DOZY IN MENDOZA

We arrived into Mendoza tired and bedraggled from our long bus journey, only to find that we couldn't check into our hostel until midday and that we had to pay 7 pesos if we wanted to have breakfast - unlike normal hostel practice. Grrr. Not only that, but we realised we had to wait even longer as it was only 8am when we arrived, not 9am as we had thought, because Mendoza is an hour behind the rest of the country. Not the greatest of welcomes into a city, but we kept ourselves awake by booking our campervan for New Zealand and an extra flight from Christchurch to Auckland at the end of our time there. We finally got into our room, and all was forgiven, as it was huge and we had a lovely big bathroom - hooray! We also booked a tour into the Andes and a 'bikes and wines' tour and set off into town.

We realised that everyone else had gone for a siesta as soon as we'd finally got our arses into gear and hit the town, as the whole place was pretty much deserted apart from a few people sitting at cafes. We joined them and sat watching the world go by over lunch, before wandering the shady streets and attractive squares like Plaza Espana and Plaza Independencia. We headed over to the large, beautiful Parque San Martin which its massive boating lake, and dozed a while under the trees until the sun went into hiding some clouds.

Later, we met up with our new friend Siobhan, who we'd met in Cordoba, at her hostel and had a drink there before heading out for a bite at a local tapas bar on the lively Avenida Aristides Villanueva, which was filling up with people out for a night of drinking. We'd been awake for what felt like days, so thought we'd have a quick 'night cap' before going to bed… but Siobhan had a few interesting stories up her sleeve and when the bar next door started playing 'Bryan Adams' Sweet Child o' Mine (Siobhan we know you're young and all but come ON! We have some friends a bit like you, they've set up a Facebook group you might be interested in, called 'Important Gaps in Our Education') we really had to get up and dance - and Emma inadvertently flirted with an overenthusiastic lesbian, before trying to palm her off on Siobhan - and what with one thing and another we didn't end up heading home until 5am, promising to meet up the following morning at 10.30am for some serious biking and wining action.

No chance… We eventually met up with Siobhan for a late lunch at about 1.30pm, with all of us feeling pretty ropey. But after some strong coffee and stronger orange juice, we worked up the energy and inclination to press on with our plans for bikes and wines - we felt that we had to make the most of our time here and sample some of the wines from the famous vineyards situated in the countryside around Mendoza. We eventually managed to scrape together some hard-to-come-by small change and find a bus that would take us to Maipu (remember remember, Suze, Al, Tracey??) from where we were reliably informed we could hire bikes from someone called Mr Hugo. Sadly we didn't read the small print of the advert properly and we ended up having to get Mr Hugo to send a taxi to pick us up from a ghost town in the middle of nowhere, having got on the wrong bus entirely.

By this time it was already 4pm which left us with only a narrow window before the vineyards closed for the day, so the wonderful Mr Hugo himself drove us to the first vineyard - now that's our kind of cycling tour - and the winery tour was unexpectedly fascinating, we learnt about witness bottles and types of oak barrels and all sorts and, of course, tasted several lovely wines. In all, we managed to fit in two vineyards with tastings, plus a chocolate craftshop, and headed back to Mr Hugo's feeling very much better than we could have imagined earlier in the day. A bit of fresh air and some wine often helps. Except that we then had a hell of a lot more wine as Mr Hugo invited all those who'd hired bikes from him that day to relax in his garden and have unlimited free wine which went down surprisingly easily. Later we headed back into town and found a good steak restaurant and some more red wine to keep us company - but of course.

Next day was the trip into the Andes but Emma woke up feeling ill - a stomach bug rather than a hangover by the way - so Duncan had to go on the trip on his own. The day was spent with a bunch of Belgians (including a chap who'd just finished a Phd in beer brewing!), Israelis and Argentines driving up to the Andes to see Mount Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the world outside Asia at 6900m, and various other interesting sights along the way. One of the highlights was supposed to be the Puente del Inca, 'one of the wonders of South America' according to our guide book, but in reality a slightly disappointing yellow coloured stone bridge formed from thermal springs many years ago but somewhat ruined by the ugly spa building just to the right, built by the British in the 1920s when they constructed the nearby railway. The guide made Duncan proud to be British by telling him that the spa was used to treat ailments such as syphilis which afflicted the randy British workers building the line.

Nice. By the time Duncan got back from this wonder-filled journey, Emma was feeling better so we went out for a wander in the evening sunshine. It was a Saturday night so the whole place was really buzzing, and we had dinner along the main pedestrianised road and watch the world go by, and hung out a while in Plaza Independencia before heading home to bed.