Wine country Mendoza is one of my favourite places from the whole trip.. I could spend weeks here.

The town is gorgeous; wide tree-lined avenues and lots of plazas (designed that way after the whole town had to be rebuilt following a devastating earthquake some years ago), pretty architecture and a simple-to-navigate grid system. I'm a big fan of grid systems, it saves time wandering around getting lost...

Arriving in style (cama suite, no less - the buses in Argentina offer several classes of seat, cama suit is the very poshest, we had a fully reclining leather seat, individual tv, stewardess who served us champagne, it was all very nice), we found our lovely little B&B (another of Sarah's recommendations) and promptly made friends with a lovely family from Herefordshire. Mendoza is such a friendly place! Then we headed off to explore. Within about 30 minutes we'd made friends with Sheila and Mark from Ireland, who became our buddies for the whole stay. Cue some fun nights out, one terrible meal, lots of laughs, some terrible jokes, 4 new dining experiences (piadines, yummy) and a fair amount of vino.

There is so much to do in Mendoza, activities include paragliding, hiking, visits to the wineries, horse-riding, absailing, rock climbing.. the only difficulty was choosing what to do! On the principle of 'when in Rome' Scott and I headed off to visit the wineries first, on bicycle (all of you who recommended Mr Hugo, thanks it was great). Cycling along dirt roads is hard work in 32 degree sunshine, so naturally we needed a few glasses of vino as refreshement. The really gorgeous vineyard in the photos is Tempus Alba, our first stop - stunning. We spent a happy few hours there chatting to our new friends from Canada, then (slightly wobbly admittedly) headed off for more grapes, some chocolate/ olive oil/ liquer tasting, and finally back to Mr Hugos for more wine. A lovely day (cue hiccup).

After all that strenuous activity I decided a day of relaxation was in order - after all I haven't had a massage since I left Thailand! Shocking. There's a hotel up in the Andes which offers day passes to use the spa facilities, so Scott and I toddled up there to relax in the natural hot baths (phew, one of them was 50 degrees!), sunbathe in the cool air of the mountains, be massaged and get covered in skin-smoothing mud! Was a very odd sensation, it feels warm when you first slather it on, then as you have to stand out in the sun for the mud to dry you feel chilled by the cool air, and as the mud dries it goes all hard and crumbly, like a face mask. We looked like zombies! Our new friend Rosario was there as a present from her boyfriend; we all had a jolly nice day together!

Time for another adventure... gaucho-style!

x