Nigel: Our arrival into Mendoza was a disaster! We had happily been relaxing on the bus for 8 hours and it was only when we were almost there that we realised that neither of us had written down any details of the hostel we were staying at so we only had a vague idea where it was. I thought I knew the name and Alison knew roughly what direction it was in but that was a good as it got. Normally we probably wouldn't have been quite so worried but it was now pitch black and we had read that the area around the station was very dangerous and not to wander around it at night....our hostel was somewhere close to the bus station - oh ohhhhhh. When we got off the bus, we were instantly approached by a dodgy looking guy who had leaflets for a hostel in town. We had only booked into the hotel (which at that time we had no idea where it was) for one night so staying at his hostel was a possibility for the other nights. We kind of wished we hadn't already booked this other place so we could have just gone with him to safety.

He also asked whether we needed to change some money . As it happened we did despite how dodgy he looked. In Argentina the government has created a society of US dollar hunters through their economic procedures. Basically it is better to have USD than there own currency so everybody wants it. When the USD is changed at places other than the bank you get a better rate. These places are the money changing black market in Argentina and are called "cambios". Although it is illegal, it is widespread. The USD is known as the blue dollar and they even have an unofficial, official exchange rate which you can view online each day. Even some shops, restaurants, hotels accept USD using the blue dollar rate. Based on the rate in the bank you would get around 8.5 pesos to 1 USD but based on the blue dollar rate you could expect around 11 to 13 (even better in other parts of the country). You also got a better rate if you had 50 and 100 dollar notes. We had US$1000 in $20 bills which we had been gathering since Bolivia and carrying with us. Although we only had 20s, we still made huge savings by dabbling in the black market...blue, so it was much better than nothing.

Mendoza is most famous for the wine it produces and it goes without saying that a visit to the winery's in the local area was on the cards. Also very similar to Swan Valley in Perth in appearance (except Perth is safer). You can choose to either do an organised tour or hire bikes and cycle round the winerys. We chose to cycle...in the midday sun. We ended up only visiting a local micro brewery and a winery called Trapiche. The first place was only for a beer and an empananda whilst we waited for the the tour to start in the 2nd place. The tour lasted about 1 to 1.5hrs and we walked through sections of the winery and ended up with a wine tasting session. Although the wine was nice, it was all a bit civilised for us. We are used to the Aussie style wine tasting where you walk in and crawl out!

Argentina is also famous for the steak that they produce. Eager to try some for the first time, we headed for some food. With an offer which we couldn't refuse in one of the local restaurants we ordered what we thought would be a small bit of steak.........400g each of fat salty meat (or half a cow by the time our aching jaw finally got through it) and a bottle of wine later, we wish it was an offer we did refuse. To be fair in parts it was good but next time we would go for quality as opposed to quantity.