Mendoza, Argentina

Our first bus journey in South America brings us to Mendoza, the famous wine producing region. A very humid evening was hard work as we carried our bags from the bus station to our first choice hostel (it was full) before arriving at another (we'll only be staying one night there). The bus journey was just over 6 hours long which is nothing compared to some of the journies we have ahead of us. It'll be interesting to see how many we'll end up doing with our proposed iterinary and South America being soo massive. The bus journey brought us over the Andes which was incredibly scenic and somewhat humbling. The mountains were unbelievably high. We thought New Zealand had mountains - nothing in comparison.

Arriving just after 8pm, then checking in, we just grabbed some food before going to bed. A scruptous dinner. Fajitas served with beef & chicken along with 10 different sauces, a red bottle of wine (Maubec) came to less than USD$15 for the both of us.

Mendoza is a very nice place to spend a few days chilling..

The days are extremely hot in Mendoza. As a result it's a very chilled out place where it seems alot of people are quite happy to spend their days lounging about. While we were here we did the bikes and wine tour which was really good. We also walked around the downtown area and did some shopping. Mendoza Shopping Plaza is a really nice shopping center with some great shops for clothes. A Christian Dior shop was the most famous one present and I couldn´t believe the price of shirts & suits. Apparently there's a big factory in Buenos Aires - hence how the low prices. For the laugh, myself & Kev bought some boxer shorts (they were in pesos what they would be in euros). I'm sure we're the only backpackers currently travelling wearing them hehe.

Mendoza is a very nice place to spend a few days chilling. The women here are beautiful. Each night alot of people can be found eating & drinking outside the really nice bars & restaurants along the main street. It's more social than party like.

Our second bus journey was more eventful than the first. For some reason, I thought the overnight journey was at 22:47. How this exact number entered my head I do not know. When I came out of the bathroom, from having a shower, at 22:15 and finding out the bus was leaving in 15 minutes it was quite clear my cold shower had been pointless. Visions of myself & Kev running in our backpacks & day bags to the bus station (a taxi was called but was taking too long) was very real. Thankfully we made it and enjoyed the 10 hour journey in Cama (think of first class on a plane and you can get an idea what the seats are like). Nice!