Argentina - Pete´s Special Birthday Edition - Nov 1, 2009

T and I have been keeping a daily journal of our own through out our trip. The write up of the 28th October (my birthday) was, in honour, passed onto Pete to provide us with his crazy representations of how he saw the day unfold!

What follows is the extract from our journal, in Pete´s own words! Please be aware this man has lost his marbles during our tour!

Morning everyone, hi, hello. As I sit here in the town, San Martin de los Andes in northern Patagonia i am filled with the inspiration of Vern and Boggo from the book "Spud - Learning to fly". I will make it my mission to provide an accurate synopsis of the events of the 28th October 2009 but reserve the right of poetic licence. As this is my first entry in the Holley - Basset journal after travelling with these crazy freaks for 5 and a half months, I will endeavour to create a passage of literary genius such that all journal entries before and hence will pale into significance.

The morning began some what leisurely partly because we had finished 26000 bottles of Malbec by 11pm the night before and partly because Teneale had no doubt given Zack his birthday present in bed. Myself, the birthday boy and his mistress eventually set off for a jog to clear the mind and mentally prepare for the grand finale of the birthday week!

Zack (John) received his presents over breakfast which included one Swedish made penis enlarger from T, a bottle of self tan from Youngaast, a coupon for a free night with Paige/Marcelle from Robbie, a voucher for free window tinting and dropped suspension from Rouxie and nothing from me (because i´m Jewish).

Having showered and changed into our golf kit we hailed a taxi to carry our saturated bodies to Vacherie Country Club. The men piled into the cab and the driver said, "Donde (where) ?" . In a blow to our collective egos we realised that not one of us had even the fainest clue of the club and one of us was forced to run back to the house, tail between the legs, to ask the girls what course we were playing at!

Apart from the initial confusion it was a clean sweep victory for the birthday boys who beat the Youngaast and Robbie 6 and 5! Not since New Zealand beat Japan 145 - 22 in the 1995 rugby world cup has there been such a resounding victory! With the match over by the 13th, the girls joined in the fun and had a longest drive competition of their own. Rooks beat T by virtue of finally hitting the ball on her 3rd swing, T took 4 shots to make contact! With the snow capped Andes in the background it made for a memorable round of golf and a fitting way to spend the morning of Zacks birthday and Youngaasts farewell day.

We returned to Mendoza to "Hostel Independencia" in the afternoon for a few minutes of rest and recuperation before the evenings festivities were due to start. Matt had managed to book a table at a locally famous restaurant called "Anna's Bistro" and John´s folks had kindly offered to sponsor the evening as unfortunately they would not be able to be there. We arrived at 21.30 hours (early for Argentina!) and were shown to our seats in the garden among the rows of Iceberg roses. Robbie joked that they must surely be JUST White roses - unfortunately his private schooling seems to have gonna unnoticed!

As has become tradition on special occasions such as this we all took turns in standing and offering a toast. A toast to how lucky we are to all be together on tour in Argentina, a toast to family and friends back home and a toast to Zack Macracken on this, his 27th birthday. We also took this opportunity to get stuck into the Melbec that I had been given at Familia Di Tomaso the day before (my birthday) - all in all not a bad way to start the evening.

Our waitress, although quiet and a little slow, was rather easy on the eyes and the men found that the wine seemed to flow the Amazon River in such sensational surroundings! (Did you notice the use of alliteration in the previous sentence? I tell you literary genius! These Basset - Holley's are going to be paying me to write this journal after reading this! )

In what has become another tradition on the eve of departure for one of the team members, Youngaast made a presentation of gifts and said a few words about the usual eg: How Holley is an albino, how red mist (Pete) is a king, etc etc etc and a few emotional (and gay) comments about grabbing life by the horns. Jokes, it was a fantastic speech and we surely will miss the Youngaast of bulls for the remainder of our journey. Farewell you Lebanese looking man-whore!

Against the odds, the girls from the number of wine farms we had been to, joined us for the dinner. Mariso, Marelize, Andrea and Pati (hobbit) were a lot of fun and endured our mini fines meeting with brave faces! By this stage we were all well oiled and it was a dangerous stumble to the night club venues of Mendoza. The gringos didn't last long but the Argentine girls looked as if they´d just started the party! It was however 4am and time to retire! What a fantastic day!

Goodluck was wished by all to Youngaast as he set his alarm (and 5 more) in an attempt to make his flight to London at 7am! Bon Voyage!