Iran supports Turkey’s EU bid and Brazil warmly welcomes Ahmadinejad, even sporting flying banners across Ipanema beach. What a strange new world we’re living in. In Buenos Aires still, off to Uruguay tomorrow. Will meet with fellow SOAS pal Marc tonight, which should be fun.

A tour de force, and only one week has passed! Beginning in Chile, where two days were spent to see whether the December 13 poll contain some risk to the markets. Interestingly, while Chileans rightly point to the fact that the upcoming elections are the most open ones since the resumption of democracy, people from other Latin American countries think Chile is boring whatever the story is. Anyway, at this stage it looks rather likely that the centre-right candidate Pinera will win against the centre-left Concertacion man Frei, although the reverse could be true. And, the dark horse, Marco Enriquez-Ominami, still has a chance to at least get through to the January 17 runoff. And finally I got a chance to meet family friend Jose Miguel from the famous Chilean folk band Illapu. Their story is very interesting, as they spent a good deal of the 80’s in political exile in Europe and Mexico.

Then it was onwards to Brazil, kicking off with 24 hours in Sao Paulo. Not much time to get to know the city except for getting a sense of the traffic. At the heart of Brazil’s economic world-trend-defying boom, the city is bustling and certainly transpires unbroken optimism. Politically, people predictably favoured Sao Paulo governor Jose Serra to win next year’s presidential race against Lula’s chosen Dilma Rousseff. In Brasilia, I had the chance to walk through both the Senate and the House, emblematic of the city’s interesting and symbolic architecture.

And then Rio. Fantastic. Surely calls for another longer touristic visit. The meetings there were great as well, and I heard some cautious overtures on Serra – reflecting the ideological rivalry between the two great Brazilian cities. I used yesterday (Saturday) to spend some quality time at the beach at Ipanema. Small planes with advertising banners marked the sky, and to my surprise, one of the banners read: “Ahmadinejad, Rio welcomes you!” – referring to the Iranian president’s visit to Brazil later this month. Strange sight, for sure. Interesting that Israeli president Peres will visit the country just days before his foe does. He didn’t get a banner, though.

I got into Buenos Aires last night, using the day to catch up on some sleep and talking a few steps through the city. My contact in town then offered me to go see local soccer side Boca Juniors play a league game from which I just got back. Although the game was rather uneventful (ending in a goalless draw), it was certainly worth going just for the atmosphere in the stadium. The Boca supporters are loud and rhythmic. Which is great, as their team is doing relatively poorly this season.

This week will be meetings here and then perhaps Uruguay in case I can organise enough to warrant the trip there. Otherwise, I’ll head back to Europe Wednesday night. So far, this trip has been amazing given that it’s my first time in Latin America. Seems I missed out a lot by not having come here earlier!