Update from Salta

After spending a few days in Mendoza (12 hours on bus) and Cordoba (8 hours on bus) to enjoy some civilised city life we are feeling back to normal. A comfortable bed, lots of great steak, wine and icecream goes a long way to restoring enery levels!

We visited a couple of beautiful wineries and did lots of tastings. :-))) We even tried the base wine for champagne which tastes horrible! Amazing what a difference the bubbles make.
It is harvesting season at the moment and it was amazing to watch truck after truck of grapes come in and a bunch of lads in wellies unload their goods with pitch forks into the press. The smells alone were intoxicating!

AND (!) we did some shopping!!! How very exciting after all those weeks of shopping starvation! We both bought wonderfully soft leather jackets in Mendoza. Mine had to be tailored especially as my arms are too long for any clothes off the rail! Must be all the heavy bags we carry?? But it is beautiful and flaming red and still cost only about 90 Euros. I now wish I had an outfit to wear it with.. and an occasion! Hopefully the Argentinian postal services will deliver it to my parents as promised!

After another 12 hours on the bus we now made it to Salta in the far North of Argentina and are enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and fantastic scenery. We have hired a little car today (wow!) and will explore the surrounding valleys and vineyards for a few days before heading off to Bolivia and bigger adventures next week. The bus arragements to cross the border sound very interesting.... we have to get off the bus before the border, walk across the bridge with all our bags and hope to find another Bolivian bus company who will then take us towards Uyuni and the great salt planes! I am expecting about 30 hours on various busses - what am I doing!?!?! Am far too tall for this! Also there seems to be no way to get any information on Bolivian bus connections from here so please keep your fingers crossed! :-)))

I am trying to persuade Craig to spend a night in a lovely spa hotel (www.micheltorino.com.ar)
before moving on to the rougher bit of our trip. Just the thought of lying in a hot tub... aaahhh.... and having a massage.... and a clean soft robe.... and crispy white sheets.... and Pete said you can have a soak in the local wine brew and admire the view of the mountains at the same time... very very nice thought!!! What u reckon??? He cannot possibly refuse one extravaganza???