🎙️ Exploring Train Journeys & Forgotten British Histories with Shafik Meghji 🚂 | Winging It Travel Podcast

In this week's episode, I'm joined for a hat-trick appearance by award-winning travel writer, journalist, and broadcaster Shafik Meghji, as we dive deep into the romance of train travel, chance encounters on the road, and his brand new book Small Earthquakes: A Journey Through Lost British History in South America (out July 24, 2025).

We start with a ride on the Tren del Fin del Mundo, the world’s southernmost railway near Ushuaia, Argentina — a former prison line turned into a stunning tourist route through Tierra del Fuego National Park. We chat train adventures across the globe, from the Rocky Mountaineer in Canada to India’s rail journeys, the Trans-Siberian, Vietnam’s Reunification Express, and future plans for travel by rail through Europe, Japan, and Australia.

But that’s not all — we explore unexpected British footprints across South America, from Welsh-speaking communities in Patagonia to Victorian architecture in Montevideo, British-built railways in Argentina, and even the story behind the iconic Fray Bentos pies in Uruguay.

Whether you’re into epic train journeys, unusual travel histories, or looking for South America travel inspiration, this episode will ignite your wanderlust.

🌍 Topics Covered:

• Shafik’s top global train journeys & bucket list routes
• Life and landscapes aboard the Tren del Fin del Mundo
• A deep dive into Uruguay’s underrated capital, Montevideo
• The incredible stories behind his new book Small Earthquakes
• British history in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile & beyond
• Serendipitous travel encounters and the magic of slow travel
• Central America travel tips – including El Salvador, Panama & Belize
• The polar bears (and beluga whales!) of Churchill, Manitoba via train
• Street tango, carne asado, and the culture of the River Plate

📚 Pre-order Small Earthquakes – A powerful and fascinating narrative connecting British history to forgotten corners of Latin America. Out July 24, 2025 - order here!

Shafik Meghji

Website

Instagram

💬 Have you taken a memorable train journey? Visited South America recently? Drop a comment and share your stories – we’d love to hear them!

📺 New episodes every Monday on YouTube & all major podcast platforms. Hit subscribe and never miss an episode of the Winging It Travel Podcast.

Timestamps

00:00 Exploring 'Small Earthquakes' and British History in South America

02:47 Travel Plans and Adventures for 2025

06:02 The Allure of Central America and El Salvador

09:12 Chance Encounters and Connections While Traveling

12:05 The Impact of Travel on Personal Growth

15:01 The Hidden Gems of Uruguay and Montevideo

18:00 Tango, Carnival, and Cultural Experiences in Montevideo

21:04 Traveling to Uruguay: Tips and Recommendations

24:01 Exploring the Unique Attractions of Uruguay

27:05 Train Travel in South America: Tren Del Fin Del Mundo

43:41 The Southernmost Railway Adventure

47:10 Booking and Accessibility of Train Travel

49:55 Polar Bears and Unique Train Journeys

52:18 Top Train Routes Around the World

56:25 The Allure of Train Travel

01:03:24 Exploring British History in South America

01:11:04 The Impact of British Influence on South America

01:17:55 Rugby and Other Sports in South America

--------------------------------------------------------------

Voyascape: Travel Podcast Network - https://voyascape.com/

Winging It Travel Podcast - Website

Please leave a review and rating wherever you get your podcasts!

--------------------------------------------------------------

Winging It Travel Podcast Credits

Host/Producer/Creator/Composer/Editor - James Hammond

Contact me - jameshammondtravel@gmail.com 

Social Media - follow me on:

Instagram

TikTok 

Facebook 

--------------------------------------------------------------

Support My Podcast - Memberships

Patreon - Here

Buy Me A Coffee - Here

Affiliate Links 

If you click one of the below to book something, I get a tiny commission, which helps the podcast.

Book Flights with Skyscanner - Here 

Use Revolut Travel Card - Here

Book Your E-Sim With GigSky - Here

Book Hostels With Hostelworld - Here

Booking.com - Here

Book Experiences With Viator - Here

Discovery Car Hire - Here

Book Buses With Busbud - Here

Book Trains With Trainline - Here

Travel Insurance with SafetyWing - Here

Book Flights With Expedia Canada - Here

Buy my Digital Travel Planner - Here

--------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for supporting me and the podcast!

Cheers, James.

So you've got a new book coming out in July called Small Earthquakes. Tell us a bit about the premise and what the idea behind the book is.

Yeah, so it's out in, I think it's on the 24th of July and it's Small Earthquakes, journey through lost British history in South America. And in some ways the origins of it date back to my very first trip to South America as a backpacker. I ended up in Buenos Aires and fell in love with the place. That journey prompted me to become a travel writer, it prompted me to live for a year in Buenos Aires, it prompted me to focus on Latin America.

But while I was there, here where I was staying, there were streets with names like Darwin and Fitzroy. And when I was walking down Caillou, Florida, one of the main shopping streets, there was an old Harrods store, closed, shuttered, a bit dusty, lots of pigeons. Well, that's a bit odd. And then when I went to the, you know, the newsstands, was a Buenos Aires Held newspaper, English language newspaper. Scroll forward to the present and all of my travels in South America. Wherever I went, I started picking up little bits of

unlikely British connections. I didn't really know much about British history in South America, who's never talked to me in school, so I weaved in, I've weaved into the book some of those experiences and yeah and hopefully readers will also find, certainly in the UK, will find some unexpected connections to their own lives, to the places that they...

Do you love spontaneous adventures, travel tips and stories that will inspire you to pack up and go?

Well, welcome to the Winging It Travel Podcast. I'm James, your host, and each week I bring you travel tales, practical advice, and interviews with travelers from around the globe. Whether you're planning a big trip or just dreaming about one, you'll find everything from hidden gems to epic fails, because travel is not perfect, and that is what makes it beautiful. So grab your backpack and let's wing it. New episodes every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts, and on YouTube too. You can find Winging It and more fantastic

Hello and welcome to this week's episode where I'm rejoined by Shafik Mejee, an award-winning journalist, travel writer, author, editor and broadcaster. Shafik is back on for the hat trick episode, which is the first for the podcast. And today we're talking about Tren Del Fin Del Mundo, the world's southernmost railway and other train routes. Shafik's upcoming book, Small Earthquakes.

and some of Shafik's recent travels. Welcome back, how doing dude?

Thank very much for having me back. feel honoured to be making the hat trick appearance. yeah, looking forward to diving into lots of diverse topics as we always do when we have a chat.

Yeah, always great to have you back. How's 2025 gone so far?

I mean, I'm going to separate that professionally. It's been good because I finished the latest draft in my new book, which I know we'll talk about a bit later. And I've been planning some travels. Obviously in a non-work sense, everyone else knows what's going on in 2025. So let's say it's been a bit more interesting and unpredictable than one would have hoped for. So yeah, let's say a mixed bag.

Okay, I I agree with that. Definitely from this end. I'm going to flip this question actually. I'm going to start with this actually. Where are you planning to go this year? I mean, let's go, yeah, maybe personal and work if you can say anything about work, but personally, anything on Horizon that's booked in, anything exciting or new?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was quite unusual for me the start of this year because I've been so ensconced in book writing that I've been at my desk. so with that, virtually out of the way now, it's been really exciting to kind of start planning new trips and to start working on new ideas and new ideas for books and for articles and so on. So initially I'm going to do one of the rarest things for a travel writer to do, which is take a holiday. So I'm...

going to go over the next couple of months. I'm going to take, do some train travel through Europe. Provisionally planning to go to Bilbao and San Sebastian in the Basque Country in Spain, which I've visited before. So yeah, so I'm looking forward to that both from a break point of view and from going to a new part of the world. A bit later in the year, I'm hoping to get to Canada again. Yeah, hopefully so. Hopefully so.

coming in.

But yeah, it's a country I have lot of affection for, lots of relatives over in various parts, but I think it's ripe with interesting stories. So yeah, so I'm hoping to do that later in the year. And then a bit after that, Latin America always draws me back. I've been focusing on the southern part of the region and now looking to head a bit further north. So I'm hoping to get back to Central America, a place I love, think the place that's underwritten about, a place that's

timely and in the news for lots of reasons. So yeah, so I'm looking forward to getting back, getting back out there and on the road again.

That's great. Yeah. mean, Central America, since we last spoke, is a place I've been to. went to El Salvador and I did interviews with some people locally and I actually had an amazing time. Like El Salvador was a bit of a, not so risk, but more of a unknown because we all know the history right now. So was like, okay, I'm going there solo. I'm not doing a tour. I'm there for two weeks. So I've no idea where I'm going and what I'm seeing. So I booked in San Salvador for a couple of days and spoke to a few locals and some free walking tours, interviewed a few people.

and got some great ideas. So that's a highly recommended place to go to if you want to out there destination, which is now on the cards, right? Cause previously it's off the cards and also the content, like you say, it's not really been written about that much. so my YouTube and podcast has gone really well in terms of that, cause it's now probably starting to come into people's minds, especially this year. They're going to double their tourist numbers. I'll say next year might be more. So, ⁓ it's quite interesting to see how that country is now going to draw some tourists in.

Absolutely. Well, I will have to pick your brain. mean, I think in Central America, with some obvious exceptions, Costa Rica being the classic example, kind of often slips under the radar from a travel point of view. And yeah, it's obviously a very interesting, varied, yeah, and in many cases under-undervisited part of the world. yeah, look forward to checking out some of your content as well.

And interestingly, if you do go, I think I might be going back to El Salvador this time next year, potentially. So it's on my list to go back and see more of the country. Cause even though it's quite small, there's lots of scene doing two weeks was not enough. yeah, if we're in the same area at the same time, that would be cool to me out for a coffee and what, pupusas? That's what they eat in El Salvador. So, yeah.

I'm always up for a coffee and a pupusa. ⁓ yeah, count me in James.

It's funny because on one of my YouTube episodes, the first scene is the papoosas that got the hostel and had loads of Salvadorans comment on my YouTube, like saying, oh, thanks for visiting the country. Please share it. Like we want people to come and visit. But a people said, oh yeah, those papoosas that the hostel gave you, I need to apologize. They weren't the best. was like, well, lucky for you, that's the first time I ever had them. So I didn't have anything to compare them to, but it's quite funny that people are saying, sorry, but they didn't look great. I was like, oh, they taste all right.

Yeah. mean, food is an emotive subject all around the world. And interestingly enough, I've been trying to do a bit more traveling vicariously through the various restaurants in my hometown of London. And very excited to check out hopefully soon a Salvadoran restaurant nearby me in Southeast London, which I've heard on good authority, serves our very good pupusas and stuff.

So there's one here, think, I think I've researched or no, no, really. This is so strange. in a such a total small town in that El Salvador, just North of San Salvador. It's a civil war town because it's quite big in the civil war. You can do tours there. Got great recommendation for a tour. You're going to meet a local who fought in the war civil war. is, and anyway, I was on this tour, but normally they have to run big tours for this because they need to guarantee numbers because the

The locals are very busy and they want to pay the veterans some money, which is absolutely fair enough. So I joined this tour as a solo guy, but I did G Adventures tour. So it's like 25 of us, right? All youngsters, probably not really interested in the Civil War part, but I was like, got like hundred questions when I asked him. Anyway, one of the guides on there used to live in Vancouver, used to go to Marlin. And he said, oh yeah, there's one Salvadoran restaurant in Vancouver, some main street. So I need to go and check that out to get some.

kind of reminisce about the papooses that I had, but also weirdly he was in Antigua at same time as me and we bumped into each other in the square. It wasn't planned, just in Antigua in the middle of the central square, just like shout across each other to the square and had a nice hug and catch up. Just those really weird random things that happen when you travel where you think that kind of thing happens in the past because you now have social media and had his WhatsApp, but I didn't know where he was at a certain time and we just bumped into each other and had a good old catch up about that Civil War tour. So these kind of cool things do happen.

Chance encounters when traveling and bumping up to the same person several times as you travel around a region or a country or a continent. Yeah. One of the great, great pleasures of it. The kind of the serendipity of it. yeah, it's kind of, you know, it persists even in the, you know, in the interconnected, globalized, you know, social age, social media age that we live in. Today, can still, yeah, you can still have those connections and it's, yeah, it's a great pleasure of being on the road.

happened a lot to you. I know you traveled South America for 20 years, like as a region. Um, the early days, let's go before social media. Did that happen quite a lot when you're like backpacking around and going from country to country?

Yeah, yeah. mean, very much so. when I first went back 20, know, social media, I'm showing my age a bit here, but social media was, you know, in its early stages and guidebooks were the king at that point. And you'd very much find, you know, this was my first visit to the continent. You'd very much find that you would see the same people at various same hostels, the same sites, the same travel agencies, the same restaurants and bars and that kind of stuff.

they had the rough guide to South America, they had the lonely planet, they were following the same quote unquote gringo trail around South America. So you'd see them on the Inca trail and these are really intense meetings, particularly when you're young, particularly when this was one of my first backpacking trips. And then you don't see them for maybe a month or so and you're in.

Buenos Aires and you're walking down the streets of Palermo and you're wondering where to get a steak and where to get some ice cream and stuff. And then you bump into them there and then scroll forward and you're in Chile and Patagonia a few months later again, and you see them again. it's one of the great pleasures. often, sometimes, particularly if you're traveling on your own, meeting up with other solo travelers, deciding to do a trip together, do some tours together, just have a dinner together or meal or whatever.

You know, again, that's really what it's about. know, fortunate in these kind of human connections. Yeah. And that happened to me when I first started backpacking and it still happens now as well. you know, particularly with Southern South America, I'm lucky to have visited repeatedly and go very regularly. you know, it's always a pleasure looking up old contacts, looking up friends that I've made along the way, know, sharing stories and kind of, you know,

clicking, clicking back in. ⁓ so yeah, and it's kind of, it's, it's the great thing to, know, the phones, the laptops, all that kind of stuff is really, really useful. Right. But kind of there's nothing like actually just going out there talking to people, fellow travelers, locals, of course. Yeah. And kind of forging those kinds of connections.

Yeah. Cause I met a lot of people doing like the north to south route in Central America. they probably started in Canada maybe. some, some couples on motorbikes started in Alaska. So they're coming all the way down, right. Going all the way down to the south. Um, but yeah, they all go on the same route. So I got the impression. I saw us first start to meet these people in Santa Ana in El Salvador. They're passing through and they're like, yeah, we, we bumped into the same people. We do the same roads at the Pan American highway.

You could stop off on the side of the road, just for like a coffee and you might bump into a few bikers there. It sounds quite a cool sort of like community going down really, because you would have the same experiences, know, probably do the same activities, meet the same people, but it's always great to go three weeks down the line and reconnect and talk about the stories. It's quite a, I want to say addictive is a bit of a strong word, but it's a very strong feeling to get that back, isn't it? Cause you want to go and experience the same stuff as other people that maybe in your home life, people don't experience that year.

you're doing there, right? I I talked to sister about this yesterday, like those strong, small periods of time, those feelings and those shared experiences are quite strong, aren't they? And then you sort of dissipate into real life.

Absolutely. mean, they're vivid, intense, and often no matter how many photos you take or times you tell people back home, your friends and family and whoever about them, there's nothing like actually talking through those experiences with people that actually experience them at the same time as you. And those are the people that you, know, the fellow travellers that you meet along the way. yeah, kind of it's for me, certainly, I think probably for lots of people, know, travel is a formative experience, right? It shapes who we are, shapes how we see the world.

shapes what we want to do with our lives. ⁓ And yeah, when you're doing all these things for the first time, particularly in some of the most dramatic places on earth, ⁓ yeah, it forms a bond. And I certainly meet people that have done things with five years ago, 10 years ago, longer than that ago. when you're talking about those experiences, you're right back there.

Right, can smell it and taste it and hear it and viscerally feel it.

Yeah. And also I think it's quite interesting because you also, I can accept that maybe you might not see these people again in real life, right? Because, ⁓ I guess some people might crave to get that experience again, but I think there's a certain beauty where you just have that core experience. could be Inca trail, could be an example, right? Real hard hike, four or five days, you get to see Machu Picchu before anyone else like in on that day. And it's like a shared experience, but you might not ever see those people again. Like that group I did that tour with apart from my friend from Norwich. I haven't seen any of them.

But the collections there on social media and I'm sure if tomorrow that group go back together again, I'm sure it'll be back into Inca Trail mode, right? So it is also nice to leave it there and accept that that was a great experience at that time and not try and recreate something that maybe can't be happened, can't happen.

And sometimes the experiences are valuable because they're finite, They're fleeting. They're in the moment. They're very strong and powerful and enjoyable. It's kind of the, you know, the fragile nature or the short-lived nature of them is what helps to give them meaning. And also, even if you don't see them in person, you'll pop up in photos. And memories. And their memories, exactly. When they're telling the stories.

Of course,

Yeah.

and stuff. yeah, it's a great part of traveling and it's a encouragement. I know a lot of people don't necessarily find it easy talking to strangers and it can feel a bit daunting, particularly if you're traveling on your own. But traveling is a great way of being forced to step out of your comfort zone. You might not sit on the tube in London and talk to the person next to you.

That's normal isn't it? Yeah, exactly. That's something weird is happening, something suspicious is happening. But when you're bored, you can step away from those norms and restrictions, either that society has or that puts on yourself and you can make those connections, make new friends even if they're just friends for a few days on the

I think that's enough, right? think that they can still be friends even with a few days in the road.

And

also, you know what, know have, you know, know least one or two friends who have met their partners whilst travelling in, know, one of them on a cruise to Antarctica, for example. So look, you know, you never know where it's going to take you.

Before we get to Uruguay, for Central America, is there a few countries that's really high on your list that you want to visit or you never visited before?

Yeah, mean, two really stand out because I've spent a lot of time in Costa Rica, which I love and which I recommend over the years, ⁓ I'd love to go to, and hope to put the ride this year to both Panama and to Belize as well. ⁓ In particular, although I'd like to, if time would allow a bit of a road trip throughout the isthmus.

But yeah, particularly Panamaran Belize, I think are kind of, know, particularly interesting places at the moment, lots of good stories, beautifully buried as Central America is as a whole. And obviously the small size of the region means that can, you know, it's easy to visit more than one country on the same trip, even if you're there for a relatively short amount of time. yeah, those two particularly, but you know, I love a Papusa.

I often travel on my stomach, that might draw me a bit further south from Belize and north from Panama.

tried to get Belize into my trip, actually getting from Santa Ana, this is overland, so I didn't want to fly. Even though I didn't end up flying in the end, but I tried to get from Santa Ana through Guatemala to Belize, but that was long. Um, because I had to go through Mexico as well. Uh, I think like buses wise, so it's just like three or four days of traveling on bus just to get to Belize. And I just thought, Belize is quite small. I think it's, uh,

relatively close to here. So I think I'll leave it in the future, but I want to do the scenic flight over the blue hole because I'm not a diver, so I don't go in water. So the best thing for me is seeing it from above. So I want to do that, but I just couldn't make it work. So I think Belize and Panama, think they're my top two in the region as well. I've never been to Costa Rica, but I think those two are probably my top two to go back to, I think. So that's on my list. So hopefully I make it there next year.

Yeah, fingers crossed.

Yeah. Okay. Montevideo, Uruguay. It's a capital city, which I think in South America for the generic traveler or someone who's interested in travel doesn't get a lot of traction as other big cities in the region. So you went there, I think last year, was it? us why you went there and what's the feel of Montevideo? And I think for some people, even me, I don't even know what, I can't even imagine what it's like, you know, what is, as a city, is it chilled? Is it busy? it, is it a lot of, you know, is it very sort of like.

atmospheric in terms of there's dust everywhere or is it very clean? Like give us a feel and a sense of the place.

Yeah, I mean, to take up the first thing you said, it's absolutely overlooked amongst travelers and within South America as a whole. Uruguay is a small country in South American terms, sandwiched between two much bigger, louder, brashier neighbors in terms of Brazil and Argentina. And Montevideo in particular is just across the river plate from Buenos Aires. So there's more people in Buenos Aires than

massively more people in Buenos Aires than in the whole of Uruguay. yeah, it often gets overlooked. We touched on the Gringo Trail earlier, Montevideo doesn't fall into that, but it's an incredible place to visit. I've been visiting for about 15 years or so back from when I was living in Buenos Aires. And it's a fascinating, it's absolutely fascinating place. Buenos Aires sits on the banks of the river plate.

But it often feels that even though it grew up as a port and it's still a busy port now, it looks inwards. Inwards towards the land, towards the Pampas, towards these huge, huge ranches. Ranches and the Pampas are a huge part of Uruguay as well. But Montevideo feels a lot more like a beach resort. I mean, it's technically facing onto a river, but it feels a bit more like a beach resort, certainly areas.

of it. It's incredibly atmospheric. The Ciudad Vieja, the oldest part of the city, the old town, is on the tip of the peninsula and it's an incredible place to walk around. know, cobbled streets, beautifully atmospheric, crumbling 19th century architecture, street art and mules, huge, huge mules that cover the whole sides of buildings, a huge part of it. Music is a big part of Montevideo. So alongside Buenos Aires, it's one of the birthplaces of tango.

to nana.

They don't tell you this in Bruno's eyes, but it's absolutely true. so, you you're walking along the streets, you'll regularly hear tango being played. You'll see Montevideans dancing tango. You're much more likely to see them carrying around a matta than a takeaway coffee. So that's a big thing there. But overall it's much smaller than Bruno's eyes. It has a much more relaxed.

I'm done.

Cup.

calm vibe to it. So it has, as I say, it has the beautiful architecture. has these more modern waterside sorts. It's got long beaches. It's got a long rambler, a long pedestrianised promenade. It's a great place for running and walking the dog and pushing the push chair and just wandering around with a maté or an ice cream.

Yeah. But it's a really interesting place. Within South America, it's always in terms of the livability scales, it always ranked really highly, if not top. Brazil and Argentina, to put it mildly, have had tumultuous time in recent years. So you'll find a lot of Argentines and South Americans have relocated to.

Yeah, the relative stability of Montevideo is a progressive city, you know, terms of LGBT rights, Uruguay as a whole, terms of recreational marijuana use, which has been legalized as well. So yeah, it's a progressive city. We've spoken before about football, know, often conversations often come around with it. Football is central to Uruguayan culture, central to Montevideo culture.

But I was able to have a wander around the same itself. They've got a fantastic museum there with stories of Uruguay's World Cup wins, with sign shirts of the great South American players, many of whom you would have heard of, Maradona of course, some of the Uruguayans from a bit further back you may not have. But yeah, if you're even vaguely interested in sport, that's a great place to visit.

Food wise, again, Uruguayans generally, the rankings vary, but if you can believe it, even more beef than the Argentines and the Brazilians. I know. It feels hard to believe. know, the steak houses there are a huge, huge thing. Again, if you go to the Ciudad Vieja in some of the covered markets, there's some really good steak houses, some very atmospheric places.

But it's also, it's a very walkable city, very, it's, it's, it's, you, safety, safety is a difficult thing because there's often a lot of perception versus reality in South America and a lot of outsiders often overly fearful of, of a place. But Montefiore feels a very safe place to, to, to, visit and walk around. Yeah. And it's a, yeah, it's got, its, it's got its own vibe. The other thing to go to do, now I went in May. Now, if I'd gone a few months earlier,

You can experience carnival, right? So it's passed relatively recently in Rio, which most people in Brazil more generally, associate it with. Carnival is a thing across South America and Uruguay actually has the longest carnival on the continent. Last around 40 days, I believe.

So when I was there, see some of the groups performing on the streets. There's a wide range of music, including something called candombe, which is a drum based music, really central to the city's culture, just as tango is. But you can go to parks on a Sunday afternoon and watch them practice. If you go to the Ciudad Viejo, you see them.

walking down the streets and practicing and this kind of builds to a flourish during the carnival. So, you know, I got a bit of a taste of it from seeing some of the practice sessions from going to the great carnival museum, is in the Ciudad Vieja, but definitely on my to-do list for the next visit is to get out for carnival time itself and to kind of experience that firsthand.

Okay. As we're on Carnival, quick question about tango. was a bit random. If you're visiting for the first time, like I would, and you maybe want to maybe do like a week's worth or a couple of days worth of classes, like real beginner, are they quite easy to find if you just want to learn a bit of tango? And then I guess the aim is to learn a bit and then maybe go to like a tango club or something and then just to kind of watch it, maybe join in. I don't know if that's possible as well.

Yeah. mean, the short answer is absolutely yes. In both Montevideo and in Buenos Aires, there's lots of like beginner classes. If you just want to taster session, you've never done it before. You can just do like a, you know, a few hours and you'll be showing, showing the basics. But if you're, if you're keener, you can certainly do more, you know, courses. There's lots and lots of tango shows. There's very famous kind of fancy ones where you'll sit down for like a three course dinner and you'll watch.

you'll watch it. You can go to much more lower key, but very atmospheric, like neighbourhood, what they call malongas. So like kind of tango dance events where you can watch just regular people, just dancing. You can very much try yourself, try your moves if you've learned a bit. And you do see it on the street as well. mean, you see it both aimed at tourists or people bus, know, the equivalent of buskers, but kind of tango dancing. But you also see, and this is one of my

favourite experiences in Montefiore. We were just walking down the street, of the main shopping streets in the city centre and just in one of the little plazas, near a restaurant, someone had put out like a boombox and they were out, playing some classic tango songs and then was just a group of people, just gathered together, 10, 15 together and were just dancing. was not for money or anything, just because it was a lovely evening.

It was the weekend and it's a beautiful day. so those, those kinds of experiences all the way up to very elaborate fancy, you know, the equivalent of a West End show style tango show you can, you can, you can do. actually once you get out, once you, once you get to, you know, and this is absolutely true for Buenos Aires as tour as well. You really see that although it's a huge part of the tourist literature and the tourist promotion for these places, it's also part of.

people's ordinary lives. ⁓ it's definitely worth tagging, very interesting origins, it draws on all of the cultures that have formed these countries, European, African, indigenous. it's both kind of a cliched image of particularly of Argentina, but also a very real and central part of culture on the river plate.

Yeah, course.

think you don't just want to go there and just watch a show or at least go somewhere local and just kind of feel the energy, right? You want to just hear the music, the classic tango music, maybe throw a few moves in there if you're confident. But I just want to go there and just kind of have a night where I just watch some tango dancers and soak up the atmosphere in the music and have some good food. It sounds like a quality classic South American night out, I think.

Yeah, definitely. you know, it was, went on, I've been to lots of Tango shows. I've ⁓ tried mainly without success to learn in a few moves, but you know, despite however many times I'd done it, I went to, know, when I was in Montefiore, this time I went to a great, a great little show in the Ciudad Viejo, which is, you know, slightly fancy in the terms that had sat down for delicious dinner, but kind of, it was quite an intimate venue, very atmospheric, historic building. was a

know, wonderful dancers, wonderful musicians performing around you. You know, I also went to the Palacio Salvo, which is one of the most amazing buildings in the city. One of the most amazing buildings in any South American city. It's huge kind of tower, kind of lighthouse style tower. And that was the site of one of, you know, a famous, where one of the most famous tango songs was first written. Yeah, it's kind of, it's not a

⁓ It's a living culture. And in Montevideo, the same with candombe music, is also similarly powerful, also great for dancing too. Also central to the culture that most visitors won't be super familiar with. I wasn't super familiar with before I went. But that's another thing that again, you can see people practicing on the streets. can see, you know, and if you're lucky enough to be there during.

carnival time, basically around this, you know, around, you know, the build up to Easter, then you can, yeah, you can, you know, see it in all its glory and definitely get stuck in yourself.

That's awesome. Yeah, it's got me on the list. And if people are now thinking, okay, I want to go to Uruguay for more of an admin perspective. Can you fly direct from Europe? If not, what is the most common route? And in terms of accommodation, we're to go with accommodation in Montevideo. Is there hostels? Is there budget hotels? Or is it very mid-range?

Yeah. So you can fly direct from Europe, not direct from the UK at the moment. You can go direct from Europe. Often you'll fly via Sao Paulo via Buenos Aires as well. So it's relatively easy to get out there. You can also apply to Buenos Aires and just get the ferry across the river plate as well. that's another way if you want to see Buenos Aires at the same.

time. It's a fun and very easy journey to do. In terms of accommodation, all of the above. If you're looking for a hostel, if you're looking for an inexpensive hotel, there's plenty of options. There's lots of mid-range independent hotels. As any travel writer will tell you, you can judge the quality of the accommodation in any given destination by how good and how...

available, those kind of mid-range places are. Yeah. And there's lots and lots of high-end options ⁓ as well. yeah, so in the past I've stayed in the Ciudad Viejo in the very atmospheric old town. ⁓ I've stayed in ⁓ a budget hotel there, but really you go up in one of these traditional cage lifts that was built at the start of the 20th century.

It creaks and judders and you get into, so, then you, you you open, you you open up onto a balcony that overlooks these, you know, these busy cobbled streets, looks out onto passes and stuff like that. And, know, nearby you get the, you know, very fancy boutique hotels that have, you know, renovated these, you know, these historic townhouses, these mansions, palacios, as you would sometimes say, and say there as well. So yeah, so there's, yeah, there's, there's lots and lots of accommodation options and yeah, it's.

It's easy to get to, but you often have to travel via somewhere else on route.

Hey, yeah, just a quick one. I just want to say there are many ways to support this podcast. You can buy me a coffee and help support the podcast with five dollars. Or you can go to my merch store with the affiliate link with TeePublic where there's plenty of merch available to buy such as t-shirts, jumpers, hoodies and also some children's clothing. Thirdly, which is free, you can also rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser or Goodpods.

Also, you can find me on social media on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. Simply just search for, We're Going To Travel podcast and you'll find me displaying all my social media content for traveling, podcast and other stuff. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to touch on currency because you might come from Argentina, which is notoriously, how can we say this? It's just a bit nuts with the currency in it. Turbulent. do Uruguay.

ambulance.

currency. don't know what it is. I guess it's more stable. And how does it work if you're going from Argentina across the river from Buenos Aires to Montevideo? Like the exchange rates and you might have some Argentinian money left over or is it best to have US dollars? Like what's the best for that?

Yeah, mean, generally, mean, my advice in this would be always, you know, almost anywhere you go that even despite the current context, we're talking in a stash of US dollars, you know, that you have with you is always useful wherever you're going. As you say, the currency situation in Argentina is in flux at the moment. Volatars.

volatile.

It's a long question, know, it's a long answer to give you advice on what to do when you're going to Argentina. But the short thing is when you're leaving Argentina, don't travel with any, try to spend all your physical currency, know, Argentine currency while you're there because they've had hyperinflation recently. spend it all there. Uruguay by contrast, much more stable. Right? So I'll tell you, when I was there, I

didn't use any physical URI and card see at all. Everything I paid for by card. the only thing that I would have had it, you know, so I didn't even bother in over the whole trip of actually taking anything out. The only time it would have been useful was for getting a bus. the buses you had to pay within cash. I was lucky. got a nice bus driver who let me on anyway.

Yeah.

Otherwise in your time, certainly in Montevideo, if you're traveling out into the countryside a bit more, then obviously it'll be useful to have cash. But otherwise very, very easy, just using your card for everything, big, transactions.

Okay. And I want to touch very quickly on the other part of the country. Sorry, the other part of the country of Uruguay. We talked Montevideo. I think there's lots to see and do there, but is there other places in the country that's on your list or you might have visited before which are definitely worth visiting or least trying out for the first time.

Yeah, lots of places. you know, when people think of Argentina, they often think of the Pampas, right? The huge, endless grasslands populated by these huge cattle ranches. The Pampas as an ecosystem also extends into, you know, is also part of Uruguay. Cattle ranches are a huge part of, again, the identity and the culture as well. So getting out into the Pampas, staying on a cattle ranch, learning about...

Seeing firsthand the gaucho lifestyle, going horse riding, having an asado, like a steak barbecue basically. Just kicking back for a few days in beautiful surroundings. That's very much a part of it. Easy to do in Uruguay. Uruguay is also famous for its coastline. It's got lots of beach resorts. Junta del Este being the most famous, but by no means the only one.

So it's very easy to get out onto the coast. I've done a bit of that, when I go back, that's something I'd like to do more of. It's also got some quirky attractions. So Freybentos, which for British listeners will be a familiar name. Freybentos is a town in Uruguay. It's the town behind the pies, basically. To cut a very long story short, was home to a huge meatpacking plant, revolutionary meatpacking plant that produced ⁓

one of the most famous British food brands of the 20th century. And that plant is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sounds like a very unlikely tourist attraction. It's kind of semi-crumbling, but anyway, it's a fascinating place to visit as well. you've got a real mix of places to see and do. If you want the urban experience, great. If you want the beach, great. If you want to kick back on a ranch, great.

If you want to delve into some unusual history and if you're interested in architecture, if you're interested in Victorian engineering, if you're just interested in going to unlikely places and getting an insight into a history that you may not know, it's also got all of that kind of stuff as well.

Okay, and we're going to transition to train travel. But my last question, Yorui, any train travel available in the country?

You know what, now you may have caught me out a bit, there's nothing that springs to mind. If you go to Montefiore, there's some incredible old train stations. A lot of them have British links, there's strong British connection with the railways. internally within the city, you have some train routes, but if you're getting around, realistically, you're getting coaches, buses, or self-drive.

But the railway heritage lives on obviously in Peñarol, which is one of the most famous Uruguayan and Montevideo football teams, one of the most successful football teams in South America, strong railway heritage. Anyone interested in that should delve into the origins of that particular club. yeah, sadly it's not a place of great railway journeys.

Okay, no worries, we'll pop next door then to Tren del Fin del Mundo. I think translation is train of the end of the world. think is that?

Yeah,

Okay.

And you've done this before and it's situated in Argentina and it used to serve the prison in Ishwara, right? So I guess now it's a tourist attraction. Is it like a, not a toy train, but like you just go on there, it's quite slow and it goes through the countryside and you get your views of the surrounding areas, right?

Yeah. So, I mean, just to geographically locate it. So, it is just across the border in Argentina, but it is thousands of kilometres south, right? It's in Teodofrego, it's in the city of Ushuaia, which Argentines will often tell you is the southernmost city on earth. Technically it's not. There's smaller city of Puerto Williams in Chile, which is technically the southernmost city on earth.

It's not next door to whatever day.

Nevertheless, it is a long way south, right? It is much closer to Antarctica. Antarctica is barely a thousand kilometres away from it. Buenos Aires, by contrast, is much, much more than that. It's also the southern end of the Pan-American Highway. So all of those people that start off in Alaska on camper vans and in motorbikes, that's a Finnish employee. the end of the world is a slogan within Noshuaia, which is

backed by the Andes, it overlooks the Beagle Channel, a fascinating place. Now today is mainly known as, know, most people go to get an Antarctic cruise. They're either getting on or disembarking from an Antarctic cruise. But when the Argentine government tried to colonise in that area, which kind of took place in the late 19th, early 20th century, it was difficult. It was difficult persuading people, Argentines to go and and settle in an area that had been inhabited by indigenous peoples for many thousands of years, I should say.

So the Argentine government set up a penal colony. So Ushuaia basically was a penal colony and that was central to the expansion of the settlement into a town and the town into the city that's there. Now, in the early 20th century, the prisoners in what was known as the Siberia of the South, I mean, the prison is now a museum. You can walk around.

fascinating place into the history of the region and you can stand inside at some of these cells and they are absolutely bitterly cold, very harsh conditions. So even though the prisoners were forced to work on the railway, some of them were pleased to have the opportunity to get out of the cells. Certainly that's according to some of the testimony that they've left behind. One of them said, at least I can see the sun, I can see the sky when I'm working on.

Yeah.

doing the backbreaking labor building the train route. But yeah, so the train route essentially was just used to transport timber from the surrounding forests, very lush forests, into the center of Ushuaia and that was used to build Ushuaia. It was used to build and expand the prison. The prisoners were building their own cells, which feels like a bit of a painful ⁓ irony, indeed.

And the conditions there were really, really harsh. So inevitably some of these prisoners, and these were some of the most notorious prisoners in Argentina, murderers, also political prisoners like anarchists, revolutionaries, a real range of people. Some of them tried to escape while building it and generally came a cropper in the harsh environment. Anyway, the train ran for decades. played a central part of the growth of Ushuaia. But you know, like

Force.

railways across South America, it gradually fell out of use. It was also damaged by an earthquake. In the 1950s or so, was no longer in use. Fast forward to the 1990s and it was renovated, or a certain section of the line was renovated. It now runs from a station just outside of Schweyer, into the surrounding National Park, Park National Tier Del Fuego.

And it is a bit of a tourist line, right? You know, has steam trains that go along it, beautifully maintained steam trains. Tourists ride it because it's not super convenient for anything else. It stops at these stations along the route and there's people in prison costumes and stuff that will, you know, put on a bit of a show for you. Plenty of opportunities to buy souvenirs, all of that kind of stuff too. But it's still an incredibly...

atmospheric and rewarding and enjoyable journey because it takes you through beautiful landscape, beautiful Andean landscapes. it's also, yeah, it kind of, gives you an insight into really what life was like at the quote unquote, end of the world. ⁓ And then you end up in the national park, which is also a great place for hiking, a great place for bird watching, great place for getting an insight into the indigenous heritage of South America, of Teodolfo.

You can also see these middens, which are these huge mounds that have been made up of discarded mollusk shells that were left behind by members of the Yagen community, know, hundreds, thousands of years, years. So it's fun route to take. And plus if you take it, you can say that you've traveled on the southernmost railway.

Yeah. And do people do return journeys? Because I'm just imagining you might get on a closer to Shwire, but you want to come back there because you're probably based in the Shwire. So do people go one way? Do they stay a night or do a little trek or do they come straight back?

It's easy to do. It's easy to do as a day trip. As I say, now the route is not super convenient from what you used to run into the center of Ushuaia. Now it runs from just outside. So you kind of, you either have to get like a local minibus and get a taxi. And then it takes you into a station inside the national park. so you can either just go and come back or you can get off in the national park, which I'd highly recommend. And then just go hiking for the day or overnight. And then you can return.

either by the train or by a... sherm... later on.

Okay. And on my research, it did say this year they plan to connect back into Ushuaia. I know if that's still going to go ahead or if they're going to move the line further inwards. It kind of make it a bit more sense to do that because tourists are based there, they?

Yeah, mean, I'd say hopefully so. think it would definitely make sense from a practicality sense. would definitely encourage more people to ride it. It would also be a lot more useful for getting to and from the National Park as well. It would easily the most enjoyable way of getting to and from the National Park if it ran from the centre. And it runs throughout the year, 365 days a year. So whenever you go, you travel through it in the snow.

spectacular, traveling through in the summer is great if you want to go hiking. yeah, hopefully that extension will come to pass.

And is it easy to book or does it get booked out pretty quickly?

It's

easy to book. can go to the website and do that. You can do it at any, your hotel, your hostel, lots of travel agencies in Ushuaia will do the bookings for you. Some will also arrange transfers for you to get to and from the station. You can also do that on something like the mini buses, the one to the national park as well, or you can just split a taxi with... ⁓

with someone. yeah, it's very easy to do. It's aimed at tourists, it's a bit kitsch, but it's really good fun.

it's the southernmost railway in the world so it's pretty cool to say that. What's the northernmost then? Do you know what that is?

Now you've asked me. That's a tester. I don't know. hope you've got the answer hidden away somewhere, definitely one to look into.

I have not no-

feel like I Google it, but I think it's bad podcasting if I do that. I'm just trying to you know, the northernmost countries. It's got to be somewhere, probably Canada, Norway, or Russia, right? Just by geography.

Yes, I would guess so. probably, you know, it was probably built, know, whichever the northern one is, it was probably built for a similar reason as the Trendel-Fundel-Mundau to transport timber and to aid assessments, maybe to work mines. yeah, I look forward to in the next podcast, the answer to that.

It does go nicely to my next comment for train travel. I, well, we have a train ride on our list here. It's based in Winnipeg and it goes up to Churchill. It's a two night train ride. It's about, it's between three to $500 per person, Canadian dollars, depending what class you go in. And the reason it's worth doing is because obviously train ride is great, but when you get to Churchill, that's where you see the polar bears. Because polar bears don't hibernate, in theory, you can see them all year round. So I do wonder if that maybe might be on your list.

if you go to Canada to pop to Winnipeg and do the train ride up because you can't really get to Churchill any other way. I'd imagine, especially in the non summer months, you could probably fly and imagine, but I'm not sure how regular they are.

⁓ yeah. Well, I mean, funny enough, did, I did actually do, I visited Churchill a few years back. Sadly didn't get to go on the train ride. was on a slightly, ⁓ slightly tight, tight research trip, ⁓ schedule. So, so I flew in a spectacular flight, but, absolutely the train is the best, the best, ⁓ the best way to travel in. ⁓ you know, and to, to go back, would like, you know, I would love to go by train and yeah, to, ⁓ yeah, about the polar bears.

we went in the middle of the summer, is not normally the key time to see them and saw them and the beluga whales in the Hudson Bay as well, which often overshadowed by the polar bears. To go out kayaking with them was an incredible experience. They're very playful, almost like dolphins in terms of their playfulness. mean, Churchill is a remarkable place on many, levels and

Incredible.

seeing the polar bears is a great privilege, but definitely don't sleep on the beluga whales. really, fun, yeah, really, really, going kayaking was with them on the Hudson Bay, really, really memorable experience.

that's a great tip. didn't realize. Cause I was speaking to people about this and like, well, why would you go in the summer? Cause bears are sort of hibernating and well, they hibernate in the winter here, but I was like, well, polar bears don't hibernate. They just stay awake all year round. And I think some people were terrified by that, but I think Churchill is the, it's one the best places to see them. If you just want to see it in a non organized way, you could stay there for a couple of days and you might get a chance to see one or at least book a little tour locally.

Well, mean, Churchill famously builds itself as a polar bear capsule of the world. And although this didn't happen during my visit, polar bears do just wander through the town as well. Right. It's not, not unknown. know, people, people, basically people, know, residents will leave their like car doors and, you know, front doors unlocked because, know, someone's passing by sees a polar bear needs, needs a safe, safe exit. So, so yeah, it really is. It's a fascinating place. Many, levels, but yeah, for

If you're in polar bears, church halls, church halls are a place.

I'm surprised they haven't learnt how to open those doors yet.

Well, mean, yeah, it could, it could happen. I they certainly, they've certainly got into, um, they've certainly like broken into like food stores, places and stuff as well. So, um, you know, they're quite, uh, in, you know, innovative, creative, uh, clever, clever creatures.

area because they're Much bigger than the Grizzlies, I think. ⁓ Okay, back to trains. What are your next maybe top three train routes you'd love to do worldwide? Well, not train routes, but maybe even a country you want to travel by train. Is there anywhere in your top three list?

Yeah. I mean, I was lucky through co-hosting the Rough Guide to India for many years and I got to travel on many, many Indian trains. I spent days and days, maybe even weeks in total of my life on trains. anyone, know, despite having had quite a lot of experience on trains in India, always go, I haven't done it for a few years. I'd love to go back and, you know, and do some more. The travel writer, Manisha Rajesh wrote a great book.

on train travel in India and there's lots and lots of kind of recommendations in that. Not least because the food is great on them as well. yeah, that's definitely up there on them. Another train journey that I did is the GAN in

in Australia, which kind of goes from Darwin to Adelaide through Alice Springs. Now there's another, the same company also does the Indian Pacific, which goes the other way rather than from east to west rather than from north to south. I would love to do that. So that's definitely on my hit list. then ⁓ to take one a bit more local to you, the Rocky Mountaineer.

as well. I've had friends who've done it. The scenery looks spectacular. yeah, so that would definitely be on my list as well. I'm already giving you too many here, but there's the Reunification Express that goes through the length of Vietnam as well. mean, it's a collection of routes, a collection of railway routes that go from, again, north to south. I'd love to do that. I haven't been back to Vietnam for a while now. yeah, so it's, you know.

train travel, could waffle on for hours about the pleasures of it. Obviously, even more so from a sustainability point of view. And it's definitely something I've been trying to do a bit more in both my personal travels, well as my work travel. One of my most recent trips was going to Belgium with my dad, which we went on Eurostar, which was great.

And yeah, and the next trip, the rare travel ride to Holiday Down through France to the Basque Country will also be by ⁓ train.

⁓ wow, great. Are you interested in the sort of East Asian fast trains? know, the Shinkansen, the Chinese railway network, South Korea we traveled on as well. Like the real fast trains, are you interested in that as well?

Oh yeah, I mean very much so. I've had a brief and very rapid taste of the Shinkansen in Japan and yeah, absolutely loved it. you know, I mean, I'm an investor reader and before, know, a kid as a teenager when I was reading about travel, used to love the books of Paul Theroux, right? The great place going in Express famously, you know, helped to find my...

by my love of South America. But the Great Railway Bazaar, which goes all the way from not too far from where I am here in Southeast London, all the way over to China, riding the Red Rooster, I think it is. but yeah, so I would love to ride some of the trains in China as well, which I haven't done at all. very under-travelled in China and I would love to get back over to Japan. That's another place on the list.

because the trains in both countries and famously in Japan are so good that it just opens up the country to you. can see a lot more in a relatively short space of time. The food is also great on them and at the stations, right? Picking up a bento box and getting on the Shinkansen is great. These are great travel experiences in and of themselves, Almost regardless of where you're going. yeah, I'd love to do that. The Trans-Siberian Railway as well.

Yeah.

Of course, if you've got a bit more time and ⁓ maybe if the political climate shifts a little bit, that would be something that would definitely be on my list. One of my most memorable journeys years and years ago, it was back in 2008, was, which feels like another lifetime, taking the Taurus Express, which ran from Istanbul to Aleppo.

It obviously doesn't run anymore for obvious reasons, but that was a historic line that used to run all the way to Baghdad. Agatha Christie wrote on it and wrote about it. That takes you up through the Taurus Mountains in Turkey before you cross to Aleppo, one of the oldest inhabited cities on earth. When I visited one of the most amazing places I've ever visited and obviously the

The ravages of the Civil War series transformed it and destroyed it and destroyed many of the people that lived there. There's lots and lots of train journeys. This is the great pleasure of travel. You asked me a simple question. You wisely tried to limit my answer.

Let's get stuck on with.

which I flagrantly ignored and just, know, rammed up. But I think that's the thing, it's both about travel and about trains, right? People love, you know, there's something about going, you know, traveling that way.

It's hard to describe. I don't know what it is. It's just something really nice about it. Is that because we're from UK and we kind of grew up with trains? I'm not sure, but there's something about it.

Yeah, I mean, although really anyone who's traveled in on UK trains really would be rightly justified in hating them as a form of transport. know, there's a great Paul Theroux quote, is, you know, paraphrasing slightly, but I've never heard a train go past without wishing I was on it. And I think, you know, I think that's true, right? It's kind of, a very romantic form of travel. It's a, you see the change in landscapes.

gradually shift as you want it in a way that you don't on a plane, right? You're just picked up in one generic airport, you land in another generic airport somewhere else. Yeah. So, and, you know, and one of the heartening things in certainly mainland Europe at the moment is to see the expansion of new routes, of new sleeper trains, know, cross border trains as well, which is really exciting. Lots and lots of those I would like to do too. So, I don't know if it's a second age of...

age of railways, but certainly there's lots of positive developments, certainly in Europe at the moment.

it

could come back properly. It's always been there, but I think as we go hopefully into a greener part of the life cycle of earth, I think we would recreate some of those train routes if the political situation comes down a little bit. obviously it's a big if. But have you seen on social media that classic route that I guess is like an easy click bait thing where you go from Portugal, is it all the way to Singapore? Is that like the longest train ride you can do from one place to another? I don't know.

The logistics of that are where it even goes through, but I keep thinking in my head that'd be great to have that sort of journey under your belt, wouldn't it?

Yeah. mean, ⁓ I've seen it and it's end, you know, as you say, it's click baby also think that'd be a great journey. Right. You know, and we, you know, your dream about, you know, packing everything up, running off, catching a train, you know, traveling, know, from Europe to Asia as Paul Throoded in those books. But yeah, you you definitely can, you know, I,

recently reviewed a book by the travel writer, Tom Cheshire, who's written a lot about train travel, which is him taking essentially traveling the Orient Express route, but taking a more budget version using kind of your rail passes, right? And it's just, yeah, an interesting book and also kind of opens your eyes to all of these little train routes that you might not have thought about.

and also the encounters, the people that you meet along the way, which again seems easier to strike up conversation perhaps on a train than it is on a flight or whatever.

God, it's just the thought of that route. I know it's huge, but let's say you just have a three hour or four hour time in a day of traveling and wherever that stops, that's just where you're going to be for the day and night. That's pretty cool because you have no idea where you're to end up because you don't know what the distance is and where that goes to and from, I don't even know where it starts in Portugal, right? And where it'll go next. So I think that type of travel is a bit, it's very wanderlust, isn't it? If you think about it.

And also, mean, the way you describe it as well, which also appeals to me is kind of not having everything planned out. know, having a starting point and having a rough end point, but not having everything absolutely booked, right? Which is, you know, kind of, it's more difficult to, it's probably more difficult to do now, but kind of certainly that was kind of, you know, my experience is when I first started backpacking, right? And in South America, I had a flight into Rio.

carnival had a flight out of Buenos Aires some six months later, five, six months later. And how you got from one to the other was completely up to you. And train travel probably makes that a bit more accessible than other forms of travel. Certainly than flying. mean, some of the, obviously the most famous long distance routes you'll need to book in at

in advance, a lot of the trains, certainly within Europe and Asia, you can sometimes just turn up on the day, but certainly with not too much forethought, you can plan across. In someone like India, you just turn up, you may end up in third class on the hard seats. You might not necessarily get the three AC sleepers, which different experiences I can attest from. ⁓

So there, experience that with.

personal journeys as well. But you know, that's, that's part of it, right? It's not necessarily always comfortable in the moment, but they're often richer experiences and kind of sometimes when you've recovered from it, you look back on it fondly.

think that's a good wing in it series potentially. We'll see. I'll keep that in my mind. Okay. And you mentioned the book earlier, which leads us nicely into your book. So you've got a new book coming out in the summer, right? In July, maybe called Small Earthquakes and tell us a bit about the premise and what the idea behind the book is.

Yeah. So it's out in, I think it's on the 24th of July. And it's Small Earthquakes, a journey through lost British history in South America. And in some ways, the origins of it date back to my very first trip to South America as a backpacker. I ended up in Buenos Aires and fell in love with the place. that journey prompted me to become a travel writer. It prompted me to live for a year in Buenos Aires. It prompted me to focus on Latin America.

But while I was there, you know, I was staying, there were streets with names like Darwin and Fitzroy. And when I was walking down Caille, Florida, one of the main shopping streets, there was an old Howard's store closed, shuttered, a bit dusty, lots of pigeons. Well, that's a bit odd. And then when I went to the, you know, the newsstands, was a, when I was held newspaper, English language newspaper, you know, watching

going to one of the bars and watching a football match. That's funny, River Plate, one of the two most famous clubs in Argentina. I wonder why they've got an English name. I wonder why Newell's Old Boys, a football team in the city of Rosario, have got that name. Anyway, so that was the initial inkling. I thought I didn't know much about this at the time. Anyway, scroll forward to the present and all of my travels in South America. Wherever I went, I started picking up little bits of unlikely British connections. I thought I didn't really know much about British

British connections. We talked about Freibentos in Uruguay, which won't go into too much detail to save the surprise from the book, but that's place with strong British connections and it changed the way that we eat in this country in the UK and the way the world eats. If you go to Buenos Aires just across the river plate, really strong British heritage. was a big British population there. There's still sizable Anglo-Argentine population there and that had a big cultural impact.

Football would be a classic example of that. My book focuses on Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. In all of those countries, the origin stories of football were through British immigrants. So I'm a Liverpool supporter. There's another Liverpool in Uruguay, in Montevideo. Now there's also another, there's an Everton in South America, all the way over in Chile in Vina del Mar.

So, so technically you could have a South American Merseyside Derby there. And these are just some of the most obvious, you know, British connections. But if you go to Patagonia, right, you get to Argentine Patagonia to the North Northeastern point, and you'll find a Welsh speaking community there. One of the only places outside of Wales where you hear Welsh being spoken.

wanted to create a new life for Wales beyond Wales in, you know, in Patagonia, right? If, know, Patagonia, the economy developed, you know, after that in the 20th century off sheep ranching, right? The first sheep that were brought to Patagonia were by a Yorkshireman, right? Down in the, in what's now the, in the Chilean side of it. and British, you know, shepherds, ranch managers.

British capital was fundamental to sheep ranching, the sheep ranching boom in Patagonia, whose legacy is still felt today. South across the Strait of Magellan into Teodalf, where you go, I talked about the southernmost city on earth, in Chile, just across the water from Ushuaia, Puerto Williams. that's a connection to one of the many

you know, British sailors and also soldiers who fought in South America's, you know, in the, in the armies, in the armed forces of South American countries. If you go almost anywhere in Chile from Teotihuac, where you go all the way up to the Atacama desert, you'll find a street named Cochrane. And that's from Lord Cochrane, who was a central part of the, you know, the Royal Navy. then.

left in disgrace and then played a fundamental role in the found in the Chilean Navy and also in the Brazilian Navy and help those countries claim their independence. And then you've got to go to Easter Island, you know, as a kid, I loved to go to the British Museum. Parents would take me and I was captivated by the Easter Island statue there, the Moai there. That's got a British connection as well. And so I spent some time in Easter Island, one of the most amazing places on earth.

Wow

with a very strong British connection to that history, including to particular, this, this particular moai. And it's the same obviously across, across the, you know, from the Pacific all the way to the Atlantic, to the islands of the Falkland Islands and to South Georgia. Falkland Islands, everyone knows that history. There's more to it than just the war. then South Georgia, which is further South and other fascinating history as well. know, Scottish whaling companies.

that turned it into a central part of the global economy at the time. And who's now the rust in Whalen stations have been recolonized by lots of the species that wanted to bring to brink of extinction. So those are some of the stories that my book explores basically. So it's a journey through all of these stories and it's kind of tells you bit about the history. It tells you about the contemporary resonance of them.

And it kind of looks into a bit about why for lots of people, certainly in the UK, maybe a bit less so in parts of South America, why this is a new history. Yeah. And also one of the things that I liked is that whilst I was researching, you're always set off with an idea before writing a book, you set off with an idea of what you want to write. And then a bit like travel, The journey takes you in unexpected directions. And everywhere I went, and even in some of the most

inhospitable and remotest places on earth. In the midst of the Atacama Desert, example, in the far southern reaches of Tiel del Fuego, I found these odd connections to home, not just to the UK, but to me in South London. So I weaved into the book some of those experiences and hopefully readers will also find.

Certainly in the UK we'll find some unexpected connections to their own lives, to the places that they grew up in as well.

so fascinating because you think lazily maybe that it's just the Spanish and the Portuguese history down there because of the colonization. But it's such a fat, this is what piqued my interest. It's like, ah, what we really had a big say in the history of the whole place. Right. I just don't think, maybe apart from football, you don't think there's much else going on. And obviously the Falklands that you mentioned, but I'm really intrigued to and read this book because I'm like, well, what else did we sort of sneakily get involved in when we're down there and all start off, you know, with the sheep?

The sheep story is incredible with that. I know it sounds a bit weird, but like they had no sheep before we took them there. That's a bit crazy, right? Considering how big the whole farming thing is now, right? So yeah, crazy story. So a lot to get stuck into.

Yeah, absolutely. No, mean, the sheep story is, is fascinating because it's said, you know, you, you, you immediately associated with Patagonia, but yeah, they were absolutely, they were, they were introduced by, yeah, for, by, initially by, by, by Yorkshiremen as well. And, know, there's a, there's a strong British role in the cattle ranching industry as well in, ⁓ across these, across these countries. So yeah, it's a really, I was fascinated by the history and you know, the more that I explored.

the deeper I found it. And also that it dates back 450 years, right? It's, you know, some of the Spanish conquistadors that founded Buenos Aires in their crew were, there were British sailors in Ferdinand Magellan's famous circumnavigation of the earth, even though Magellan actually died en route, so he didn't actually complete it. But on that voyage, were British, you know, there were British sailors as well. know, Francis Drake.

You know, very famous people, lots and lots of, know, his famous, his name was used as a warning to scare misbehaving kids on the Pacific coast of Chile. Such was his legacy hundreds of years later. And it's a similar story for other British pirates as well. It's Charles Darwin, of course, whose voyage around South America changed the world and also changed various parts of South America too.

So yeah, there's lots, it's a rich history and even though the footballing story is great, it's more than football and the Falkland story is also interesting and important too. It's more than that. And there's lots of connections with the railway as well, particularly in Argentina.

Yes.

I was to circle back to the train stuff. obviously it started in the UK, right? There must be some sort of connection going to South America and building it.

Yeah,

absolutely. it's a bit of a shame now. you're traveling in modern day South America, there's only fragmented railway lines. There's the Tren del Fundo Mundo, which we mentioned. There's the Tren de la Costa in Buenos Aires, which goes to the resort town of Tigre on the Paraná Delta, which is a great route, but it's again a more of a touristy route. You've got the route to...

that goes from Cusco to Machu Picchu. You've got various kind of like high end trains in Peru and stuff. But the train network used to be much, much wider across South America. And this was something I wrote about in my first book in Crossed Off the Map, which focused on Bolivia. The high altitude trains that

that still run across the Salarder Uni, the highest salt flats, the biggest salt flats on earth, again, they have British origins. And if you go to Buenos Aires today, if you go to Retiro, which is the main train station, and it's also an area in Buenos Aires, the main train station will look kind of familiar if you know London, if you've ever been through St. Pancras, very similar. you know, it's a lot of that railway heritage.

dates back to British investment. A lot of the railway companies were British or Anglo-Argentine. lot of the engineers were British as well. And that transformed Argentine history, made a lot of people in Britain very wealthy, caused quite a bit of unhappiness as well, has fed into the somewhat fractious Argentine-British relationships that exist to this day. Not the only cause.

But that's part of the history. And that's something that a lot of British people won't necessarily know. Argentines will often know about it. But yeah, it's kind of, think, particularly for British people, British travellers to South America, you'll hopefully learn a bit more about your own history, our own history, as well as South America's and kind of see that it's actually a shared history.

Let me know.

Right. Sometimes, sometimes bad, sometimes good, sometimes, you know, depends on your perspective. And also, you know, I'm talking to you from, from London. So, ⁓ the South, Latin American population in the UK is one of the fastest growing kind of ethnic ethnic communities in, in, the UK. And the majority, the vast majority of them are in, are in, are in London.

is it? Okay.

So, you know, we're talking about Papousas. you know, as I said, there's a new Papousa joint, Salvadoran restaurant that's opened up near me in, in Southeast London. If you travel down the Old Kent road, not just a monopoly stop, an incredible, an incredible place to go and eat Latin American food amongst, well as, know, Middle Eastern food and West African food as well. You know, and there's more of a, um, slowly from, you know, the awareness of

British Latin Americans or Anglo Latin Americans or Latinx British people. lots of different, there's more awareness of that community as well. So I think it's kind of, not just, isn't it, it's a fascinating history, but it's also, there's no full stop. It continues to develop. And I think as it continues to develop, it'll be useful as well as interesting to be a bit more aware about how it all started.

think also, this is a huge subject and people are to have to read your book, but one more question on the book. Talking about sport, did you actually touch on rugby? Because think football is a bit of an easy one to imagine, you know, it's worldwide, but rugby is a niche sport within the UK. Not many people play it. I certainly have not played it. I think it's maybe due to social status. I think it's more of a upper middle class sport, but weirdly and interestingly, Argentina are really good at rugby and that must be a connection there as well.

Yeah, no, absolutely. to cut a long story short, mean, was, there were British school system, Anglo Argentine schools based on the British model helped to introduce British sports or sports that originated in Britain. Obviously football being the class example, rugby, polo as well. Cricket was also, to be played as well. to tie into when we're talking about Montevideo.

Right. You can go to a museum in Montevideo that's dedicated to the Uruguayan rugby team that famously crashed in the Andes. you know, very famous, made into, but it's society of snow, society of the snow, but made into recent films. also, you know, for

Yeah, course.

Uruguayan not often, especially well known by outsiders, that's often something that will associate them. rugby, the origins of South American rugby again is similar to South American football. was British immigrants, British teachers and sailors and so on who played it, set up clubs, introduced it to pupils. then obviously, particularly with football.

the South American countries made it their own. yeah, there's bits on the book on the sporting, as I say, cricket as well. And in fact, some of the oldest clubs and international fixtures in rugby and cricket outside of the UK were in South America, Southern South America, in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay specifically.

⁓ So yeah, so-

I find

the rugby one so interesting though. Do you not find it weird how that just sort of connected because now it's a fairly big sport in Argentina. There's obviously nowhere near football, but I imagine we took rugby to a lot of countries around the world and it just never really stuck. know, Canada could be a classic example, barely play it here. US in the early days, you think they might be interested because they play American football, but it's growing, but it's nowhere near as big. But it's just weird how Argentina stuck to that sport and

They're now becoming really good, know, the proper international team now.

Yeah. And, know, it is, it's popular in Uruguay as well. Yeah. They're not quite as, adapt on the world stage as the Pumas in Argentina. yeah, I mean, I think, think it's the school, it's the origins. was inculcated in the British schools a bit really not unlike, you know, you know, the, in, in England specifically, obviously the private school system helped, helped to, and still supports both Rugby Union and, and

and cricket, obviously a different story in Wales and Scotland and Ireland to an extent. it was a similar story in South America. was the clubs, so the clubs that were set up by the Anglo-Argentine or Chilean or Uruguayan communities that developed wider interest in these sports and the school system. So a lot of the oldest clubs in

in these countries were originally set up by either by, often by former pupils who'd learnt under a British teacher or within a British style of education, and then set up their own clubs. Alumni being a classic example in Argentina, the Montefioreiro Cricket Club, which as well as playing cricket also ⁓ helped reduce a range of other sports too, would be another.

Another example. So, you know, I won't give you the exact story, but I've given you a bit, but there's some really nice, I found really interesting firsthand accounts of some of the earliest sporting football cricket, rugby matches in South America in the book. And it's quite interesting to see what's the same, what's changed in those sports and our perceptions of them.

and rivalries ever since.

Yeah, rivalries as well. Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? Even amongst themselves. It's quite interesting as well. But can we circle back to the book to where people may can buy this or pre-order it? And you mentioned the date as well. Any other information you want to share?

Yeah. So it's out on the 24th of July and you can get it from all of the good and bad bookshops. If you need a link, if you just go to my website, which is ShaffitMeggie.com. If you go to any of my social media accounts, which is I'm normally at ShaffitMeggie on them, on Instagram and threads and Blue Sky and Twitter or X or whatever we're calling it these days. can just click on the link and you can do it.

find it there.

I'll put the links in the show notes so people can get it easily from this conversation. So Shafiq, welcome back to the show and also thanks for coming on. I appreciate you making the hat trick appearance. We didn't touch on football news, but I think safe to say my club at Shishtown are down, but your club are going to win the Premier League. So yin and yang here, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, I didn't want to talk too much about English football for those reasons. But yeah, I mean, I don't want to tempt fate for Liverpool yet, but it's looking positive and, you know, hopefully if it's which do you go down, you know, they'll bounce back up because I think they've got an excellent manager and I've really enjoyed watching them this season. And in the first game of the season, they really gave us a run for their money. Yeah. We're unlucky. Certainly unlucky not to be leading at half time.

that and I think probably if you go down and come back up that experience will stand you in good stead. Hopefully cement your place in the top flight.

Yeah, I think we've got some good youngsters, ⁓ lot of under 21 internationals. So I think we could come back up if we keep them all. So I think we're not too worried and he's not under pressure. He's not going to get sacked, the manager, and he'll stay. If the players stay, I think we're fairly confident we can come back up.

But I mean, you just need a few South, you know, few South Americans to add some grit and flair to the, ⁓ to the team to help, ⁓ to, to provide the boost that you need.

Absolutely. So thanks for coming on. You're always welcome back on the show. And I think the listeners will get a very in-depth conversation about Uruguay, which we touched on, and some train rides, and also your book coming out in the summer. So I look forward to reading the book and catching up soon.

Thanks James, it's always a real pleasure chatting with you. The time just flies by. I look forward to the fourth appearance at some point in the future.

Cheers dude, appreciate it. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast episode today. If you've been inspired by today's chat and want to book some travel,

If you head to the show notes, you'll see some affiliate links below which helps support this podcast. You'll find Skyscanner to book your flight. You'll find Booking.com to book that accommodation. Want to stay in a super cool hostel? You'll see Hostel World down there too. You'll find Revolut to get your travel card sorted. Click the GIGSky link to get your eSIM ready for your trip. And more importantly, you'll find Safety Wing Insurance to get that travel insurance for your trip. There are many more to check out, so when you click that link and book your product, a small commission goes towards me.

and the Wigginit Travel Podcast. Thank you in advance and enjoy your travels.