Chile

From Buenos Aires we got a night bus to Mendoza, the area where most of Argentina's wine is produced. Mendoza itself is a pleasant and quite laid back town so is an easy place to spend time. There is a huge park to the north of the town that has a lake and some nice gardens which are perfect for chilling out and wandering around.

We met up with Stewart and Beth on our second day there and spent the afternoon hanging around their hostel by the pool with the two of them and Rob and Molly who they were traveling with. That evening we took our turn to use the BBQ at their hostel and cooked 3kg of steak. The six of us and an American guy called James had no trouble eating all of it. Incidentally, James also had no trouble in helping himself to our beer!

The following day the six of us went to nearby Maipú so that we could hire bikes from the legendary Mr Hugo and cycle around the bodegas (wineries). Our first stop of the day was the wine museum where we looked at various paraphernalia relating to the wine making process and, more importantly, drank some of the produce. We then went to the Chocolate and Liquor factory where, after a short tour, we enjoyed some excellent samples. These included a variety of top notch condiments and, obviously, some chocolates and liquors.

The next stage of the 'Tour de Mendoza' was longer than the first two and took us to Bodega Familia Di Tomaso which we'd heard through the grape vine had the best tour. Stewart took the stage victory and the two of us secured podium finishes. Our breakaway had in fact opened up a sufficient gap on the peloton to mean that we went on an earlier tour of the winery than the others.

After learning more about how wine is made and about the particular varieties produced at this bodega we sampled four different wines. Whilst the others were on their tour the three of us ordered a bottle of cider, produced at the winery, which we drank in the sunshine. This was no ordinary cider. It came in a champagne style bottle and was served in champagne flutes. They were so particular about how their cider should be drank that the waitress insisted on putting the bottle back in the fridge between refills to ensure it was consumed at the correct temperature.

The next stage of the tour, won by Rob, took us to an olive oil factory. We sampled the olive oil with bread and sun dried tomatoes. With lunch taken care of we went to a nearby bodega and picked up three bottles of wine. This proved to be much more cost effective than all paying for a tour and receiving small samples. We then cycled to a cheese factory and bought some of their produce.

By this stage in the day, time had got the better of us and we weren't able to go to a nearby river to swim and drink our wine and eat our cheese as we had planned. Instead we took a quick dip in an irrigation channel that flowed through the fields and had a sufficiently strong current to act as a water slide. This was lots of fun. After that we cycled back to Mr Hugo's to return the bikes and take advantage of the free wine that he has a reputation for giving his customers. We ate our cheese with some bread and salami but didn't have to open our wine thanks to the regular top ups.

The following day we left Mendoza on a bus that took us to Valparaiso in Chile. Or it would have done had we not got off a stop early at Viña del Mar, a neighboring town. We didn't realise our mistake until after a taxi driver had taken us to the address of our hostel. The building we were standing outside clearly wasn't a hostel so we pulled out a map to show the taxi driver where we thought we should be. He pointed out that our map showed a different town to the one we were in (Avenida Ecuador 355 also exists in Viña del Mar)! Fortunately the two towns are close together so the driver took us to the correct place for a small fee. In our defense the bus we were on had Viña del Mar displayed on a large sign in its windscreen making it look like that was the final destination (therefore making Valparaiso the penultimate stop).

We spent two days in Valparaiso, occupying ourselves by wandering around its centre, going to the beach in Viña del Mar (intentionally - we took the metro!) and drinking with some others at the hostel in the evenings. One night the hostel held a BBQ which inevitably involved eating steak and drinking lots of wine and beer.

From Valparaiso we got a bus the short distance to Santiago. It was our last bus trip in South America and, appropriately, there was skulduggery afoot. A local guy tried to pick pocket Mike's wallet as he was stepping onto the bus but fortunately Mike caught him in the act and knocked the deviant hand away from his pocket. The would be thief politely smiled and apologised before calmly walking away.

Once we had dropped off our bags at our hostel in Santiago we set off to explore the city. We went to a couple of parks, a few squares (including Plaza de Armas) and then negotiated our way back to the hostel through the busy streets. We then went for our last evening meal in South America. We chose to go to Bellavista, an area in the centre of the city that is brimming with restaurants, bars and clubs. We got a table on the street so we could soak up the Friday night atmosphere whilst we ate our meal. Needless to say we both had steak.

The next morning we went out for empanadas which have more or less been our staple diet throughout South America. They are one of the few types of food that we will genuinely miss when we are out of the continent. After this we went to a large park where we got a funicular (a series of small carriages that get pulled up a hill on train tracks) to the zoo. After looking at the various animals we got back on the funicular until it reached the top of the hill where there are spectacular views of the sprawling city. We then rode the teleférico (cable car) that soars high above the city and enjoyed more amazing views. When we returned to street level we had time for one more steak before getting our bags and heading to the airport to start the next leg of our trip.