and a few others from the hostel that evening. I was bragging about how I’m off to Colombia that night being as my flight was at 00:15 hrs on the 29/10/15 (got that bit right) but being as it was at 00:15 and me being the clown I am presumed it would be the same evening flight of the 29th. Wrong! That would of meant me flying out on 30/10/15 evening flight then wouldn’t it Rodney you plonker! My flight had taken off this morning and I hadn’t realised it at all until this evening! Hope your still with me here!? So yeah the flight has officially set off to Bogota and the country I was looking forward to seeing the most so far this trip ‘Colombia’ was now in dire straits! Cristina to her credit I think did really well to console and convince me that it could still happen, I just needed to believe that it will. My face went white and I felt sick in the stomach. How could this be!?

Now that flight was a god dam expensive one and this has put the last part of my trip with a big dilemma! Do I stay in Argentina for longer, miss out on Colombia altogether? Brazil is like not that far from where I am currently based. Need to make up my mind here.

I am starting to wonder how on earth I can afford another £450 for another flight the day after!? Surely there is something I can do to try salvage this? The news then got even worse after I have checked out of my hostel the next morning. They are fully booked for the Halloween weekend! What do I go and do now!? Luckily I am given advice by the really helpful girls at the hostel desk to spend the night at a different hostel close by. It’s not the greatest but they normally have rooms available at short notice so I couldn’t complain. Inside it looked very dated and the lift was one of those old fashioned gate lifts that went up to my new room rather uneasily.

The room I was meant to be in for that that night also was a four bed dorm that was empty and had an eerie feeling to it but I just got on with it and realised I needed to spend the whole of that day itself online trying to speak to Copa Airlines and E.Dreams to explain about my genuine human error with my flight and whether I was allowed to board on the next flight out to Colombia at a cheaper price then what I was finding on my normally trusted Skyscanner. I am hissing and cussing myself all day for making such a bad error, probably my worst so far to date on this trip.

Both companies were refusing to budge for my error which is fair enough I guess as it’s clearly my fault entirely so I turn to going online again. I literally looked on every airline site you could think of for a cheap flight but it’s all to no avail. Something has gotta give surely!? I spend about four hours straight searching then gave up and gambled on heading to the airport itself. I am known to a lot of people back home as being a bit of a blagger and I’m seriously going to need to have to be at my very best of blagging to try salvage this situation. I am in need of a flight to Cartagena. Colombia I am getting to you in some way or another, that’s the plan!

I arrive in at the airport a long time before the next flight out to Cartagena as it isn’t until midnight the next day (the morning!). If I am going to pull this one off I need to be at least at the front of the cue! The mass of people for this flight started to increase rather quickly at an alarming rate but I get my chance eventually regardless of being at the front or not. It didn’t seem to make any difference as I was asked to move to one side for all those with tickets. I am hoping there is going to be a spare seat somewhere on this flight.

I explain to the ticket desk agent what had happened and she said that ‘this happens a lot’. Well that’s a bit more comforting to hear I guess!? After an hour of talks and her trying her hardest to try map out a route for me to get into Colombia and out into São Paulo Brazil afterwards (apparently you have to have in advance a flight for departing Colombia after visiting which I didn’t have previously) I am presented with boarding tickets for that exact flight that evening into Colombia for at a much better price then what I was expecting to pay or had even seen anywhere online. It would mean for me though my time spent there I would have to be watching very closely on how much I was spending. It was also an interchange flight meaning spending a day and night in Panama also which is situated above Colombia. How can I even grumble at that!?

After finally leaving from the ticket desk I am sarcastically clapped at by passengers who had been waiting impatiently to drop off their bags of off their own. There were actually three other ticket staff working as well flat out it’s just this particular couple seemed to think they were obviously more important then everybody else on that flight. My response to their applause was to bow back to them in a rather sarcastic fashion after acknowledging their own gesture followed by showing them a two finger salute that seems to be understood in every language worldwide. They were furious but I am getting on this flight, like it or love it people! My gamble had paid off. Dare to dream? You betcha! My Colombia journey and trip can finally begin. My tears of despair are now turning into tears of joy. The songs of Shakira are now firmly based in my head. I am going to Colombia and spending the evening of Halloween in Panama! They say he who laughs last, laughs the loudest! I’m as happy as larry right now!

Till next time guys! Hola Colombia!!