Deluded, arrogant or just plain jingoistic

Ilas Malvinas SIENPRE Argentinas

It's everywhere street signs, countless memorials, posters in hotels and restaurants, sides of street food carts and on most Argentines lips.

What we know as the Falkland Islands inhabited by about 2000-odd sheep farmers of British extraction and they have been there for well over 100 years.

The Argentines have disputed the British government's administration of the islands for about 150 years and this culminated in the military regime's pathetic attempt at a takeover in the early eighties, which most Westerners will associate with the resulting extreme support then given to the beleagered Margaret Thatcher, which then allowed her to go on to change Western government economics and welfare structures, which still resonates today.

On the Argentine side, the military lost public support and a dictatorship-free Argentina paved the way towards democracy and capitalist freedom. Though most Argentines still reckon the island should be theirs, which I find absolutely bizarre as the islands have no Argentines even living there, partly due to a law which prohibits their entry. Fair enough, I said to one travel agent who protested this fact. After all, the last time a boatload of Argentines did, they shot the place up.

Not a bad impact for a little group of Antarctic windswept islands.

Ok, so I leave the airport to grab a few last minute gifts, as I had waited to get the bulk of stuff for friends and family back home on account of carrying it in my backpack .and, well, airport prices are prohibitive, as I only have $120US on me (which, thanks to scrimping, is more than I budgeted).

So I run into another set of dramas, get back to the airport over an hour before my flight is due to depart, not so bad considering what had happened to me in trying to get back to the airport and I thought as my luggage is already checked in and it's just me and my carry on bag, not so fast buddy, this is Santiago and, well, no amount of tears, tantrums or pleading could get me on the flight it seems it was over booked, by quite a few, so that's that for me.

My luggage was somewhere, they couldn't say, and I was stuck in Santiago.

..and still am.

Thank goodness the airport is 24 hours, so I've got somewhere to stay the night (the nearest hotel was $200US and as I have been spending most of the past months either camping or sleeping on buses, I wasn't about to fork out more in one night than I had spent in a month). The staff at the airport were pretty resigned to the we can't do anything forever approach.

So with my luggage gone to somewhere across the Pacific, it looks like I am stuck in Santiago Airport for days or maybe weeks, it's not so bad though, there is a "Dunkin Donuts" and a dentist.

Ok, this is weird, I'm in a net cafe in Santiago (as the airport's internet is down of course), trying to contact friends, family and Qantas (my ticket is with LAN Chile but the actual leg is with Qantas, hence the inability for the LAN staff to help me) and, well, this place is weird enough, but a massive brass military band and a battalion of solders is going by.

Oh please, can there not be a war with Bolivia happening while I am stuck here!!!!