Happy new year from a town like Alice

  Mendoza, Argentina
Monday, January 2, 2006

10

Hope you had a fabulous new year's eve.  It was
strangely quiet here in the Alice Springs of Argentina on Saturday
night.  It really is very like the Australian bush in the area around
here (except for the Andes and the wineries), and Mendoza is curiously
similar in layout to Alice (but much bigger).  I keep expecting to find
a big red rock  in the desert out there, but of course there`s an
enormous white one in the mountains.
We`ve
been into the mountains and seen Aconcagua up closer (but still several
miles away) and toured a winery and been along the Atuel Canyon
(utterly fantastic landscape - more impressive than the mountains
even) and we`ve been trying to leave Mendoza for Valparaiso in Chile
since Friday.  Of course we didn`t realise that Val` was the place to
be on new year`s eve until all the hotels were booked and there were no
seats on any buses over the border till tonight due to the holidays. 
So we missed a fantastic
firework display in Val` but we assumed that there`d be celebrations
here anyway.  Wrong.  The whole place was deserted and only about 3
bars were open at all.  Only found out today from our friend who runs
the vegetarian restaurant (really bored by steaks the size of New
Zealand now) that last new year`s eve there was a fire in a club in
Buenos Aires in which nearly 200 died so there were no celebrations
this year.  I don`t recall it being reported in the UK at all, coming
so soon after the tsunami.
Anyway, at 11.30
tonight we`re on a bus to Santiago and with luck tomorrow morning we`ll
be on another bus heading north to the beach resort of La Serena where
we`ll plan and book the next stage - crossing the Atacama desert and on
to Bolivia then Peru so El Supremo can do the Inca trail. (There was a
revolutionary leader in Uruguay called Jose Batlle, so Jon Battle has
decided he`s a relative and insisted on the new title).  I think I may
have a revolt of my own.