After another overnight bus we were in the land of the vineyards. Mendoza is the place to go for red wine and whilst we know many a statistic to say how much they produce we'll just say it's absolutely s*** loads to be scientifically correct. Having arrived ridiculously early we got to our hostel and had to have some nap time on the sofer. Not a problem and by mid afternoon we were refreshed, booked up for a wine tour and ready to hit the town and see how Mendoza would treat us. Mendoza seemed a really nice place from the off. It's a busy town with all the luxuries but it felt small and compact to be able to walk everywhere. Of course we did our usual shopping / coffee expedition just to get a handle on where everything is. After a good look around we headed back to the hostel to get a recommendation for where was good to get a bite to eat. Armed with a map we headed off. It was a nice little restaurant that was packed to the rafters. There Luke and Chris popped down two of the nicest meals they've had to date. Definitely a top 5. James on the other hand, had more than a ropey one and declared we would never going back to that place. Can't win them all. That evening we got chatting to an Argentinian family who were shocked to hear that we were travelling and loved all our Spanish pronunciations. It was a good job the sister good translate! After that we headed off for bed. Wine tasting starts early over here.

Pick up on Tuesday was at around 09:30. After a bit of breaky it was off to wine HQ. There we picked up our vehicles for the day. Now remembering that the last bike we placed our bottoms on cost well over a thousand pounds, it was somewhat of a shock to be back on under 100 pound numbers. To say they were uncomfortable is putting it politely. Their could be chafing. With another trusty map we rode off on our yellow bikes to pitstop number one. There we had a tour of a vineyard, a tour of a museum and more importantly a glass of wine for our troubles. Not a bad start to the day. Back to the bikes and we realised that today was going to be cold and that we were bloody underdressed. Not to worry. A few more wines would take care of that. We headed off to stop number two. We had to make a quick pitstop at wine HQ as Luke and picked up a flat tyre trying to show off! After that we pushed onto the liquor/chocolate tasting section of the tour. It certainly warmed the cockles. Nothing like a bit of port before miday. Having not really eaten until then we decided it was probably best to make our next stop lunch or we could all be in a bush somewhere sozzled. We stopped off at a recommended place for lunch, and with a set menu we popped down a cheeky little stew of some sort. It was very nice. After lunch we pushed onto a couple more vineyards. There we tasted a wine that came first in an international wine competition and beat off 6500 other bottles. We smelt bulls*** and it certainly tasted like it, however having google'd the nifty little bottle it is indeed a world beater. Our pallets have obviously not matured to adequate levels of sophistication to appreciate such delites! Having sampled the champion we again pushed on. Because the vineyards were more spread out than we thought the next one would be our final stop. There we had another tour and some tasting. All of the wine was pretty much red which none of the lads gag for, but all in all it was an experience. Chris probably had different words to describe such an experience to that of James or Luke's but it was a good day out. Back at 18:30 to the hostel we were all kind of peckish. A quick look in the Lonely P and we headed for a mexican. Not a bad little joint. After food we were all pretty spent. Hit the hostel and chilled!

On the Wednesday we had another overnight bus to wait for. Finally we were about to hit Buenos Aires. These sorts of days make it difficult to do a great deal apart from the norm. Eat, shop and catch up on the internet and that is exactly what we did until late afternoon. Once all chores had been done and the arches getting it's daily visit, we headed for the bus terminal. There we spotted a man riding a bike with a duck and a chicken on the handle bars. Different. We then hopped on the bus and drove off under a fiery red sky bound for the capital. We were all excited.