The airport at Santiago in Chile is closed, the roads in a state of upheaval and there are food shortages throughout the country. We had no choice but to cancel our bus trip, our hotel rooms and our flight back from Santiago to Buenos Aires, most of which we managed to do quite easily. Phew. But because part of the attraction of going to Chile was driving across the Andes we decided to drive up to the border anyway, we had a car, we had the time and from what we...

We left the *sigh* dreamy utopia of the Algodon and moved into a mediocre hotel in the centre of town with dreams of white-water rafting and careering around in the wild woolly canyons of the Atuel dam, just down the road from San Rafael. Our plans were scuppered though by a change in the weather.Yup, just our luck to be stuck in a desert on the only 2 days they have rain per year. All we could do was peer forlornly out of our shabby window and observe the dark...

It's Wine Fortnight in the Mendoza Region, known as Vendimia here which is a festival of the annual grape harvest. The culmination of all the celebrations is a beauty pageant that sees a beauty queen from each of the 12 areas surrounding Mendoza city competing to be crowned Queen of Vendimia. Walking down the street one sunny day we were a little surprised to find the Queen of Santa Rosa standing on the pavement, with some of her, frankly, less attractive helpe...

We flew into Mendoza ready for some serious wine tasting, which Brian is really looking forward to as he has become something of a connoisseur of all things alcohol since we arrived in Argentina. It's the annual Wine Festival in Mendoza at the end of February/beginning of March so the hotels are precipitously putting up their prices and looking forward to counting lots of cash in the next few weeks. Mendoza is a sweet little town, it rarely rains as it's practi...

After some fruitless attempts to find 'sights' in and around Cordoba, we finally stumbled upon a little town in the south called Alta Gracia, where Che Guevara lived for 11 years as a boy. The house he and his parents inhabited has been turned into a rather sweet little museum filled with photos, letters and school reports. It was really very interesting and unusual, tucked away as it was in a little suburb amongst all these average middle-class houses. We lef...