Got up early to meet Aled from Madryn. He was supposed to be arriving on the 9 o�clock bus from Madryn, therefore arriving in Trelew at 10ish, so I got up around half nine, got washed, changed etc. and was ready when the bell rang at about 10:30.

We sat around in the house while Hawys did some shopping, then drank some mat� together while the two of them compared hospital experiences and words in Welsh which I don�t use!

Following that, we went to the shops together for Aled to buy some Patagonian souvenirs for people back home - a few cups and saucers and a belt for himself. Belts - always useful for keeping your trousers up!

Aled was rushing to catch the 1 o�clock bus back to Madryn, but we first had to collect his Ashokan CDs from the Hughes family where I had left them the night before, so we trotted along the street to pick them up, introduced Aled to the family and were then very nicely given a lift to the bus station by Ariel.

I got out of the car, arranging to meet Alan later on at his house, intending to go and check the football scores and forgetting that I had arranged to meet someone else at the same time!

I rushed back down to the Hughes house to explain the mix-up, and ended up being taken with them to the water filtration plant next to the river, where Alan was giving a Welsh class to Sergio, who has eyesight problems.

I was introduced to Sergio, who wanted me to teach him a bit of Dutch as well as Welsh, and to his parents, Jorge and Gladys, with Jorge, an employee of the filtration plant, giving myself, Ariel and Marta a tour of his work, the laboratory and other elements of the factory.

With the Welsh lesson still going on, I went with Ariel and Marta for a quick ride into the countryside, where they showed me the chacras on the other side of Trelew and took me to Ariel�s father�s farm, where Osian gave us a quick tour of the irrigation system and the changes which were taking place and then invited us in for tea and faintly annoying puzzles, almost all of which were totally beyond me. I�m sure you know the sort of thing, two hoops which are linked together, pieces of string which don�t come apart. I have always been rubbish at that sort of thing.

"How do you get the key out of here?" asked Osian. "With a pair of scissors or pliers" I replied.

We went and picked up Alan and headed back to town, where I went out to meet another of my "intercambios", Laurato. Having not swapped photos, we didn�t what the other looked like, although being incredibly pale and standing there looking lost, I guess I�m the easier one to find in a crowded street.

After the initial confusion we went for a coffee in an ice-cream parlour on the corner of Rivadavia and 25 de Mayo, where we switched between languages and Laurato told me of his interest in learning Japanese, which sounds different and interesting. Not the normal conversation topic....as if there is a normal conversation topic.

Went back to my normal cybercafe to check the football results. Barry won 3-0. Hooray. Had a new message from a girl called Karen, who had just come online, so we started chatting and arranged to meet for a coffee early in the evening.

I arrived fashionably late, but almost on time, at SJ�s, where Karen and I had a long chat about the Welsh community in Comodoro Rivadavia where she is from, and after an hour and a half of convo, we ended up meeting up with her boyfriend and going back to their house (and three cats) for pizza.

They invited me out for the night, which in Argentinian practice means sitting around the house waiting for friends to turn up, drinking mat�, eating the pizza and empanadas which we had delivered, watching music videos on MTV and chatting until it was time to go out. 3:30am.

Karen lives about ten blocks further down Fontana from me, so it was a bit of a trek into town (and a little nippy), but the streets were full of people so it didn�t feel quite so late (for me anyway).

We were heading to El Cuervo, opposite from Margaritas, on the grounds that it was free to get in. Always a good idea in my book. We stood around, chatted a bit, acted a bit silly and danced a bit to the Argentinian rock music that was being played loudly, then went home at half-five, ambling down the street towards home. Tired, but happy!