Day 181 – Sunday 19th March 2006

Having decided not to go out drinking I woke up full of beans at a relatively decent hour and made my way to the bus station in order to take a bus 6 hours north to Salta.

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Days 179 & 180 – Friday 17th & Saturday 18th March 2006

The overnight bus was an absolute pleasure, I arrived feeling pretty good and checked into a decent hostel with a dorm to myself. The town beckoned and I headed pretty much straight out to see it. As I reached the plaza the old men of the town seemed to be putting on some kind of demonstration and the police were out in force, kitted out in riot gear in case the old boys became violent.

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Day 178 – Thursday 16th March 2006

After having a poor night out drinking in Mendoza, and then a bad mornings sleep I decided to leave the town, so bought a ticket for another overnight bus. This one would take me north to the town of Tucuman.

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Day 177 – Wednesday 15th March 2006

Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina and the 8th largest wine producing region in the world. Therefore a big activity for tourists in the area is to visit a vineyard, take a tour to see how it is made and of course to sample some of the local produce.

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Day 176 – Tuesday 14th March 2006

After being rudely awoken by some nasty little insects crawling over me while I was in my bed it was certain that I wasn’t going to oversleep and miss my bus whcih would be taking me to the day’s activities – white water rafting & mountain biking (not at the same time).

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Day 175 – Monday 13th March 2006

Wanting to get back to Argentina I needed to take a 7 hour bus trip to Mendoza. This journey involved crossing the Andes mountain range. I had heard this was a spectacular road and therefore I decided to make the trip during the day so I could appreciate the famous mountain range.

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Day 174 – Sunday 12th March 2006

I wanted to return to Argentina on the following day, which left me about 8 hours to see Santiago before the Oasis concert began in the evening. Whistlestop tour it would have to be, but that is better than nothing. As I walked along a street leading to the city centre I came to a blocked off area and saw a lot of police milling around. I asked someone what was going on and was informed that there would be a parade in honour of the new President, and it would be taking place in a few hours.

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Day 173 – Saturday 11th March 2006

After travelling for 24 hours mas o menos the only thing I wanted was a bed. As I arrived in Santiago at 7am I wasn’t able to properly check-in to a hostel until a bit later, so I settled down in the TV room and used their couch as a bed in the interim. I managed to keep my eyes open to see Spurs lose to Chelsea, but I wish I hadn’t bothered.

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Day 172 – Friday 10th March 2006

The huge distances between points of interest in Argentina means a lot of time is spent on buses going from town to town. That is unless you want to fly, which works out a tad too expensive. So with the Oasis concert in mind I set out from Bariloche at half five in the morning to make the 1300km trip to Santiago.

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Days 169, 170 & 171 – Tuesday 7th, Wednesday 8th & Thursday 9th March 2006

I wanted to do some hiking in the area but the weather took a turn for the worse. Not having a lot of waterproof gear I decided to put back the day I started from Tuesday to Wednesday. That left me with little to do but enjoy the warmth inside and not really venture out until after I had watched Chelsea go out to Barcelona in the Champions League.

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