Its around 8:00pm and I am having a beer with Francisco and Abeah. My bus is at 10:30 and Francisco casually says ‘See you in a couple of hours back in BA cos you aren’t going to make your bus’. As much as I love you BA, Iv gotta get the hell out of here and move on!

I gather my belongings, jump into a cab and in no time I started talking to him in my Spanish which is almost non existent. He spoke really good English! (Iv been fortunate enough at all my cab drivers tell me a little about the city and their country, their economy – Its interesting!).

As late as I was, I rush out of my cab and I had to find out where to buy my ticket. My cab driver advised me not to go upstairs, but to go straight ahead and purchase my ticket from Cata International. I am tight on time and I cant find this damn place. I end up going up the stairs and walking for a good 15 minutes before I find Cata and behind me I can hear someone running. Its my cab driver ´Ahh, I am sorry I told you the wrong way and you were getting late´. He helped me with my backpack and we ran to my terminal and I just made my bus!

Before getting onto my bus I see a young guy (Tim) wearing sandals and has a backpack. I know he is a gringo, besides he is holding a UK passport. We start talking and he was my company for the next 14 hours.

As I reach the lovely city of Mendoza, I get to my hostel and the first thing I do is Laundry!! I am desperate and the only clean clothes I have is Cheetah printed harem pants with a non matching top. I looked like a clown but I didn’t care. I needed clean clothes!!

That night at  the hostel I was welcomed by my German roommate from Buenos Aires and she introduced me to her friends. One in particular was a gap yaar student from the States who was learning Spanish in Cordoba but spent the weekend in Mendoza. It was so easy to toy around with him because he was so innocent.

We were talking over a glass of wine when we got into the discussion of travelling and the luxuries we have at home that we miss over here… hot water, hot food, comfy beds.. This naive young young was quick to say in a shadow of a tone ‘You also realise how fine you are without those things’. That I promise you – will stick with me forever. I have been away from comfort for so long and I am so happy. I am doing ok and so are all the other travellers. I was grateful that he had mentioned it to me.

That evening I signed up for a pizza party that the hostel was hosting. There was pizza and it was no party!! The pizza took forever to come (I should have expected this because it is the continent of late and laid back) . The food wasn’t that great and because I was so hungry it was more like a funeral than a party. BUT something good always comes out of a crap situation. I bonded over CRAP pizza with 3 awesome Swedish people who I then spent the rest of my trip in Mendoza with.

I woke up early the next morning to find Simon and Barry in Mendoza. I was glad to see familiar faces. We went to the park with the Swedish guys and had vino and snacks. I needed that day to relax and do nothing – This happened to be my perfect day.

That evening we planned out the next day and decided that we would go to the vineyards and set off at 9am. That didn’t happen. We took the bus at 10pm 40 minutes to Mr Hugo´s bike rental, rented our bikes for 35 pesos, got the map and went to 3 vineyards.

On our way, we noticed how narrow the roads were and how close the trucks would come to us. I had to keep a conscious effort to remind myself not to drink too much wine otherwise I am in trouble (this didn’t work).

We got a tour on how the wines are kept and what the process was, we tasted a few vinos and went to the next stop. A little drunk, I saw a man in gumboots stepping on some grapes. I HAVE to try this. I asked jana to ask the man in Spanish if he had a spare pair of boots so I could stomp on some grapes and he did and I stommmmppeededdd. This was so much fun! one by one we took goes and started doing their work. They were happy they also said we were the first to ask if we could stomp. As Pete puts it, you don’t ask, you don’t get.

By the third vineyard, I could feel the wine getting to me.

Question: What happens when you burn the end of a cork with a lighter? It turns into ash that you can draw with.

Question: What happens when you are drunk with 3 Swedish guys, 3 Irish guys a Kenyan and a French and you know about the cork? You draw on your faces at a posh vineyard. I haven’t laughed that hard in ages!!

By the time we were done. We had a police escort to take us back to Mr.hugo´s to return the bike.

2 reasons: 1. no one steals our stuff whilst cycling 2. We were so off our faces that there was a chance one of us was going to get knocked.

It was super cool having police escort you back. Mendoza, it was a pleasure. Its time for me to go to Chile Santiago.