Mendoza

Ah steak. Mendoza continues the Argentinian reputation of having the best steaks in the world and then it throws the best wine in too! Mendoza is a city about the size of Dublin. Completely rebuilt in 1861 following an earthquake it is designed in a grid (a common theme in Argentina, great for finding your way around) with mini storm drains running down each side of the road. Despite the weather water continuously runs down these trenches, tapped from a man-made lake outside of town providing irrigation for the vineyards and drinking water. Amazingly ingeniuous they are absolutely LEATHAL walking around. It seems the government gave up covering them long ago and you need to have your wits about you when crossing the road or you're in. I couldn't see it working in Ireland as a small army would be needed to unclog all the drunks from them each morning.

Having only expected to see the famous vineyards in Mendoza it turns out that the city is about 1 hour from the foot of the Andes. Also, due to them being proper mountains, not like the hills we have in Ireland, it means that one minute you're driving through beautiful flat wine-growing fields and then a wall of rock rises before you, 4 miles up. A last minute booking meant we skipped some wine-tasting for some mountain climbing. Of course I mean mountain climbing in the Fat American sense, in a bus, with air conditioning. For the paltry sum of €20 15 of us backpackers were bussed around some of Argentina's slice of the Andes for the whole day (8am to 8pm). Our guide pointed out the peak where the plane crashed with the Uruguayan rugby team from the film Alive. 2 survivors walked for 10 days to get help (ironically in the wrong direction, had they walked east they would have found civilization in 2 days).
We visited some hot springs. Annoyingly closed until the goverment repairs the damage from a landslide we had to be happy with looking and not bathing.
One of last stops on the trip was a small peak that was accessible by bus it marked the border between Chile and Argentina. It was also our first sample of some high altitude. My digital compass told me 3800m but our guide insisted it was lying and it was 4200m... Either way it was high and I could definately feel some of the effects. A little light-headed I was a little disorientated at times and couldn't remember what I wanted to say on occasion. Kind of like Abrakebabra after a night on the town.

So, off to the vineyards tomorrow then off North to Cordoba, our second last stop before Bolivia.

Click me!

This one might be tricky to see. I'll fix the brightness up at some stage when I get access to a laptop.

The surface is like Mars at times, very spooky.

V-shaped valleys. Tectonic plates in action. Thank you 2nd year Geogrpahy.

The sun going down on one of our overnight buses.