11/05/04- 14/05/04 Mendoza, Argentina

The scenery between the Chilian border and Mendoza was breathtaking. Unfortunately I lost all the photos that we did take but trust me it was amazing, the mountains were a beautiful red colour and some of the mountain roads were frightening enough to inspire hysterical blindness. Again arrived in quite late but this time the ever helpful Argentines had set up a tourist information centre at the bus station who booked us into a very cheap hotel and organized an equally cheap cab to get us there. Spent the next four days exploring the town, shopping and largely eating, actually mainly just eating. Apparently it only rains 5 days a year in Mendoza and unfortunately we seemed to have arrived on the first day of the wet season as it didn’t let up for the whole time we were there. Mendoza itself was lovely and had a fabulous park which we had a wonder round and picnic in, in a very brief dry spell. But the main attraction was definitely the restaurants or in particular the Parrillas. Yum.

I was really relieved to be out of Chile. Mendoza I really liked- a city reputedly with only 5 days of rain a year or some such but it rained for 3 of the days we were there.