Rucksackpacked

The long road to the deep south From storms and strife at home to the first signs of spring in the southern hemisphere. The jacarandas are coming in to bloom and people are stripping off in the parks to catch the sun: it could be Portugal or Spain in early May. In more ways than one. Having flown 7,000 miles, Buenos Aires could be any of a dozen cities in southern Europe: architecture, shops, language, food. But there are undercurrents. Inflation is over 40% and the currency is tanking. And then the F word (or M word to Argentinians). For younger readers, on 19th March 1982, 19 Argentine scrap metal workers raised their flag over the almost abandoned British dependency of South Georgia, in the wild and stormy South Atlantic. Two weeks later, Argentina invaded the disputed, but at the time British,  Falkland Islands. A ten week undeclared war ensued, which cost the lives of 255 British servicemen, 649 Argentines and a number of ships and aircraft. The British victory sealed the rule...

I bless the rains down in Africa - not The female leopard had been lying stretched out along one of the lower branches of the tree, occasionally flicking her tail and raising her head to check all is well. Then she raises her head more determinedly and focuses intently on a small herd of impala, with a couple of young, on the opposite side of the flooded track. After a few minutes she stretches, stands, turns and scrambles down the tree trunk, disappearing into the thick long grass below. Lost to sight, we prepare to move on. About 50 metres ahead, a single black headed heron sits on a small knoll among the grass. The leopard clearly appears passing behind the heron. 20 metres on and her head pops up again. She is slowly tracking towards the last stragglers of the impala and we are directly in the way. She seems to decide to use the car for cover and, emerging from the grass, crouches low by the front wheels, fixed on the one or two impala away from the main herd. There are easy pickin...