In northernmost Patagonia up against the border with Chile is a child's drawing of a volcano come to life - a triangular white peak covered in snow, with a kind of hump on its southern slope that makes it look like a hunchback. This is the Vulcán Lanín, a stratovolcano that sits on the horizon like a single pointy too…

On my way back from Buenos Aires from the Argentine lake district (snug up against the Chilean border), I stopped in the provincial capital of Neuquén. Neuquén is one of those unloved but essential cities, like Inverness or Anchorage, that constitutes the only population center in a large expanse of nothingness …

The flight from Buenos Aires to Trelew takes only a little over an hour, but you feel like you've arrived on another planet. Instead of an endless urban landscape that transitions into an even more endless coastal lawn, you find yourself in the middle of an arid plain that looks like a cross between northern Scot…

There was a spectacular bank heist here the day after I moved to Buenos Aires. What I know about it has all come through the thick veil of my rudimentary Spanish, so I'm sure details and entire facts have been embellished to suit my sense of fun, but even in general outline it's a crime straight out of the movies.

On the afternoon of (Friday!) January …