Coach from Santiago to Mendoza over the Andes, has to rank in the top league of coach journeys.

It doesn't look very far on the map but it took about five hours.

Like flying, it's an ear-popping experience. It felt like we'd been up and down three times in a plane.

The mountain landscape is on a vast scale. Snowcapped summits mounted upon vertiginous rocky cliffs and hectares of arid scrub-filled stoney desert. Many times the coach passes close to roadside officeblock-sized boulders; landing as if thrown by a short-sighted giant aiming for the road and missing.

And floating apparently effortlessly and serenely above this largely deserted, infinite craze of rocky paving, a condor, viewing us as ants, looks for something more appetising.

The Andes seem redder on the Argentinian side. But whatever colour they are, they stand magesterially above us for the whole journey.

Last night we both slept well. Richard downed a whole packet of throat tablets and didn't wake up.... sorry that should read, and didn't cough all night!

The hostel is lovely and the people in Mendoza are kind and helpful. Well that's really useful on the day an ATM swallows your Visa card for the first time in eleven months' travelling! Yes, a few hours later we got it back!