the extremely mental misadventures of ashlet and mary mother fuckin matthews

Hmmm, its been a while... let me remember... Ash and me did stuff in Argentina and Bolivia.

So Rosario was a bit poo... went to Cordoba. It was great, as we were getting to the hostel in our taxi we drove past a tranny hooker in a g and bra. We then knew Cordoba would be far more entertaining than Rosario and decided we were on the right track.

We went to a town called Alta Garcia and went to where Che Guevara lived. I took a photo of his toilet and came to the conclusion that he was a bit of a crazy dickhead. We then had a pre bus ride back bottle of wine resulting in both of us really needing to piss for 50mins until we were back. That night we hung out at the hostel and drank more wine. Ash and I went on this fabulous rant about why everyone else in Australia is inferior to people in Adelaide to a bunch of people from overseas. I also got taught how to do a bit of tango... thankfully Ash didnt take video...

Severe hangover caused us to do nothing but the city bus tour sitting next to this douchebag from Ireland... He claimed to know where an Australian by their accent. he was an idiot. That night involved our first traditional Argentinian bbq. It was amazing. I almost died of beef overload especially when the hostel guy accidentally poured meat juice on me, I was just one big steak.

We went to some river thing one day then off to Mendoza for the wine festival...

Being always up for any festival involving wine we thought this would be amazing.... Actually, all the 'festival' we saw was a parade of dudes dressed up as Gauchos. The thing to do in Mendoza is the wine tour on bikes. According to our hostel, because of the festival we couldnt do it so did a half day wine tour. Turns out the hostel was wrong and were idiots. The wineries were ok, the wine was not of my taste. We ended up at another BBQ where we drank beer with a whole lot of crap people, our hostel was a bit douchey.... But then we ran into my beautiful boys; Tom, Dom & Hal. Ended up drinking more and having a great little laugh.

The next day, being sunday, everything was of course closed. We wandered round a bit but pretty much did nothing until we started drinking wine again. We met up with the boys and had a great drunken night running around Mendoza taking some awesome photos. Dom, Hal and Ash ended up on an adventure which almost involved them stealing a taxi while me and Tom entertained ourselves. I woke up the next day to find ash absolutely fucked ranting on about how good m&ms were... A moment I will never forget...

So from here on in the story gets all adventurey, misguided and full of mistakes..... but still quite amusing.

We decide we're going to Bolivia... Being in Argentina, none of the bus companies go there so we had to go to the border... There are two crossings... We chose the wrong one. After 24 hours on a bus and a night in a hotel we managed to walk across the funny little border crossing into Bolivia.

The border crossing town was a shithole (like most of bolivia). Aiming to get across to the eastern side of Bolivia we book a seat on a bus to Tarija, 300km away. We get on the bus at 6.30pm and start our journey through the Andes. The road was barely fit for a 4wd let alone a bus. There was no toilet, no AC no lights... Bo fuckin livia. 10 hours and a piss stop in a field later we arrive in Tarija... 4.30am, no idea where we are, muscles so sore after being shaken around a bus for 10 straight hours, hair dreadded from rubbing against the head rest, no sleep... We taxi to some little hotel and sleep. It took 2 days for us to stop feeling like absolute crap. We then realised that Tarija is in the middle of the Andes and any bus out will be like that bus... $100 to fly to Santa Cruz.... sold.But we had to spend a few days there.

We ate really well in Tarija and looking back it is actually a really nice city for Bolivia... A really shitty city for any other country though. One night we drank wine with the only English speaking person we met in 4 days... Some American douchebag who was kinda nice, but a douche. I ended up getting really drunk and apparently talking to random Bolivians who I assume had no idea what I was saying. Thank christ Ash was there to take me home...

SANTA CRUZ!!!! WOOHOOO CITY WITH SOMETHING TO DO!!!! well that was what we thought.... we were wrong... I'm pretty sure Santa Cruz is the anus of South America. Ash bought some shoes and some pants, we got ripped off and totally gringoed by some bolivian dudes, Ash got offered $200 bolivianos ($30 aus) for this drunk dude to take me home, some guys told me they loved my gringo pussy.... Another shitty bus ride with an awful stench of BO and we were out of there.

La Paz, it is high... I got sick from the altitude. Although was heaps better than anywhere else in Bolivia. We actually got to do some stuff. Went mountain biking down the road formerly known as 'the worlds most dangerous road'... That was rad! Went and saw Largo Titicaca, that was also amazing.... Tried to vote at the consulate for the South Australian state election but were denied our democratic right...

The biking was one of the most amazing things ever! You start at 4600m in freezing cold snow capped mountains and after 3 hours of intense riding you end up in the jungle at 1200m where its hot and sunny. It was spectacular.

Our hostel was quite typical for Bolivia, lots of English douches who have been there for 2 weeks taking coke and screwing whoever they can. We did meet a couple of cool people and had a party in our room one night after we went to see the wrestling (ladies in traditional dress fighting... great thing to see).

We decided to fly back to BsAs to avoid buses and save time.... Our flight left at 8.45am, my boys were coming up to La Paz from Potosi early for one last night of party.... Man what a night... It was insane... thats all i will say. We didnt sleep... we got on the flight... Man I miss those kiddies.

So that is a brief rundown of the adventure me and ash had... despite all the negative tones it was actually a lot of fun... just the bad shit is more interesting to write about.


In Bs.As. now living with some dudes. will write about that later.