ADIOS SOUTH AMERICA! The journey to Santiago, quicker than we had been led to expect because of the road closure, was marred by another person, this time a grown-up, throwing up on the bus. But we were in a buoyant frame of mind. It was our last night in South America, and we had high hopes that the hotel we were about to stay in and review would provide a fitting end to our time on the continent. As we headed to the hotel by taxi Duncan tempted fate by saying ...

FROM WIERDO TO ZERO Our bus journey from Mendoza across the Andes to Valpariaso in Chile, one of those stunning drives that everyone raves about, did not pass off without incident. The views were spectacular, of the Andes in general and Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the world outside of Asia, in particular. But the environment inside the bus was less pleasant. We were sat behind a couple with a very cute little daughter. Cute, that is, until she threw up al...

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 int...

WHOA, PHWOAR AND SORE IN CORDOBA The lively streets and blue cloudless skies of Cordoba were a welcome sight as we got off the bus and made our way to our hostel where, within a few minutes, we had booked ourselves onto a horse-riding trip for the following day which made Emma very happy and Duncan's balls slightly concerned about their welfare. We spent the afternoon wandering around the streets of a city which seemed to have a disproportionately large number ...

WHY OH WHY, URUGUAY? If you ever have to spend 24 hours in Uruguay, try your best not to make those 24 hours be a Sunday. And, Duncan adds, try to spend them in Argentina. Having already been to seven countries, we decided to add an extra one to the itinerary - the wonderful Uruguay, which we'd only heard good things about . There has been a big advertising campaign that we'd caught a few times on South American TV promoting this beautiful country with its great...