I've been in Mendoza for a little while and life is pretty tough. My hostel is less than $10 p/night with pool and bar etc, and I'm in the wine producing capital of Argentina. The bus trip was a bit of a struggle though as I managed to do a bit of a blonde thing. The trip was 20 hours so at about 11pm I still wasn't asleep and thought I'd pop a sleeping pill to help me out. After another few hours I was still struggling and getting a little frustrated. I eventually got a couple of hours sleep but was waking constantly. It wasn't until I went to use another one in Mendoza (had some heavy duty snoring going on in the dorm) that I realised I'd put the wrong pills in my day-pack and I'd taken a 'water-purification' tablet instead. I guess my guts are pretty clean now though. Mendoza is the first big town I've been to in a while with about 1m people. It's also a large university town. A lot more people speak some english in the cities too which I thought might make life a bit easier, except it also meant that I could now understand more of what EVERYONE was saying. Women complain about walking past construction sites; try having blonde hair in South America and walking past a dozen 14 year old school girls (who's vocabulary was definetly sufficient enough to make their point). My Spanish is coming along though and I'll head to Buenas Aires to do a course soon. I did a tour of the wineries while here and a breif wine appreciation lesson followed by a great evening in an underground cellar at a local's house with a huge table of meats, cheeses etc. I even managed to find a heavy duty shiraz. It's mostly Merlo here though and a dcent bottle will set you back all of $6. Combine it with your $4 steak and ...........aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.........life's tough. I didn't have any plans to head to Buenas Aires but everyone keeps telling me it's a must see, so I figure I'll take a few Spanish lessons and explore the city for a week or two.