Today was the day where I had to somehow burn off a couple of week’s worth of eating superb South American steak that had been washed down with too many bottles of Malbec.  In a vain attempt to successfully produce a couple days worth of exercise, I patiently waited for the local El Practico bus bound for Iguazu Cataratas, or Iguazu Falls, alongside two fellow gringos I had only just met by the side of the road.  After boarding the barely roadworthy yellow loaf tin, I received some welcoming looks from the Puerto Iguazu locals, suggesting their acceptance of a tight arse traveler risking the local’s run-down, clapped out, cracked windscreen Tonka Toy instead of the fully air-conditioned/westernized gringo buses.  I think they realized that this mochilero (backpacker) was not prepared to endure the hardship of a horde of cochlear damaging sixty-something retirees, and was willing to hedge his bets on surviving this form of South American kamikaze public transport.

The bus driver sipped his mate, a local marijuana-looking tea through a perforated steel straw for the twenty minute journey until he successfully dodged the numerous gringos at the Parque Nacional Iguazu entrance.  I had noticed the car park was overpopulated by a large number of the before mentioned gringo buses, indicating that the falls were an Argentinean cash cow in this time of economic hardship, a somewhat different bovine to the enormous slabs of Pampas-grown protein that were taking my intestines an entire week to digest.

After parting with thirty devalued Argentinean pesos (about fourteen Australian dollars) for the privilege, I made a mental note of the puma and jaguar warnings and hobbled off for the Circuito Superior walk.  My mobility had been slightly hampered since the day I lost my ankle down a footpath pothole trying to avoid the ubiquitous piles of Buenos Aires dog shit a few days earlier.  However, I was relieved to discover that the Argentine National Park Service had wisely invested in well constructed concrete and steel walkways that were an engineering feat almost as spectacular as the high security, waist high thorn bush fencing I had encountered at Victoria Falls in falling-apart-at-the-seams Zimbabwe some two years earlier.

The Superior track weaved in amongst the lush jungle, sometimes placing itself directly above the thunderous roar of the falls.  I was often welcomed by the soft, misty spray churned up by the cascade after it had crashed seventy metres below.  The panorama of intermingled jungle and water was sometimes interrupted by large groups of chattering pre-pubescent Argentine schoolies.  They took great pleasure in talking to me, probably so they could laugh at my attempt of speaking in a non-gringo language. 

They would ask ‘¿De donde es señor?’ – translated into ‘Where are you from mister?’ ‘Soy Australiano’, I replied in some rather butchered, but somehow comprehensible Spanish.  This was the correct answer as their heads nodded in approval.

After successfully competing with an iguana for my lunch, I headed off on the Gringo Train to the Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat).  After convincing myself the steel walkway would not wash away like the wooden one running parallel to it, the Throat was erupting the proverbial amount of whale spurt-like spray into the humid atmosphere.  It was accompanied by a sonic booming soundtrack that was the sole evidence the Spanish possessed to prove to Columbus that this really was the end of the world.

Wishing I had invested in three sets of power station grade ear plugs, I limped back to the Gringo Train to finish the day with the Circuito Inferior walk, of which there is nothing inferior about it.  Where the Superior walk made me look down and across the falls, the Inferior Walk placed me directly in front of them.   At one particular fall, named the Salto Bossetti, there was an empty platform devoid of gringos for once.  Foolishly, I decided to venture out to find out why, and within a second, Bossetti had blasted my body with its elephant trunk water thrust, almost knocking me over flat whilst the other knowledgeable gringos had a cheap laugh at my expense.

I was completely drenched from shirt to skin to bone, a worthy entrant for any dodgy masculine infused wet T-shirt competition in any stale beer-smelling pub back in Brisbane - the power of Iguazu Falls had won again, laughing at the silly Australian fool who tried to take them on and easily lost.  At that moment in time, even though my skin had been completely exfoliated by the high pressured jet blasts, there was nothing, absolutely nothing in the world at this moment in time better than this.

Here are some things you probably did not know about Iguazu falls:

• Rock doctors reckon the falls were created by a volcanic eruption that occurred about one hundred million years ago.
• Iguazu Falls are wider than both Niagara and Victoria Falls.  A lot of water in anyone’s language.
• There are about two hundred and seventy five individual water falls at Iguazu however this number decreases in the wet season when it pisses down from a great height and the falls merge together.
• The falls were captured in the ninety eight six flick ‘The Mission’ with Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons – a story based on real events about Jesuit missionaries who vainly try to protect a South American Indian tribe from slave-hungry Portuguese colonials.

How to get to Iguazu Falls for a great couple of days hiking:

Two airlines fly to South America from Australia – Lan Chile to Santiago and Aerolineas Argentinas to Buenos Aires, both via Auckland.  Within Argentina, you can fly to Puerto Iguazu from Buenos Aires with a number of domestic carriers, but it might be an idea to book early because the airlines cannot afford to run that many planes since the economic crisis of early two thousand and two - hence they are quite chockas. 

Otherwise, book yourself a business class seat (coche cama) in an overnight bus from Buenos Aires which takes around sixteen to twenty hours.  Bus travel is excellent in Argentina and the ridiculously cheap price usually includes meals and even a game of bingo.  If you win the bingo game, you win a fine bottle of red from the Mendoza wine region (seriously). 

When you finally get to Puerto Iguazu, set aside at least two days to explore the falls by foot – the Brazilian side offers the best panoramic view, while the Argentine side provides a much closer look.  Expect to become soaking wet.

Getting bitten by the travel bug happened to me in a place I would not have dreamt of travelling to at all – Kosovo, in the former Yugoslavia during April, 2001.  Why I ended up in a war-torn, United Nations soldier/peacekeeper-infested area (all 45,000 of them) as my first venture outside of Australasia is beyond me.  But I loved every single second of it.

I was working for an international firm, mainly on environmental management projects.  A colleague in our UK office asked me if I was interested in working with her and a couple of other silly punters in the ravaged Balkan region.  I thought to myself, ‘Why not?’ it sounded like a great experience to throw myself into one of the world’s hot spots.  Within three weeks, I had been informed that I was leaving the haven of Australia, my comfortable place on the couch, for the unknown of a rubbled Kosovo that was under United Nations administration.  Whilst it is a place that most people know about for the wrong reasons, its publicity factor punches well above its weight division for a piece of real estate only 150 kilometres long by 150 kilometres wide.

My first image of Kosovo occurred when the Austrian Airlines flight from Vienna penetrated snow-bearing clouds to reveal a pure white landscape dotted with the burnt-out shells of crumbling brick houses.  The arrival at the Kosovar capital, Pristina, was also eventful as it seemed to be the social highlight of the day judging by the hordes of dark-haired, leather jacket-laden Albanian men welcoming home relatives from somewhere not here.

After having my passport checked by an UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo) soldier, I braved the crowded luggage carousel and searched for my handwritten name somewhere in the airport car park.

A local Albanian man, Ali, was arranged to meet me and take my travel-hammered body to our accommodation in the city.  He was hired as our guide and to provide us the word on the street.  He was a small, dweeby guy, in his early twenties, with short jet black hair, coke-bottle glasses and brown gunky teeth that were revealed to me when he cheerfully said, ‘Hello Anthony, welcome to Kosovo.’   He bundled my gear and I bundled my severely 24-hour jetlagged body into the green four-wheel-drive for the scenic tour to Pristina.

Ali drove me to a company-rented house in central Pristina, a city that had been blessed with the excesses of Soviet-style Communist Bloc apartments sprouting mushroom-looking satellite dishes.  My first day was fairly uneventful as I tried to catch up on some much needed rest, as well as meeting with the Project Manager that night for dinner.

‘You’re going to work with both Serbian and Albanian people in the villages of Gracanica and Kisnica, just south of Pristina,’ she informed me.  

The project involved a contamination assessment from an extremely dodgy tailings dam[1] (sic dump!), a legacy of 40 years of lead and zinc mining during the Communist Era.  Environmental management was not exactly a red-hot topic in Communist Bloc countries during those glorious Stalinist days, and based on my observations of the place, there were enormous environmental and social consequences because of it.

This tailings dump had been strategically placed next to the Gracanica River, a couple hundred metres away from the two villages.  This dump was acidic, so nothing could grow in it.  The rain falling on the dump (or at that moment in time, the snow melt), caused the subsequent acidic leachate to piss into the Gracanica River, which eventually flowed through Gracanica and turned the waters where proud people used to swim and fish into fluorescent orange for a distance of almost 20 kilometres.

During summer, the dump would become so dry that the wind would pick up the heavy metal laden dust and dump it on the houses.  Some of the housewives disapproved of the dump because it would make their washing dirty, severely testing the claims of their washing powders, but others found some limited novelty in writing their name in the dust that speckled on their windows.

The locals nicknamed the tailings dump ‘Jaloviste’ (pronounced ‘Yellow-vitch’) which roughly translated into English means ‘barren’ or ‘infertile’.  Jaloviste looked like a 50-hectare plateau of yellow-orange quicksand set amongst the toy-looking houses of Gracanica and Kisnica.

My mission was to help conduct an environmental monitoring program for water, food and soil with a South African-turned-Pommy bloke called Ryan.  We were usually accompanied by translators and local people from both Serb and Albanian communities, to collect samples that would be sent back to the United Kingdom for analysis.  At the time, Ryan was in his early twenties and I am certain he was stoked that he was outside of Pommy Land for work – it was his wish that the UK should not be his domicile and he desired to journey south of the equator again – forever.

One of the locals we worked with was a Serbian man called Cedomir, or Cedda for short (unfortunately, pronounced like the cheese, ‘Cheddar’).  Cedda was a former engineer, which unlike most of my engineer friends who are socially inept, was a hospitable, well-mannered bloke with a great sense of humour, considering his chaotic surroundings.  He was the conduit between us and the local Serbian community which made our jobs considerably easier.

I think he was also happy to receive some German Deutschmarks, the now default local currency, for his services – he was lucky compared to the majority of inhabitants in post-war Kosovo, as most people in Gracanica did not have a job.  Whilst Australian Prime Ministers start talking about banana republics if our unemployment rate rises above five percent, a major achievement in Gracanica would be to have the employment rate reach five per cent – the ‘official’ rate.

Cedda spoke some broken English and when combined with my genetically-inherited Italian sign language, we managed to communicate with each other somewhat effectively.  The first words in English I heard Cedda speak were ‘clus…ter…bomb.’  Yes, two words that when placed together instantly grabbed my attention. That was an abrupt, but highly informative, way of telling us that this was quite the no-go area for our environmental sampling program…

His life seemed dreadfully surreal to me.  He had a wife with two young children under 10 – a boy and a girl, and lived in a picturesque brick house with a small vegetable patch trapped in the Serb enclave within Gracanica.  His father and mother lived nearby and visited often, as there was not much else to do in Kosovo besides travel under armed guard to another Serb enclave.

Cedda’s father was a lively character who insisted on visiting me in Australia at some point in the future (or he said something like that to me in Serbian) and did not mind a drink.  He always wore a black cap that seemed permanently affixed to his white-haired head.  Cedda’s mother, who I only met once during my time in Kosovo, was gentle-natured and quiet.  She reminded me of my own grandmother who shuffled around the place.  As with most elderly Serbian women in the area, her grey hair was covered by a colourful floral scarf.

I felt sorry for Cedda because he could not move out of his Serbian enclave unless he caught a bus to another claustrophobic Serbian enclave, and was accompanied by an ‘armed escort’.  I did not understand the significance of what an armed escort was until I witnessed one.  When I did, it was unlike anything I had seen in my life before or since.  His world was a prison compared to mine where I was able to move around freely without the fear of being blown up.

An armed escort consisted of the following menagerie:  two six-wheeled tanks at the front with armed U.N. soldiers on sitting on top of them, two large U.N. buses containing Serbs in the middle and another two six-wheeled tanks at the back, with more armed soldiers.  However, this fortress-like escort was no guarantee they would arrive at their destination safely, thanks to the invention of high-powered grenade launchers.  After seeing this heart-rending event for the first time, I was in culture shock for days afterwards.  My tongue had also obtained gravel rash from scraping the ground.

In between assessing the social status of the town, our sampling program would involve visiting around 10 to 20 households a day with Cedda in the Serbian area, but this was dependent on nothing happening between the demarcated Serb and Albanian sections – something not always guaranteed.

A typical visit to a household would involve Cedda introducing himself and us token Antipodeans, trying to convince the residents that these foreign people wearing genuine United Nations dog-tags around their neck were really cool and were here to help.

The same would happen in the Albanian area with Bakir, an Albanian local who could barely speak English but insisted on translating even though our Croatian translator, who could speak both Serb and Albanian, was more adept. Bakir lived with his wife and grandmother in a run-down house, and had a framed picture of President Bill Clinton in his living room.  Bill Clinton photographs were hot property for Albanian Kosovars, as Mr President had played a major part in the decision to oust Slobodan Milosevic’s forces.  Bakir would often serve us sludgy Turkish coffee after a long day of translating and sampling, and his grandmother would offer us sweets to complement our coffee-encrusted teeth.

During these soil-and-water sampling days, Ryan and I talked to the owners via the translator, explaining that we were conducting a contamination assessment.  Since I was the token Australian in the group, I answered questions on what life was like back home, and if there really were kangaroos jumping loose in suburban streets.  Sometimes, we were all offered a cup of the Turkish coffee sludge to commence the environmental sampling festivities.  However, visiting the numerous households would present itself to another problem that we had miserably failed to take account of – Rakija.

Rakija is a home-made rocket fuel-like spirit that is thinly disguised as a drinkable alcohol – it reaches the methylated spirits end of the alcohol spectrum.  One can feel their entire body warm up from the inside out after only one shot of the lethal stuff.  I am sure I sensed it strip an essential layer of lipids from my stomach lining.  Rakija is distilled from fermented plums and surely must be the staple diet of many Kosovars.  Because both Kosovar Albanians and Serbs are hospitable people, this head-exploding liquid was offered to us every time we obtained a water or soil sample from a property.

Twenty hits of Rakija from 20 properties and I was certain that I would become an unwitting casualty of war.  I imagined my Rakija-pickled body being flown home to Brisbane via Qantas Coffin Class, complete with the mandatory draped Australian flag that falsely indicated my outstanding services for the country.  How would the Prime Minister explain this sad state of affairs to my grieving family and friends?  By saying that I was simply doing my duty?

Archaeologists in 2,000 years time would have remarked at the excellent condition of my preserved corpse if I had accepted every Rakija shot offered to me.  This was one of the first cultural issues I had to negotiate, but, with the help of Ryan, we somehow mastered the art of declining their offers politely by using the somewhat feeble/feasible excuse that we were working.

I still possess a sacred bottle of Rakija that I purchased from the local Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Gracanica.  Not surprisingly, it still has the urine coloured Rakija contained within it.  The bottle screams character because the Rakija is contained within an old wine bottle that had the bottom cut off to have a wooden cross inserted and then the piece of glass glued back on again.  The crucifix (devoid of a Jesus) floats around in the Rakija and there is a faded photo of the monastery stuck on the bottle which boldly states where this bottle originates.  This bottle gives the term ‘home brew’ a whole new meaning.  I have been cursed by many friends and work colleagues for introducing them to the ‘joys’ of drinking Rakija – I have heard the term ‘never again’ because of it.

Amongst the attempts of dodging Rakija offers, if we were moving between Serb and Albanian areas, we had to stop at checkpoints manned by U.N. soldiers and depending on the tensions of the day, we were either let through without disruption or stopped to have our bodies and the car searched for potential explosive devices.

The Gracanica area was patrolled by Swebat, or the Swedish U.N. soldiers.  I wondered if the Swedish Chef cooked for them in their mess and I imagined my all time favourite Muppet character with enclosed eyes, bushy eyebrows and a large chef’s hat dressed up in army greens screaming ‘bork bork bork’ and talking gibberish whilst throwing around his bent utensils, but this somewhat wacky theory, sourced from my childhood, was quickly put to rest once I fixed my eyes on the soldier’s rather large machine guns.  Their forlorn faces and upright stance meant they were in no mood for mucking around.

What used to change the colour of my underpants were the times that Swebat detonated unexploded cluster bombs used in the NATO bombings in one of the nearby mining pits that used to support the Gracanica economy.  The low frequency (but loud sounding) detonations used to make my skin crawl when I was out in the field with Ryan.  The usually quiet rural setting would be interrupted by a single thunderclap of noise before returning to the country quietness again.  But after a while, these explosions felt normal and I accepted the regular booms as part of everyday life in Gracanica.

Just for fun, I checked out the night life in Pristina with Ryan and Ali on our days off.  I endured many reality checks of my location as many beefcake bouncers searched us for weapons before entering a typical Communist Bloc former public building that had been transformed into the hippest place in town.   Not even our U.N. dog tags would spare us this procedure.  This was where young Albanians would escape their daily grind of thinking what lay ahead for their unclear future.

We would also sometimes visit the secure compound that housed the U.N. soldiers, that also consisted of Camp Bondsteel, the U.S. military base that grew to become the fourth largest settlement in Kosovo.  It was Little America, and consisted of many things American, including a dedicated Burger King eatery for the hungry soldiers use only.  For the privilege of these visits to the camps, we were body searched and the car scanned via roving mirrors for potential explosives.

On one weekend, we drove three hours to the charming medieval town of Prizren through a slushy, sleet-covered road.   Prizren is located on the Bistrica River in the foothills of the Sar Mountains and is the spiritual home of many Serbs.  It was the scene of a massive battle in mid-15^th century, when it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire.  The old city centre houses many churches and mosques, most notable of which are the 14^th century church of Bogorodica Ljeviska and the 16^th century Sinan Pasa Mosque.  It had been relatively unmarked from the fighting, but there was still the odd burnt house, and the Serbian Orthodox Churches, or what was left of them, were under armed guard.

The most memorable aspect of this trip was the chitchat with a Ghanaian U.N. solider about halfway from Pristina to Prizren.  He was supervising the clean-up of a recent truck jack-knife that had occurred due to the slippery conditions.  His black face was uncomfortably juxtaposed against the white landscape.  He looked extremely out of place, shivering and complaining, ‘T-t-this i-i-is the v-v-very first t-t-time I’ve s-s-seen snow!’

‘Poor bastard,’ I thought, relaxing in front of the central heating.

It was snowing when we finally arrived in Prizren, and we spent the day wandering around its cobblestone streets, watching trendy Albanian youths socialising in cafes, sipping warm supercharged coffee.  We also made sure we took no photos of UNMIK infrastructure or vehicles for fear of ending up in one of their dodgy jail cells.

            After completing the sampling program after a month, I flew back to Australia, and Ryan back to Pommy Land.  The saddest part of my trip was saying goodbye to Cedda and his family who had welcomed me into their disruptive lives, and it was just too easy for me to arrive and leave, but they would have to stay in their enclave, unsure of what kind of future Kosovo had waiting for them. Cedda’s last words to me were ‘I…hope…y-y-ou…have good life, if you come to Kosovo again, c-come v-visit us.’   I would make sure to visit him in the unlikely event I reached this part of the world again.

However, the action in Kosovo was not about to cease just yet.  The flight bound from Pristina to Vienna was delayed by three hours because the amount of passenger luggage did not match the amount of people flying on the plane.  The Austrian Airlines jet was placed on the runway ready for takeoff when, inexplicably, it taxied back to the terminal.   Everyone was totally confused: maybe the pilot had discovered a fault or maybe he had forgotten his bottle of Rakija at the duty free shop.  At the terminal we had to disembark the plane onto the tarmac, whilst observing the specially-trained bomb squad German Shepherds sniff-out the German-like arranged luggage for ordinances.  One by one, we identified our luggage to place on the baggage trailer and whatever was left behind was most likely distributed amongst the U.N. guards if found to be explosive free.

I cannot begin to comprehend the social issues that I observed in Kosovo, and I probably never will.  The one striking image that will never leave me was the undulating lush emerald green Kosovar landscape littered with the rubble of once-proud standing brick houses.  After NATO had bombed Slobodan Milosevic’s forces, they left, leaving the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to run amok in the power vacuum.  The house rubble was caused by KLA members entering the house, placing a lit candle in the ceiling, closing all the windows, turning the gas on in the kitchen, and then running away like all buggery, waiting for the gas to reach the naked flame.

The result was devastating, but it was such a simple and effective tactic.  What was most disturbing was that the destruction was not limited to an isolated house – we saw entire villages wiped out.  Cavity brick housing had taken on a whole new meaning for me.  After seeing these horrific scenes, I was convinced that no-one had won this war.  But, I saw resilience in the eyes of both Serbs and Albanians, and I sincerely hope there is a future for fledgling Kosovo and its people.

I think my time in Kosovo developed a perverse taste for places that most package tourists would avoid.  There was something appealing about experiencing something completely different to what I was used to – especially my surroundings and my values.  My friends and colleagues may have thought I was a complete nutter for going to Kosovo, but the travel bug had definitely stuck its fangs into my rapidly expanding travel conscience.  I was hooked for life.

Even if the only word I had learned during my stay in Kosovo was Rakija.

Even though I am Italian by heritage, I have never had a huge interest in soccer because the wogball gene was never passed onto me – I am completely uncoordinated, with my best effort in any sport being a two wickets for nine runs bowling effort in the rather Anglo sport of junior cricket.  I was on a hat-trick because of this outstanding effort, but eternal glory had eluded me on that day as the next ball went straight through to the keeper.

However, one experience was going to change my view on ‘the beautiful game’ forever.  I witnessed a soccer game on a recent trip to Argentina between Boca Juniors and Estudiantes (The Students).   I attended a game during my last weekend in Buenos Aires before embarking on a special deep vein thrombosis flight back to Australia.  In my infinite wisdom, my brain tricked me to think it was a fantastic idea to experience a soccer game from the La Apertura competition before heading back to Brisvegas. 

After forking out a bit extra to sort of guarantee that I returned alive, a mini-bus arrived in front of my backpackers, full of other Antipodeans willing to subject themselves to the unknown debauchery that was about to occur.  Like me, they were not sure what to expect.  We discussed this whilst dodging the ruthless Buenos Aires drivers, and while scoffing down our respective grilled-chorizo-over-hot-coals sandwiches at an outdoor kiosco just outside the Boca Juniors stadium.

The warning signs were ominous as I walked past the team of fully geared riot police complete with bullet proof vests, helmets and big leather boots.  They looked liked a multiple cloned military version of the Village People cop character.  This was my last chance to escape, but that quickly disappeared after two full body searches by the Village People police before entering the crumbling, 1940s built Alberto J. Armando Stadium, otherwise known as ‘La Bombonera’ (The Chocolate Box), home of Boca Juniors. 

This was not going to be an ordinary game of wogball.   I could tell by spotting the hooligan-detecting helicopter hovering overhead that this was more than a game of soccer – the chopper was there solely to ensure a quick information transfer to the riot police to respond to fights between the opposing teams.

My closest brush with this form of maniacal soccer beforehand had occurred when watching an incomprehensible 300 words a minute commentary on the box, including the characteristic and mandatory:  ‘GGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!’ blood curdling scream for five minutes if the white round thing was squeezed through the back of the net like an overweight calf through a set of fishnet stockings. 

This commentary was toned down in the version SBS would play in Australia on a Sunday afternoon on ‘The World Game’ (or was it ‘The Wog Game’?).  Based on the large amount of wogball devoted to their television programming, I thought SBS was a cheeky acronym of Silly Bloody Soccer, and not the Special Broadcasting Service.

The game between Boca Juniors and the top of the table Estudiantes had promised to be a spiteful clash.  Boca had been reeling after a two-nil defeat by their arch rivals River Plate in the superclasico the week before, leaving them languishing in mid-field on the La Apertura the ladder.  However, this had not subdued the passion of the 44,000 strong crowd that had turned up to see their heroes play.

Whilst scanning around the stadium, I noticed an empty seat directly above the Club Atlético Boca Juniors (CABJ) sign on halfway – it is reserved only for Diego Maradona, the great cocaine snorting soccer genius who single-handedly beat the Socceroos more than 10 years earlier during World Cup Qualifying.  He is the man that every English soccer hooligan detests because of his infamous ‘Hand of God’ Goal that knocked the Poms out of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.  I was not lucky enough to have his presence grace the stadium that day and I can only assume he did not feel like making an appearance from his rehab bed.

Above Diego’s holy seat was a digital display that extraordinarily did not show the score, but instead was counting down the seconds to the exact moment of when Boca Juniors reaches its Centenary.

Before the game had even commenced, a number of dedicated fans risked almost certain death by scaling the tall black steel barriers and barbed wire to place their feverishly hand-painted banners on the other side.  The wind caused their banners to flap dangerously, almost causing the completely bonkers Boca devotees to lose their footing - not that the police were watching anyway.  This banner placing procedure occurred simultaneously with the preparation of marching tunes by the Boca Band, surrounded by a stormy sea of blue and yellow flags.

The band, which consisted of at least 10 bass drums and an entire horn section, gathered in regimented fashion, willing to play and die for their beloved team who were about to take the field of play.  A thunder of drums commenced proceedings, and then, as one, the entire Boca crowd religiously chanted a series of club songs, without resting, punching the air with clenched fists in unison. 

It was then at this point in time in the universe I realized that Catholicism is not the official religion of Argentina.  It was soccer.  These soccer nutcases made the most hard core die hard Collingwood fan look completely pissweak. 

As the referee blew his whistle, a shower of white shredded paper exploded from the Estudiantes section of the crowd and onto the pitch, obscuring any chance the Boca goalkeeper had of distinguishing the ball from yesterday’s news.  The Estudiantes faithful lit their red flares and smoke drifted over their unsuspecting fellow supporters, most likely causing a new pandemic of asthma sufferers.

Back in Boca land, constant shouts of ‘Puto!’ (Whore!) and ‘Mierda!’ (Crap!) were belted out by the Boca brigade that obviously indicated their team were not doing as well as they should be.  A barrage of high pitched whistling pelted the referee whenever his decision displeased these one eyed supporters.

There was many times where I questioned the stability of La Bombonera as the Boca faithful jumped up and down and sideways, somehow willing their side to score.  The concrete seats, of which I had developed fresh haemorrhoids from sitting on, had taken on a flexible consistency.  There was no choice - I had to place my faith in the Argentine structural engineers who had passionately designed and built La Bombonera more than 60 years earlier than this game.

At half time, prospecting young Maradonas would take to the field to display their impressive ball skills in front of the appreciative crowd, while the Boca Band continued to play their obsessive tunes.  The sound of the rhythmic drums had now become addictive, and I was convinced I should try to smuggle a bass drum into Lang Park for the next rugby or State of Origin game I attended.  Then I realised that the fun police would confiscate this item if I attempted this great way of generating crowd atmosphere.

It was more of same maniacal chanting, cheering, whistling and singing in the second half.  I was filthy that a goal was not scored, but maybe that was not such a bad thing as I had received a vivid description from an Italian backpacker of the before mentioned superclasico – he had torn the shirt of some unknown in the crowd whilst a sea of River Plate fans surged towards the steel barriers after a goal had been scored, trying to somehow maintain his footing.

Eventually, the full time whistle blew, and I think the Boca fans were happy they got away with a draw.  However, no one was moving because the stadium doors were shut to prevent fights between the opposing teams.  I sat there for 30 minutes watching the Estudiantes fans pour through the tiny portals, leaving behind their burning rubbish that ironically looked pretty in the twilight.  A cold wind swirled around the stadium, picking up cigarette ash and miscellaneous matter and depositing it into my eye whites.

Finally, after a chaotic exit from the stands, I cast my eyes to the dreary slums of La Boca in the background, reflecting on the complete madness I had just witnessed. 

I had loved every second of it.