Landing in Latin America (From Santiago/Chile to Cordoba/Argentina)

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After traveling for 3 months in Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand we finally landed in Latin American soils, in Santiago Chile. In Latin America the plan was to spend the next 3 months in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru and so we did.
In Santiago we stayed a 3-4 days around Plaza de Armas. Santiago is a nice city surrounded by the mountains (this does not help much as from San Cristobal Cerro we could see all the photochemical smog covering all the city - nice!). We visited a few places e.g. Pablo Neruda's house, Cerro Santa Lucia and local markets - lots of fish by the way.
From Santiago (Chile) we took a bus to cross into Argentina via the Andes mountain range. In September this is an impressive crossing as all the mountains are full of snow and you pass the Aconcagua volcano, the highest peak in the Andes - more than 6,000 metres high. The first stop in Argentina was Uspallata, a small town at the back of the Andes region. Here is where the film "Seven years in Tibet" with Brad Pit was done - in fact the other day I watched the film for the first time and I remembered when me and Sara were wondering about the place. The surrounding mountains are just beautiful, with crazy looking reddish and brown colours. Here we had our initiation into "parrilla", barbecued meat. After spending almost 2 months in Argentina can now honestly say that Argentinians are the masters of barbecue - thank God I love meat because we were having it almost every day. A vegetarian can turn "carnivorous" I tell you in this country.
From here we visited a few more villages/towns in rural Argentina before we hit Mendoza such as: Carolina, San Luis and Mina Clavero. They are nice looking places - particularly Carolina it is this stone built and paved village (maybe 100 people) and gives you this feeling that the place has not really changed for the last 50 years. As for accomodation the local supermarket offers everything: food, restaurant and rooms, 3 in 1, that's a good deal no?
Mendoza, the wine making capital of Argentina. I really liked Mendoza with its nice green plazas (they even have one called Italia - that kept Sara happy - since half the Argentinians are of Italian origin!) and water trenches all around the city. Mendoza is situated pretty much in a desert but the water from the Andes range has turned this place into the capital of wine making of Argentina. I am not sure for how long though with climate change dooming the whole planet...
After Mendoza it was Cordoba. One of the largest cities of Argentina, it is full with Spanish colonial and Jesuit buildings and it is full with university students. We stayed in this hostal in Nueva Cordoba (Tango Inn or something) - here we were initiated in the crazy party culture of Argentina. Food (always pretty much barbecued meat - I love this country, did I say that!) was ready around 10ish in the evening, followed by a party in the hostal followed by a night out until probably 4 -5 in the morning. If you are after partying this is your place.

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