Crossing the Andes

The bus ride from Mendoza to Santiago goes right through the Andes so cue lots of spectacular mountain shots. When the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road half hour into the trip, I thought he was stopping so we could take pictures.  Turns out the bus had broken down and we sat there for an hour, waiting for a 'replacement bus service'. Had London Underground been giving them lessons on how to run a transport system? 

Anyway, we got going eventually and I took far too many pictures of mountains, the only good shot being this one of the highest peak in the Americas, Aconcagua, which apparently people climb when they're not wearing hairshirts.

And I saw a flying saucer.

We finally arrived in Santiago, and took a cab which got extremely lost and at one point, took us down a one-way street the wrong way. Our lovely, if difficult to find, guesthouse was in the posh neighbourhood of Providencia - it is one of the hotels I was reviewing for i-escape, you can read my review here.

Our hosts had a bottle of Chilean Carmenere waiting in our room – our days of Argentinian Malbec were over. Oh well, pass the corkscrew.