Salta

Turned up in a pretty Western looking city. Argentina is so different to Peru and Bolivia - the first thing we noticed is that they actually finish building their houses and put plaster on the walls! There were also modern cars on the road!

Nothing much out of the ordinary here. As in San Pedro all the things to do are much of a muchness of what we did in Bolivia though not as impressive or adventurous and much more expensive. So all we did was go and have our first Argentinian Steak - wow wow wow. Easily the best bit of meat I have had. The restaurant greeted us with a complimentary glass of champagne (I was wearing a vest so felt well out of place) and we had an Argie bottle of wine (Deago Maradona has his own wine here in Argentina!)

Just before buying our tickets to Buenos Aires, we clocked a newspaper headline accompanied by pictures of rioting and decided to check it out. It was happening in Buenos Aires because Bush is in town for the Free Trade Americas meeting. To make things worse, we discovered that they`d petrol bombed what seems to be the only McDonalds in South America. We were so close to ending our 8 week Mc`Donals famine that we could almost taste it! God damn it. So we made a late change to our plans and opted to head for Mendoza(Argentina´s wine capital) instead. Easily the best bus we have been on, much better than the UK, the seats are massive and recline all the way - even at the back where we were since booking our tickets late.