Hola Amigos! Here we are, finally back in Argentina nearly 2 years since we left at the end of our last big trip.What has changed? Well Starbucks has finally arrived in Argentina, a decade after it took over the rest of the world and I have to admit I am rather looking forward to a grande skinny mocha (hold the cream) with chocolate sprinkles on the top. All I have to do now is learn how to order all that in Spanish. Apart from that important event we seem to h...

Oh dear, the difficult 'second blog'. Well, it was the winter of the Big Freeze - not that we knew that at the time.We left England at the time of a medium size chillette with two heavy downfalls of snow in a month, but the forecast was for another big snowfall that would close the roads and airports and we were anxious to get away before the weather got worse and trapped us in Hove with a wheezing boiler and 2 hot water bottles.And we almost didn't make it…...

Oh dear, the difficult 'second blog'. Well, it was the winter of the Big Freeze - not that we knew that at the time.We left England at the time of a medium size chillette with two heavy downfalls of snow in a month, but the forecast was for another big snowfall that would close the roads and airports and we were anxious to get away before the weather got worse and trapped us in Hove with a wheezing boiler and 2 hot water bottles.And we almost didn't make it…...

Flying back into Buenos Aires we were horrified to discover that the entire city has been consumed by a large dense black fug of smoke for the last week, caused by over-enthusiastic farmers slash and burning in the countryside around the capital. Visibility has been compared to the bad old days of the London 'peasoupers'; flights have been cancelled, children and adults taken to hospital suffering from respiratory problems. It's a national disaster, and we are ...

Cachi is 2,300 metres above sea level so apart from being very cold at night the air was also thin which made breathing quite difficult, so it was quite a relief to leave and head downhill to the larger town of Cafayate, a whole 500 metres lower. Brian was even more relieved to be leaving the cloistered confines of our luxury hotel and starting to look forward to cheaper rooms and non-stop Champions League. Unfortunately, as we started on the 180 km, 5 hour drive...