Mendoza - Buenos Aires

Arrived in Mendoza early in the morning. Absolutely freezing cold. Had to trapse the streets for quite some time looking for accommodation which wasn't much fun. This place was quite a bit more pricey thananywhere else we'd been. We asked in one really dodgy looking place with black lighting and luminous furniture, to be told that they only rented the room by the hour. Gave that one a wide berth. Eventually found a reasonable place with a gas heater which I thought was nice. Jenny thought we were oing to be gassed to death in our sleep as she was convinced she could smell gas from it even when it was off. To be fair had there been any sort of leak we may well not have woken up, as the room had no windows.

Didn't really do very much in Mendoza. It's a pretty place, with loads of plazas dotted about the place. Neither of us felt very well. Both choked with the cold, and the decongestants that we bought made us both feel unwell which helped enormously. We went to the zoo here. We got a lift off a guy who spotted us looking at the map like a couple of idiots. Drove us up there in his battered old car that felt like it was held together with elastic bands. He gave us a bit of a guided tour on the way up to the zoo which was nice of him. At the zoo I spent the entire time feeling like I was going to either collapse or throw up. Some of the cages that the animals were kept in kind of made me want to throw up anyway. Wasn't a very good zoo.

Huge enclosures for the llamas and other stupid farm animals, (in fact even had some monkeys and llamas wandering freely about the place) and tiny wee jail cells for the big cats which were all just pacing up and down the place. You could get right up to the cages though. Jenny was sticking here fingers throught the gaps at every opportunity, even touching the lion who wasn't well impressed. Spent the rest of our time here sampling the many different wines from the region and eating steaks. Can't emphasize enough how great the steaks are here. Got a 450gram one here for a couple of pounds. So so good. Building up for a big daddy one before we leave. Have seen 700grams on some of the menus but not quite ready for that yet. From Mendoza we headed for the capital, Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires is amazing. Really good looking city. Absolutely massive. Got the usual colonial stuff that every Argentinian town/city has - central plaza with standard issue statue of General San Martin who liberated Argentina - but it's all much grander and on a bigger scale. Really trendy, cosmopolitan place.

We've spent most of our time here just wandering about the place looking at stuff and shopping. Lots to see. Monuments all over the place. Also lots of evil pigeons.

I dragged Jenny to see La Bombonera, the football stadium of Boca Juniors.

It's in a pretty dodgy area of town, La Boca. Quite a few interesting characters lurking about here. Really wanted to see a game whilst we were here, but the season just finished. We did however watch Boca lift the Copa Libertadores, a South American wide club cup competition. We watched this in a pub/restaurant in Mendoza, full of Boca supporters. It is the 6th time they've won it, thrashing Gremio 5-0 on aggregate over the 2 leg final. Unfortunately the Cup hadn't made it back to the ground for us being there as the final was played only 2 days before we went there. The ground is amazing.

Gutted we couldn't see a game because the atmosphere would be immense. It's called the Bombonera because it looks like a chocolate box from above. It was built in 1940 and holds 60,000. The tour guide told us that when it's full the ground actually shakes, the top of the third tier moves back and forward between 4 and 5 centimetres. It's also built in such a way that the visiting team's dressing room is directly underneath the most mental part of the boca support. Got to go in the dressing room and see all the players lockers etc. Juan Roman Riquelme's was about the most exciting name there, he scored 2 in the recent final and is a local hero.

Diego Maradona played for Boca and is the real hero here. Was a bit disappointed that he wasn't there, even more disappointed that they didn't have a bit more stuff in the museum celerating him, given that he's only the best footballer ever. What they do have for him is a his very own box, right on the halfway line in the posh stand with his own big yellow bench/throne.

We went out for a few drinks the other nigh, and saw a bit of traditional dancing and tango, which was quite impressive. I'm not really fussed by dancing. I hate strictly come dancing, although that's maybe as much to do with Bruce Forsythe stupid face than anything else. But this was very impressive. The tango was especially so.

The other stuff involved a lot of stamping and jumping by the guy, landing on the outsides of his feet which was pretty amazing as well given if I tried that I'd end up in a cast. Was good to see. Drank quite lot of wine that night and saw some live music in another place. Got chatting to the first Scottish people that we've encountered so far here, which was a good laugh.

Heading for Iguazu falls today. It's an 18 hour bus journey which I'm not looking forward to at all. The falls are supposed to be well worth it though. Hope so.