Mendoza was difficult to leave, the city is clean, cheap, interesting and we both could have easily spent a month there trying all the restaurants, the adventure sports and of course the winery's. Until 2001 Argentina had an exchange rate of 1 peso to 1 US dollar, after ´something´ happened their economy collapsed and now you get 3 pesos to 1 US dollar. So overnight everything became 1 third of its price!, for tourists that is. You can enjoy all the tra...

Calama, has been renamed Calamity, we had to kill 12 hours waiting for the next bus to Santiago so we sat on a park bench and watched the world go by. Local Chileans walked by wearing their designer jeans, t-shirts, Gucci shades and Nike airs, all jiber jabering on their mobile phones. The park had a sound system which played James blunt, dido and the like. It all felt very European. Chileans are still sporting the odd shell-suit, bum-bag and dodgy perm. One ver...