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Published: January 18th 2009
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Bussing it in South America
and learning some basic spanish! Arrived in chile feeling very shattered! the last night in New Zealand was a rubbish sleep due to stupid girl beneath me on the phone at 4am and the other girl snoring! Caught a flight to Aukland (after napping in waiting lounge and again on plane!) and then hung around at airport, bought a spanish phrasebook, before catching flight to Santiago, where it was 11 hours and i couldnt sleep a wink! Poo!
got to Santiago, cheated and got a taxi minibus to hostel rather than local bus, managed to pull some basic spanish together (mainly laura did!) so we could book a bus ticket to Argentina the next day, find an Atm and some fod at a glorified McDonalds!) and then crashed to sleep at 6pm!
So then we got the bus over the Andes to Mendoza in Argentina! The scenery was wonderful, one minute cactus the next a snow capped mountain! The bus journey was great, had a bus attendent who looked after us all with blankets and snack bags! The border crossing was a nice easy one, and again nice not to have to pay for Visa´s like most of S.E Asia.
Arrived in mendoza and thats where the fun begain. managed to find a map from tourist information, then tried to work out on which intersection we´d come out of the bus station. must have looked lost/bewildered becasue some guy at a kiosk near a bus stop called us over and managed to work out where we were trying to go, so told us which bus we needed to get, and laura tried to understand the directions he gave us to the bus stand. Next we realised we didnt have the coins needed for the bus, so we bought some water and he sorted us out the right change and then off we trotted (well probably more like a waddle with the bags) to find the bus stand. Hmmm no luck. so back inside the bus station where we asked tourist information (in broken spanish) how to get to where we were going, they gave us similar directions to the bus stand but a different bus number! Ok, so we found the bus stand, and then tried to figure out which number we´d tyr to get...anyhow, long and short of it is that we kept asking the bus drivers for various numbers and they told us to wait for the 171, but then we missed the 171 becasue it came up wbehind another bus and we couldnt get our bags on quick enough, so it took nearly 2 hours from getting off in mendoza to finding our hostel! What fun, but least we met some friednly locals already so wasnt too bad!
In mendoza we tooka local bus (oh yes we like our cheap and cheerful travel with the locals!) to a little town outside called Maipu, where all the vineyards are situated. We werent sure where to get off so followed some other tourists and hired bikes from Mr Hugo´s shop, and set off cycling along to the vineyards! Visited one with a museum and english tour, which was really intresting seeing the vineyards, and the winemaking skills/tools trhough the ages..and of course having a glass of Malbec at the end. Malbec is actually a grape from france, but is only grown in South America, mainly in Argentina, due to the weather conditions it needs. Anyhow, very nice plonk! We cycled around a bit more then went for lunch in this little restaurant called Casa campo which was lovely. A proper family run business, just the man and wife team, small menu but lovely lovely food, was one of my favoutrite meal of the whole trip so far! And the wine of course was lovely and served in huge wine glasses! He was extremally cheery and friendly and helped us practice our ordering in spanish before speaking in some english! It was the kind of traditional spanish taverna you hope to see when you go on holiday but never manage to find!
That night we caught the bus to Buenos Aires, a really good journey and the best overnight sleep i´ve had all trip. It was like being on a flight, there was a safety video, then they came round with wine or soft drinks. Then you got a full on meal, but better than plane food, cheese and hams, a roll, a tortilla/omelette, breadsticks, then chicken and roast veggies! best of all, they always give you mayonaise sachets with everything! After going without for 3 months, i´m in heaven! Showed 2 films and then lights out for bed, before waking up to coffee and their favourite breakfast snacks of Alfajores (a very sweet biscuit/cake). Arrived in Buenos Aires to discover we´d been through a time zone...and ready for another bus station negotiation!
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