I have decided to remain here in Junin de Los Andes a second night, mainly because the wifi in the hostel is fast, meaning I could get twelve days worth of photographs uploaded to my journal.

So all morning has been a monotomous task doing that. Clicking here and there, and while waiting for photos to load, clicking on other places to read, to keep myself awake.

Icelandic volcanoes, on wikipedia for example. Interesting to me now because, on Sunday, seeing the landscape at Luguna Blanca's similarity to that of Iceland. The lake, or Laguna, in a depression upon a mountain plateau is vaguely like Askja...

...A creative writing website, in which the author writes: Find the medium which suits you best, whether it be pen and notebook, or pencil and sketch-pad. Writing directly on a computer, has the advantage of ease of going back and revising; but, its important not to get stuck editing. Not to censur too much. Otherwise, it'll be edited down to nothing.

Discriptions. I could say my living-room has a sofa, a coffee-table and a lamp. But it could be any living-room, anywhere. Try to write something which will visualise the room.

The living-room has an old sofa the colour of scrambled eggs, with a big rip in the seat full of breakfast crumbs. This visualises in the reader's mind the lack of domesticity in me.

When writing discriptions, observe what you're writing about properly. Do not write about something according to your assumptions of what it is like.

I finish the morning while flitting between my journal, with only two days photos to upload, Yeepee, by having a look at some journals here on this site. Philip Malone is now in Greece. Also spot a journal by that Yorkshire fellow Dave Whitney, off on the train, to ride somewhere, not home... I'm struck by his liking for how youth hostels used to be. Just turn up and check in. Nowadays, the first thing you'll be asked by a hostel receptionist is: Have you made a reservation? Followed by some gazing at a computer-screen...

It was good I tell you to close the computer and get out in the afternoon, but the best part of the day had already passed. Sunshine replaced by a grey mist descending from the mountains that some come on drizzling rain. An icy wind making it thoroughly miserable.

However in the rain I see the town still full of rustic eliments of its early 1900s frontier origin. Wood cabins and plots of pasture, with horses grazing, only a block from the main plaza. And the ever present Patagonian birds. The Tauras screaming "Vivian! vivian. vivian." The Bandurias with there duck-like call...

The hostel, another wood cabin, hasn't much value in way of other hostelers. There are three fortysomething Argentine men sat engrossed in the Argentina Paraguay Cupa de America game on the TV, with waists that say sat in front of the TV is a usual lifestyle for them...

...There's Patrick, Swiss but an exile here, so he says. His father died a number of years back leaving him everything. The thing is it has gone badly wrong for him. His sisters have contested the will, to the extent of having his bank account locked. So he's efffectively stranded here, he says.

"I don't need all the money. I'm a hermet at heart. I'd be happy to live in a cabin alone in the mountains here, only driving to shop once a month. A hundred thousand would be enough for the rest of my life."