Rosario & Mendoza

The birthplace of Che Guevara is a lovely city a swift four hours from Buenos Aires. We went to see Casa de Che Guevara where they really isn’t much to see but we took lots of pics all the same! We took a trip to Plaza Che Guevara where there is a monument to honour the local hero. More pictures and more walking around we found ourselves an Irish pub in the hope of finding tickets for the match –O’ Connells was packed of locals and not one Paddy to be seen! We asked around a few people but noone seemed to know that the U20 World Cup Games were actually taken place in their home town! We landed down at the stadium early the next day and got our tickets to see the clash between France and Ireland which cost the equivalent of e9! We were on the lookout for some green jerseys but they were few and far between but half way through the match a rugby tour from a Limerick school landed in beside us so between us all our voices were heard!! France were throwing out some enormorous fellas (we were afraid for our boys) and unfortunately it wasn’t to be for Irlande. A good day was had in the sun and we topped off the day with a paddle in the city’s artificial lake....aww how romantic .

Overnight 10 hours to Mendoza, we landed and felt the cold from the minute we got off the bus at 7am. Destination was Avenue San Martin, so we decided to be thrifty and take the local bus. After checking with the bus driver, we hopped on the bus to ‘San Martin’ – seemed like a no brainer that we were heading teh right direction until we found ourselves five miles outside mendoza the bus driver called me up when he realised we were wrong, heading for a town called San Martin 20 miles away. DAMN. He let us off at the side of a country road and we had to wait until the next bus was on the way back in. We were getting a few odd looks from the locals and were delighted to see the bus and we were inward bound to Mendoza.......again. Our hostel was something resembling a 1980s student flat but was nice, if we ignored the group of 17 year old rude english girls who had decided to take over the place.

Mendoza is a massive wine making region and we just had to do a cycling tour of the wineries as well as the olive oil and chocolate making factories. From strong recommendations, we rented one of ‘Mr Hugo’s’ bikes and off we went cycling around to the local wineries and vineyards. We swirled, sniffed, drank, swirled, sniffed, drank some more and of course the cycling gets a bit tougher as you go on.

The next day we thought we´d take in some western style horse riding at the bottom of the Andes, sure why not. It was brilliant - freezing but well worth it for the views. Claires horse had a mind of its own though which was funny to watch as the horse decided to go his own way a few times instead of following the pack

So we´re now moving north en route to Bolivia and staying in Salta for a few days, we´re going to watch the first Argentinian World Cup match here and no doubt hit the town tonight for the celebrations.