Much madness in Mendoza

hola chicos + chicas

After much fun and games involving two buses, 5 hours waiting in snow and a 20 something hour bus ride I made it to Mendoza, this is solely because of a very nice Mexican that translated all that was going on got me on the right bus, we love him very much... even though we do not know his name.
You may wonder why I am here, well because I need to get across the boarder to Chile, problem with land boarders around these parts is they can close when it snows lots.... it snowed lots!
Mendoza, its another Ski town and also produces 70% of Argentinean wine so what fun things to do when stuck in this town? Skiing, wine tasting, yes you can, there are also many adventure type tours involving trekking, bike riding and the like.
But that would be a sensible thing to do, I ended up white water rafting in sub zero temperatures amongst the snowy mountains, it was soo cold that when the water hit my face it turned to ice on my eye lashes and yet it was such a giggle, our group was the only lot doing it and I`m not in the least bit surprised, if any of us would have ended up in the drink we wouldn't have lasted long ( see and you all were all worried that I`d get killed by street crime).
After messing about in the river and once feeling had returned to my hands and feet I then went over it.
Canopying for those like myself that didn't know is a wire rope suspended between two points (one being higher than the other) and someone hooking themselves to it by a waist harness and shooting across.
So I spent the afternoon climbing up the mountains, having snowball fights then canopying across valleys and rivers sometimes upside down, even having to be rescued by one of the guys after getting stuck on one of the slower runs, much fun was had.
After all the fun I then spent the next two days tyring to arrange any means possible of getting myself over to Chile, much thanks to Natasha who from the UK was able to do what I was not, pay for a flight to Santiago, after my flight being very delayed and my connection taking off before I had left the 1st airport, I was put on standby with another airline and thankfully after 12 hours at the airport I was on my way.... my backpack however ended up on my original flight and in BA and as I post this still has not been delivered :(
Importain lessons have been learnt, never leave photo disks in your backpack, when your flight is changed after you check in always make sure they hand you back your stuff (I did actually ask and believed them when they said they would arrange for the transfer - they were called many bad names after this) and nothing in South America goes to plan, the only people going ape sh*t about this kind of thing were the gringos, as one guy said when I had my 1st frustrating experience with no information on a delayed flight in Rio `Welcome to South America!`

You guys take care of yourselves especially considering all the trouble with terrorists.
Love to you all