Argentina

The border crossing from Chile to Argentina was a long, hard, COLD experience. First our bus was lined up for an hour. Then we were finally hushed out of the bus only to stand for 1 hour in a immigration queue in about 0 degrees! It was snowing. We still don’t have winter coats. After we got our stamps we had to wait for another 20 minutes while they searched through our bags. It was so cold!! The bus ride itself was very beautiful though. We saw tall, beautiful mountains and we even saw a couple of ski resorts.

Mendoza
It was really nice to arrive in Mendoza on the same day as we left Chile. We almost always travel on night buses these days, so 8 hours on a bus seemed like a luxury. I love the movie Evita, and I had always wanted to go to Argentina. Finally I could sing all the songs and and prentend that I was in a musical.

In Mendoza we decided to do a wine tour. We got to go to two wineries, I olive/chocolate place and one winery where they made Grappa. All the wine was very good. They didn’t give us much of it though! Malbec is a type of wine that famously good in this region. It was amazing. We bought a great wine from the local winery, and drank it with our very rare steaks that we had for dinner. We have discovered that cooking meat is an art that we have not yet mastered. Does anyone know how many minutes it takes to cook a medium steak?

Buenos Aires
The bus from Mendoza to Buenos Aires was AMAZING! We went with a company called CATA, and we had a luxury bus. All the seats had a TV. The seats could decline to an almost vertical position! The food was great on the bus. When it was time for dinner they brought out a tray with a lot of different types of cold food. Matt and I were wondering how we would be able to eat all of it. Shortly after they brought us hot food! Steaks! And we even got dessert. It was like being on a plane. Did I mention that we drank free wine?

Buenos Aires is a cool city. We went to an antique market. The shopper in me really wanted to buy some old brooches, but the flies in my wallet said that it wouldn’t be a great idea. In general Buenos Aires seems to be a Mecca for shoppers.
The leather shoes are gorgeous! I felt like I was the most masculine woman in Buenos Aires. The other women all looked so cute and feminine with their long, curly hear and leather gear.

Unfortunately, I got sick in Buenos Aires. I have been coughing like a mad person for 8 days. It is really interrupting my sleep (and Matt’s sleep). My immune system is obviously not doing its job!!

What else can I say about Buenos Aires? We went on a free walking tour one day. It was a really good way to see parts of the city. We also got out hair cut by a stylist called Ryan Oakley. He was very entertaining and obviously he is a genius when it comes to hair. If anyone is going to BA I suggest that you squeeze in an appointment with him. It is worth it!


Our flight from BA to Sydney was wonderful! We flew with Qantas and the food was sooo good! We also had a great choice of videos. Although, I do regret watching half of Sex and the City 2 because it was really as bad as they say!!

We have actually been in New Zealand for a few days now. Tony and Dawn are being so good to us! We will update the blog with posts for Sydney and New Zealand very shortly! We are in Christchurch, and yes, we have felt the earth move more than once!

Chile

We were rushed for time in Chile but spent time in two very different places. Firstly San Pedro de Atacama. This is a small oasis town in the middle of the desert. As you may remember we were holed up there to give Betta to get over her tummy problems, and while we had a nice (and expensive) room, we could have been in a better town. San Pedro is pretty damn boring. It's a tourist trap where many tours of the surrounding areas start but the town itself is not very nice. Loads of aggressive touts, drunks oggling western women, wild dogs everywhere, new age hippies and weirdos and the tourists that they are all courting. It's also really expensive.

Anyway, as you can tell we didn't really enjoy it there so we pushed off to Santiago as soon as we could. A cool 21 hours later and we pulled up to what seemed like civilization again for the first time in ages. We were both immediatey very impressed with the Metro system which was very clean and modern and we checked into our nice hostel in a posh neighbourhood called Provedencia.

One reason for going to Santiago was so Betta could meet up with Jorge, a friend from the states when they were both on the same exchange program. On our first night Jorge invied us to have a family dinner. We were greated with a Pisco sour (Pisco is pretty much the national drink), local wine and some wonderfl home cooked food and good conversation. Thankfully everyone's English was better than our Spanish.

On our second day Jorge, Natty and Felipe offered to take us on a day trip to Valpairiso, a faded port town with wonderfull hills coverd with colourful Victorian buildings and many funicular railways up to them. We went for a wonder, got caught up in filming for a movie and bribed our way around an amazing old dilapidated mansion. We went to a bar that's been there since 1896 (and looked like it!) before heading home via a restaurant to try a local dinner of Churrasco. I.e., the worlds biggest and meatiest sandwich. Very nice it was too.

We only had 3 nights in Santiago but both of us felt very much at home there. The only slight downside was that it is significantly more expensive than most other countries in Latin America. Everyone said that the south of Chile was a must see, but we had neither the time or suitable clothes so that will have to waid until next time. We would like to say a really big thank you to Jorge, Natty and Felipe for making us feel so welcome, for showing us the sights and introducing us to the lovely food and drink of Chile (even the Piscola!). We owe you a few tours in Norway.

Next Stop, Argentina.

M&B

Half Way Stats

We are over half way through our trip. Here are the stats to day 108:

lodgings 36
Time in transit 214 hrs(to B.A.)
Photos 5400
Countries 12
Capitals 10
Total Money $12656 (£8437)
per day $124 (£82)
Flights 8
Train Journeys 3
Bus Journeys 24 (longest 28 hours)
Time in Air 32 hrs
Time underwater 2 hrs
World Heritage Sites 10
Nights in Transit 9
Nights in a dorm 6
Movies in Cinema 5