From the sublime ...

When backpacking around countries you don't know, there's a surprising amount of variance in where you eat each night.

Saturday evening, for example, I had the tasting menu at Casa Galan, the smart restaurant associated to a boutique hotel, accessed by the world's most ridiculously slow elevator - three high-ceilinged storeys at no more than ten centimetres a second. Salmon soufflé with an apple-and-blue-cheese crostini; octopus and squid in aspic; gnocchi with blue cheese and walnuts; amazing melon granita with prosciutto powder; filet steak in a cream sauce with morels and gratin dauphinois; a perfect poached pear on a millefeuille base with dulche-de-lechwe ice cream; three sorts of petite-fours. With a glass of Malbec, 240 pesos - £20. Marvellous.

Sunday lunch was a sixth that price. It was a Hawaiian pizza. In an Argentine variant: lose the tomato sauce, use whole slices of ham, place one pineapple ring on each quadrant of the pizza, and, after it comes out of the oven, place a glacé cherry in syrup, straight from the jar in the fridge, in the middle of each ring.

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