Hotel Vecchia Roma Mendoza

... the flag for us Brits. After that they put the bikes away!
Also visited this liquour place and tried this grenadine type drink called Russian Death, not for me I have to say. Steered clear of the 85% Absinth though, I fancied being conscious for the hostel dinner party later that night. Weather again was perfect, blue skies and probably about 22 degrees or so.
Decided to be organised for a change and book our onward bus tickets for a change, disappointed ...

After six exhausting weeks at uni in Chile, both my housemate from London, Jess, and i were dying to get out of cold, overcast and smoggy Santiago. Spring appeared to come for several days in late August and then had promptly disappeared only for us to be greeted by frequent 72 hr rain phenomenons (which at first really freaked me out because i thought Santiago was flooding...but this is what you get for living 15 yrs with a drought...)

It got ...

... of South Americaīs strongest economy. It was small, unkempt, open to the elements. Everything was closed. With sleep still filling our thoughts and pulling our eyes shut, we grabbed our bags. It was 5am. There was no chance of finding a hostel at that hour, we didn't have any Chilean pesos for a taxi and really no idea where we were. But we set off with our backpacks out of the terminal. Within 5 minutes it was pretty clear we'd made ourselves ...

... some super-yummy Argentinian wine and some even yummier steak...my new best Ever steak. Follwed by a bar crawl of a selection of BAs finest. Day 4 Me & some guys from dinner the night before decided to get out of the city for the day...A 1hr train took us to the gorgeous Tigre - south america's Venice. We hired out a triple kayak and spent the rest of the day exploring the waterways and beautiful greenery surroundings. Back in BA we headed ...

... Tulli had her beer courage and did an impressive job of talking Spanish! One of the guys wanted to practice his English, so it all worked out well. We taught them a fun game we call sticky fingers and also the phrase "that's what she said". The best part was seeing the non-English speaking Spaniard pick up on the TWSS concept when his buddy translated. The Canadians and Spaniards entertained us by singing various Queen songs, their ...

... for about an hour. The initial relief of arriving at our hostel was soon replaced with disappointment. I donīt think I have ever seen anywhere so dirty and I am not really that bothered by a bit of dirt. But I wouldnīt have wanted to eat using any of the utensils or even cook in the kitchen. Everything was covered in stains. The toilet/shower (shared with male and female) was horrible and didnīt lock. The dorm was OK except that the traffic was so ...

... involving, and which cost us an additional ten pesos. I enjoyed the tranquility of the cellars there, however, with their long aisles of barrels, still air, agreeable temperature and placid ambience - it'd make a lovely place to just sit down and read a book for a few hours. After this second winery, we came to the conclusion that they were all gonna be the same, and we headed for home. Mission accomplished, we were able to bid farewell to ...

... urge all of you never to moan about passport control again, it is a walk in the park compared to the Chile-Argentine border control. The coach drives into a huge aircraft hanger style building, along with 5 other lanes of traffic (and yes, all the lanes were being used). In this hanger are the border control booths, 2 in each lane, 1 for the exit from Chile and the other for the entrance into Argentina. But, its not that simple, the coach drives past the booths and ...

... of shade from the scorching sun. It's a bit of an oasis really, lying in the desert near the early foothills of the Andes, the whole city is kept green and shady by irrigation channels which run directly from the mountains. We found a room to rent in a house in a nice part of the city near the huge Parque San Martin, sharing with 14 other people from all over the place. I spent my first 2 months working on the reception of a hostel. It was an interesting ...

... est tres bien rodee... En une seconde son complice avait reussi a subtiliser mon petit sac a dos (comprenant mon passeport, mes 2 CB, mon appareil photo, bref toute ma vie quoi!) pourtant pose a 10cm de moi... mais, toujours mefiant dans les gares, j'ai heureusement eu le reflexe de me retourner pour surveiller mes sacs et voir a ce moment le complice partir avec son butin sous le bras... Je me retournais 2 seconde plus tard et il reussissait habilement a se fondre dans la ...