[A bit of] Chile and Mendoza, Argentina!

... catch-up blog #2 ...

San Pedro was effectively for us a cafe called El Adobe where we chilled out for a couple of days with a succesion of back packers who came through our hostel. Down time was certainly needed. Great cafe too!! Chile is positively western and first world compared with Peru. It is considerably more expensive - we managed to blow as much dosh in 2 days at Adobe as a week in Peru!!

With a few spare days now that Bolivia is off the menu we slingshot through Santiago and take a bus through the Andes to Mendoza in Argentina. These mountains dwarf anything we have seen before and the different shapes and layers and colour of the rocks and earth are incredible. The road also traverses a 3 1/2 killometre tunnel through the rock. Pretty impressive!! It does not matter what you have heard before, or how conservative you might be. The people in Argentina are far and away the most physically beautiful people that we have ever seen in our lives by a long long way. Sorry everyone :- You hear about it but are still taken aback. I think the biggest part of it that about one out of 20 isn't absolutely gorgeous. ........and they are not bad!! Apart from checking out chicas, we also had an incredible day mountain biking in the foothills of the Andes and also visited a few wineries (unfortunately the wine wasn't the best...)

Bring on Rio!

J & J

PS The Chile / Argentina border crossing formalities are the biggest debacle we have ever seen - it took 3hrs to process 40 people on a bus. Loco.

PPS Click here for photos from around Santiago and Iquique, and click here for photos from Mendoza