Soooo I was meant to join the tour up after mom left but I never actually got round to doing that one! I checked into a hostel in Buenos Aires, right around the corner from our hotel and never looked back really, my mind was so confused of what to do next, I didn't want to stay on that tour, travelling with a bunch of people that hate each other and all I could think about since he left, was Chris so after a few party nights and sight-seeing days at The Clan hostel I decided to do the most ridiculous thing of booking a flight that meant I would be in Cape Town in 10 days, so I had 10 days to get to Sao Paulo….wander what I should do In those last 10 days? I checked out of the hostel and said goodbye to everyone I made friends with and partied with (Museum and Club 69 were totally awesome clubs if anyone gets to BA) and got to the bus station and got on a bus to Mendoza, the wine producing capital of Argentina, it was absolutely beautiful. Luckily I was sat next to a French student living in Chile who I told my situation that I want to get done as much as possible and he told me what options i had, so now I had a crazy idea of trying to get to Chile before heading back up to Brazil. I arrived in Mendoza and met 3 English nurses travelling together so hooked up with them and found a hostel in town, walked around town realizing there was a wine festival going on and the streets were just pandemonium! I think the biggest wine festival in South America.I walked around town for a while and heading to buy my ticket to somewhere….something just told me to head to Salta in the north of Argentina on the border of Bolivia so my bus out was for 8pm the next day. Dinner was absolutely awesome, hooked up with 8 girls and went out for steak, it was so much fun being in a huge group of girls I forgot how much I missed the company of girls my own age, we all sampled the local wines and then went out for more drinks later. I woke up the next morning feeling absolutely awful, possible still drunk as one of my roommates asked me if I wanted to go rafting, I forgot how much I was feeling so death so I enthusiastically agreed. After realizing transport for the rafting was already full we walked 2 miles to the bus station, waited an hour for a bus, an hour bus ride later they dropped us off in the middle of a dirt track in the Andes and pointed over a hill where the rafting station was, by this point I was feeling dreadful but came this far so couldn't do anything about it at this point. We went rafting for a few hours and the water was icy cold despite the fact we had wetsuits on. I was also panicking the whole time that I had a bus out of Mendoza at 8 and it was already about 6 and we didn't have transport back to Mendoza. It seemed like a totally impossible situation as the next bus left at 7 and arrived in at 8.30. So we just started walking to town which was 30 mins away, hailed down a truck dumping garbage on the side of the road that gave us a lift to the nearest town. That was no help either, no bus for 2 hours no nothing, so we walked up to the main road through the Andes and stuck out our thumbs but to no avail, told the boy Sean, a Canadian, to hide behind a rock and Ellen a Sweedish girl and I would have a go, it worked straight away, soon enough a trucker pulled up and gave us a lift all the way to Mendoza! Was one of the highlights of the trip getting to talk to a Chilean trucker in Spanish for an hour and a half, and I caught my bus with just minutes to spare. I spent the 24hour bus ride next to an obnoxious Israeli guy Elad, and then spent a further 3 hours looking for an Israeli hostel in Salta, god it was weird, we finally got to one and everything was in Hebrew, I was the only English person, it was hilarious! Tried to sort my life out a little bit more cas by this point I had a week to get to Brazil and I was on the border of Bolivia, I got a bus ticket to Chile and Iguassu so got to the station at 5.30am and caught a magnificent 12 hour bus ride crossing the Andes, it was mind-blowing, drove all through the mountains and over a salt flat. I met a German girl on the bus, Luisa who I hooked up with and spent the next few days with her, we both only had 3 days in Chile and were catching the same bus back to Salta so had exactly the same plan. We found a cheap guesthouse as all the hostels were booked or crazily expensive in San Pedro and booked up 2 tours. After sorting all of that out we went wandering though the Atacama desert which surrounded the town, it was just amazing, the landscapes were beautiful. We woke up with 5 mins to spare before our tour of the desert left and rushed to just catch the bus, we drove through more salt lakes and more lagoon, one was 14000ft above sea level it was incredible but so cold. We ate lunch in an Andean house and ate a meal of llama, visited a mountain village then went back to Sand Pedro. The next day we woke up with only 2 minutes to run and catch the bus to Bolivia for a day! We ended up having private transport as they f***ed up the tours so we got our own driver who had just baked a load of hot rolls, they were delicious, crossed over the border which was no more than a shack in the mountains and drove around the beautiful lagoons, saw amazing volcanoes and swam in hot springs when it was -7C outside. It was such a fantastic day, shame I couldn't get to do more of Bolvia but I got a tiny taster and I know I will be back there one day. In the night we went on a star gazing tour and it was the most amazing stars I had ever seen, I could see so clearly the milky way and the southern cross, It was just mind blowing how clear the stars were because we were in the driest desert in the world and so high up. The next day we woke up and caught the 12 hour bus back to Argentina and I had the most annoying people sitting next to me, for the first 6 hours I was with a guy that would not stop whistling the same tune or tapping on his arm rest for 6 hours straight and for the remaining 6 hours I was with an over enthusiastic kid who gave me a running commentary of the scenery going by, I couldn't handle it! By the time we got to Salta I was so upset, it started raining and I was missing everything and just wanted to be with Chris. I was getting terribly homesick and was even missing the things I hate….Sarah's annoyingness, the dog piss on the kitchen floor, the horror that is Newton Abbot…literally everything! Arrived in Salta and went with Luisa to a hostel and then wandering to find food. We came back and I only had 4 hours to sleep before I had to be at the bus station by 5.30 to catch a 27 hour bus to Brazil and there were some drunken ass annoying as hell girls in the hostel who would not start screaming, I could have killed them! I got to the bus station in the morning with not much sleep and bordered a bus that would take to all the way to the Brazilian border. Thought it would take forever but it wasn't actually that bad, I was sat next to two American guys who were pretty nice to talk to cas they had travelled all the way down from Ecuador. I was able to sleep little bits of the way and the views were really nice so it wasn't too bad, I arrived in Peurto Iguassu and caught a us over the border to Foz. It was weird as hell being back in Foz without Chris or Mom and it was also where I left him at the airport a month before. I checked myself into crap hotel and walked round the town marveling at the wonders of Brazil, happy welcoming faces everywhere you turn, expensive and over priced everything, old topless fat men selling crazily strong caparihnas on the roads. My flight for Sao Paulo left the next day, I couldn't believe I made it this far, if there was one f*** up with my buses anywhere along the way I wouldn't have made it but everything just went like clockwork. My flight to Sao Paulo arrived with about 6 hours between my flight to Joburg at 10pm, it was great being back on a SAA flight, I was coming back to Africa! Oh it was just too much; arriving into Joburg was an incredible feeling, flying over the plains nearly brought tears to my eyes, just seeing it again, I got a connecting flight to Cape Town and Chris and I were finally reunited and everything just seemed right again.