Altezza Apart Suites Hotel Mendoza

... and culture here is quite European with coffee shops aplenty and products and services as you would expect. Definitely an easy place to travel and get around with the great full-cama bus seats being more comfy than some dorm beds!

Highlight: By a nostril Perito Moreno Glaciers take the honours. Close second is whale watching in Puerto Madryn. (Iguacu, Argentina side, is in a league of its own, too good to be considered for the highlights section.) The ...

... Now we are at Carlos´s father´s house in Mendoza. We spent the afternoon helping make tomato sauce out of piles and piles of tomatoes. This is one of my favorite things to do and totally reminded me of hanging out with Nonate peeling tomatoes as a kid. My favorite smell in the world = boiled tomatoes. Weird. Tomorrow we´re going to head with Carlos to Bodega Tittarelli where he works to check out the ...

... and I watched the river take it away downstream. Perfect timing for my 30hour bus journey later that afternoon! On the bright side - being without mobile, camera, ipod and even my bankcard has made me realise how little you really do need. Luckily, I had a couple of friends from the hostel also catching the same bus up to Bariloche so I didn't die of boredom! First experience of Argentinan buses - they're fab, National Express back home ...

... of the day was Tempus Alba, which is a somewhat more chic and larger vineyard with the steel vats that you see at the California wineries. The place has been run for four generations and the original family is of Italian descent. We walked around the vineyards - there is no tour per se, so you are allowed to go where you please - tasted some grapes, checked out the metal tanks and made our way to their lovely terrace for the tasting ...

... through the Andres mountains across the border to Mendoza. (Note: Chile-Argentina border crossing= super shady) Matias our boss was supposed to pick us up at the bus station in Mendoza but he never got the message and his mobile phone broke so we couldnt call him and the winery was closed because it was late. Luckily Rob has a friend called Carlos that lives in ...

... a wine cellar where your friendly sommelier helps you choose the wine for your meal which is pretty flash! I head off to the mountains for a sightseeing trip and we get as far as the border of Chile at the christo redentor monument, 400m up and its 4oC, bit of a shocker! The andes are spectacular, reminiscent of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, they are a multitude of colours from all the minerals. We stop off at a currently unused ski resort and i head up on a chair ...

... winds. We were told though that the Torres del Payne park was different again, and the weather would probably be fine there. Well...it wasn't. We arrived to 100kph winds and endless rain, and a 15km walk to the glacier on the first day was abandoned half way as we could see about 10m max. Even though there were lodges/refuges on the trek we decided to 'keep it real' and camp, but our enthusiasm was short lived. After a night of no sleep (and the small tent ...

... we participated in our last and final "find the available hostel-hotel" game which Jen had become expert in. Settling on a place actually took us until about mid-day, after which we took a long sunny stroll soaking up the town and some of the local malbec at an off-the-beaten-path urban oasis of a café that would not have looked out of place in LA or SF. After finishing, printing, dropping off her three years in ...

... nice Italian meal out with a very nice Malbec - the first of many, I think... Tomorrow we are going to hire bikes in Maipu and cycle around four wineries, and then on Wednesday we are going in a bus to visit more wineries in Lujan de Cuyo- as you can probably tell, we are largely visiting wineries! I think we may get in a few mountain sightings too before heading back to Santiago on Saturday.

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 ...