We took another overnight bus from Cordoba to Mendoza and got there pretty early in the morning. Unfortunately when we left the bus, I left my ipod on the seat, when I realised and went back to get it it was gone! Suppose that was my own fault really, still a pain though! We took a taxi to our hostel and couldnt check in until 2 so we just had a walk around. The city itself is ok, nothing special really. We had some drinks with some people on the roof terrace that night, and planned to go for the wine tasting the next day. Some girls who we met were going the same way as us so we all went together. unfortunately we hadnt planned on them being really annoying and we ended up always going the wrong way because neither of them would listen to us when we said we should go other ways etc. We spent about an hour looking for something to eat, so by 3pm I still hadnt had any wine yet! So, after we got something to eat we ditched them and went off on our own. It was a bit of bad luck because the first one we went to was closed, then we went to go to another one and it was miles away, but eventually we took a tour of a vineyard and learned all about it, then got some wine tasting at 4.30pm. Everything closed at 6, so we had to bike all the way back to another one, but we stopped at the chocolate and absynthe place, got some choccies and Jack had absynthe, i had some sort of peach vodka, and then we had to go home!! So it was a bit of a disaster. That night though there was a parade, which was all the different regions on floats, and they threw fruit and things in to the crowd. Jack managed to catch some grapes, a plum and an apple. some floats were throwing melons which i thought was a little bit dangerous and people were actually scrapping on the floor for this free melon! it was quite funny!

We had decided to stay another 2 nights here, and had booked a hostel online. We moved to the other hostel on the Saturday, but when we got there they had no record of our booking and they were full. So, we made a split decision and decided to head for the bus station and go to Santiago that day. So we got to the bus station, booked a ticket which left in half an hour and got on the bus. The journey was ok, we went over the Andes, and the border crossing was at the top. We had forgotten about this, and were standing in the freezing cold in shorts and t-shirt! The crossing took aaages, we were on and off the bus about 3 times, to stamp passports, identify our luggage, put it all through the x-ray and then back on the bus eventually. We ended up getting to Santiago about 10.30pm, but we didnt have a hostel booked until Monday (as originally planned) but went to the hostel anyway and luckily they had room!