Two and a half hours of travel on a virtually empty bus got me to San Juan, a sunny city of broad streets and (finally) shops with flip-flops. Though this was really only a waypoint on the route to the national parks further north-east, I figured I'd stay a night in the hope of catching up on some sleep. The area is supposedly on a fault-line with as much potential for a Big One as California but the ground showed commendable firmness for the 20 hours that I was in town. After my visit to San Agustin (blogged separately), I had [View Full Entry]

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After dozing for three quarters of the journey to San Agustin, I woke up to find a landscape of rocky hills with a light covering of trees, and a welcome appearance of cacti. There was an unexpected selection of accommodation touts at the bus station in San Agustin, but I was soon in a pleasant pension that was half the price of anywhere else I've stayed in the country. San Agustin definitely warrants the use of the adjective "sleepy", its spacious main square tranquil and dotted with bird crap-peppered benches. The squawking of bright green parrots filled the quiet in between [View Full Entry]

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Next stop after San Juan was a night in a tiny town called San Agustin de la Valle Fertil where we headed to access the Parque Provincial Ischigualasto (also known as the Valley of the Moon). The Park is known for its weird and wonderful (moonlike) rock formations, bleak (moonlike) appearance, (moonlike) lack of vegetation - not much except for a few crazy prickly desert plants, and especially the profusion of Triassic era fossils... from ferns to the two oldest dinosaur bones ever found. It´s noticable that rocks in Latin America can never look just like rocks. From caves to lunar [View Full Entry]

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Jen - Hi guys. At the last update we were in Mendoza. Mendoza is a really cool city. I liked it much better than buenos aries, maybe because its smaller and more relaxed, maybe because its built with large squares to be earthquake proof, or maybe its just the wine!! On the first day there we just had abit of a chill out session, wandering around the city we checked out some art galleries and the 5 main squares all with a different theme. Plaza espana is the best with lots of spanish style tiled fountains and murals and walkways. The [View Full Entry]

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Mendoza, Argentina Mendoza contains many famous internationally recognised vineyards and wine producers. So what do you do in wine country? You take a wine tour. We took an afternoon wine tour to 2 bodegas (wineries) including the Bodega La Rural Winery and Don Arturo winery, and an olive oil facility called Pasrai. The La Rural Winery has a museum which displays machinery, carriages, presses, antique crushers (made from cow hide) and other elements from colonial times that contributed to the Mendoza wine industry. We had a tour of the museum and facilities and then had a taste test. Don Arturo is [View Full Entry]

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From Malargue we headed back to San Rafael, spotting the cosmic ray detector tanks along the way and detouring by the very scenic Cañon Atuel. Tthen, after a quick lunch, hit the road to get to Tupungato for the night. This is about 60km south of Mendoza, where we actually wanted to go but, as it was the big harvest festival/vendimia weekend there was nowhere to stay.. Anyway we were happily bowling along in the afternoon sunshine noticing the occasional hailstorm protection shelter when the skies darkened and we ran into first a rainstorm then running water across the road and [View Full Entry]

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After our stay in Santiago we caught a night bus to Mendoza, ARG. Big mistake. At 3 in the morning we had to cross the boarder, which ment waking up and having our passports stamped and our bags checked. This took quite awhile. We arrived in Mendoza around 8am, caught another bus San Juan. Got there in the afternoon, grabbed another bus to San Agustin. This is a very small town with nothing going on. However, our intent was to book a tour to a park with Dino artifacts, very similar to our plan way back in San Luise. We booked [View Full Entry]

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Fully laden with food, snacks, fuel and water, we set off early from Mendoza bound once again for Uspallata. No, we haven´t gone mad; Uspallata forms a natural crossroads where the road from Chile meets the two routes to Mendoza and the road northwards towards San Juan and beyond. Previously we had taken the fastest route to Mendoza, and now we were returning to Uspallata along the isolated and unmade road through the Villavicencio Natural Park. As we rode out of the city, the snow-capped Andes stood at our left shoulders, but soon mountains closed in all around us. Eagles circled [View Full Entry]

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What I first took for broken glass buried in the dusty road, turned out to be mica, loads of it. In the unrelenting midday sun, in this small, town, the dirt streets sparkle as though littered with jem stones. Its sunday, and many kids are outside. I can hear them now while sitting in this room, which lets out into the street, typing at the computer. When I went for a walk earliers, I saw girls playing field hockey next to the church, boys playing soccer in the street, and teenagers playing pool in the only place open at this time [View Full Entry]

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One large awakening of the imagination for womankind. Valle de la Luna, or the valley of the Moon, is a desert. I have never seen a place like this up until now. [View Full Entry]

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