Salento is a cool, small town, set in the mountains which are thickly and colorfully covered in tropical forest and surrounded by coffee farms.

The locals wear big cowboy hats, very short ponchos and hang metre-long knives on their belts. Most are big fans of General Wellington's boots. It is also the first town where moustaches are frequent, bushy and awesome. Possibly due to the rubber booots, they all have that slow John Wayne walk, throwing each leg forward and then letting it flop down.

That, the actual cowboy attitude, look and eyes, the small town feeling, the horses galloping down the square, the colonial church around which the city is built, the number of pool houses and saloon-like bars all add up to give the town a "tropical western" sort of feeling.

You could easily imagine Clint Eastwood riding into town with a single bullet in his colt, speaking in dubbed Spanish.

In short, we and I like Salento very much. The fact that the locals grow their coffee and their moustache goes a long way towards this, admittedly, but the Old West atmosphere is a great and unexpected bonus.

As part of a long series of bets, dares and challenges, which I never turned down, never lost, and even (and only) won a free lunch back in Puerto Natales, Maria challenged me to eat her little jar of jalapenos in a shot. We set the reward at five Euros.

Doing the maths (asked Duarte, our currency specialist), it would almost pay for the night's stay at the hostel. Pros and cons weighed, needless to say, the challenge was accepted.

The referees decreed the move legal so I poured in a little ketchup. I took a deep breath. I weighed the glass in my hand. If I had any sense, I'd be feeling pretty stupid at this point.

But I don't and it went in one go. The dozen jalapenos, the ketchup, and a spicy vinnager they were soaked in. I choked on the vile vinnager and the jalapenos nearly made me beg for a quick death. My whole tongue felt like it would set the table on fire if I licked it. My throat swelled up, burning. But I chewed every one of those jalapenos with their nuclear seeds. Red as the ketchup, eyes all wet, I smiled proudly at a job well done.

One by one Maria counted the coins in front of me. Five euros, as promised, in a handful of twenty cent coins. Five euros that I can't change anywhere or do anything with. The jalapenos hadn't made me want to cry half as badly as the ringing sound of coins piling on top of each other.

"Well, you'll have the souvenier to carry around so you can remember me and this bet," she said, laughing. I'll have that souvenier for a very long time.

If I had any sense, I'd feel pretty stupid.

Tinhamos andado o dia todo a percorrer o Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego.

-Vinte minutos para o fim do mundo,- disse a Maria a apontar para a placa que assim o indicava.
-Realmente, Duarte, se tivesses vinte minutos para o fim do mundo, que é que fazias?
-Aqui?
-Não sei, em qualquer lugar.
-Se fosse aqui, deitava-me.

--

À espera que o mundo acabe

After over eight hours of Spanish dubbed torture, the final scene of the final Twillight "saga" film sparkled on the tiny screen.

Bored, twelve hours into the bus ride, I looked out of the right-hand window and noticed the dizzying height at which our thin tar road unwound along the mountainside. The bus turned a sharp turn. A silver box emerged on our left. I couldn't tell what it was but it was awfully close.

Breaks screeched.

An old lady gasped.

...

The kid on my left had had to take off his shirt after throwing up on it. He peed into a plastic bag. Throughout the night, he had slept with his mother and his younger sister in a pretzel of limbs that had a tendency of flopping onto me: heads on my lap, hands on my face, feet on my knees. His sister cried every three minutes and a half and needed diaper changes about twice as often.

The two men on my right smelt like black horses when they run in the midday heat. Due to some unexplainable physical impediment, they couldn't keep their arms down. One of them kept the mugshot of his son in his wallet.

To the sound of a dull thud, we crashed against the oncoming silver truck.

We would later laugh about choosing the cheapest bus and the dangerous route.

Note: Later.