Microtel Inn & Suites Mendoza ( Guaymallen)

... estuve en época de Otoño los colores de esa época se veían en todas las calles de Mendoza. No tuve la oportunidad de conocer mucho, salvo la parte del Centro de la Ciudad ; la Plaza Independencia, la Plaza San ...

... taking the underground as all taxis refused to go near the footy) ready for our first experience of Argentinian football. Watching River (Argentina) vs. Montevideo (Uruguays capital) the atmosphere was incredible...the souting-chants lasted from the very beginning right until the end, the locals guys were going mental for it! a wicked experience. The next day, I finally managed to leave the fabulous BA after a fun-filled 4 days. Leaving ...

Had a lovely wine tour with two Argentinians and two Aussies. This area produces more Malbec wines than France. Had a 4 course lunch with an excess of wine. We were all getting silly! This evening it is an overnight bus ride to Buenos Aires.

... bed-bug bites on his face, arms and hands. Although I managed to avoid the physical trauma of their bites; I have however been psychologically wounded and I scratch my non-existent bites when thinking of them. Nasty little critters those bed-bugs. Due to a drug-related incident earlier in the week, the border crossing during the bus ride from Mendoza to Santiago took over three hours and every bag on every bus was thoroughly searched. Arriving in the dark in Santiago ...

... mineral deposits in the surrounding stone. A great trip but the high light were the Andes themselves - huge awe inspiring mountains and surprisingly colourful - sand stone, sits next to white and black rock with huge stripes of metal ore adding further dashes of colour. A nice couple of days but again time to move on, this time following the edge of the Andes northwards up to Salta - our last stop in Argentina before Bolivia.

... chock full of outdoor cafes, stores, travel agencies, etc. The only goals that we had was to find a wine tour (of course) and also a tour that took us down to the end of the world. We managed to find an extreemely friendly travel lady * who landed us a tour. We also found some possibilities for going down to the bottom of the world. The second day was an all day wine tour. Lea and I were a bit hung over from our $7 malbec from the night ...

... Hostel Lao, a very chilled and cool hostel run by Mike from Derby, a top bloke who married a local girl and set up the place. We heard about the place from some Kiwi's we met in Bogota back in December and it was a very good tip. It has a small swimming pool and hammocks dotted around the garden to dose off the wine, they even provide free samples of the stuff every night, which is a really nice touch. Next stop Valparaiso, Chile.

Well, it's been a while since we fully updated the blog, so there's a lot to tell but we'll keep it short! We arrived in Mendoza at the beginning of January in the full, sweltering heat of summer and set about the search for jobs and a place to live straight away. Within a month or so we were pretty much on our feet. Mendoza is a really liveable city, it benefited from being rebuilt following a strong earthquake in the 1890s and now has many tree-lined, wide streets with ...

It was a real struggle getting out of bed today for some reason, but we made breakfast by the skin our our teeth (on the roof terrace!) and then headed out into the blazing hot morning.

We picked up our email and the latest accommodation request rejections, before going over the road to a supermarket to stock up for our picnic ...