Fine Wine & Fabulous Food In Mendoza

We headed to Mendoza full of excitement as its Argentina’s wine capital producing 80% of the countries wine every year. We’d already enjoyed some fantastic Argentinian wines over the past ten days and were eager to learn more about them plus, of course taste them. Steve had organised a very special date with a premium bodega through his previous employer too! Good times guaranteed. Unfortunately our 24 hour bus ride from Puerto Madryn was not a great one due to only Spanish films and no wine but, we did play bingo in Spanish! We didn’t win though and were full of envy when the bingo champ collected his bottle of wine!

The Penguins Of Punto Tombo

We’d read about and heard a rumour that there was a one million strong penguin colony on the central Patagonian coast, and our research showed that they were in town (shore) until the end of March - just like us! We were feeling lucky so caught another long distance night bus to the colder climes of Southern Argentina and the seaside town of Puerto Madryn. For this journey we traveled with Andesmar in the same class as before and though it was alright we’d definitely been spoiled by Rio Uruguay. It was raining very heavily in Buenos Aires so our bus was delayed by a few hours which meant our dinner was served at 1.30am, by this point we thought we weren’t getting anyway so were just glad to get fed.

Big Eats And Cultural Delights In Buenos Aires

Our journey to Buenos Aires involved our first overnight bus journey and although we’d heard that the buses in Argentina were great we were a still a little apprehensive. There was only one bus company for our route but we opted to travel Cama class which meant an almost flat bed and all meals included, we paid 800 ARS (£62)each. Bus travel in Argentina is expensive but to be fair though we were travelling 1,350 kilometres! Once onboard our minds were put at ease, we had huge comfortable seats and within ten minutes we were eating cake and dulce de leche toffees. They even had a couple of films to entertain us so it was just like being on a long haul flight, we slept well and awoke at the massive three storey bus station in Buenos Aires.

Day Tripping At Iguazu Falls

Situated right on the border between Argentina and Brazil Iguazu Falls are a popular stop on the traveller trail in South America. After our crazy week of late nights in Rio De Janeiro for carnival we were definitely in need of a couple of relaxed days in the countryside. We landed in Foz De Iguazu fresh from two short and very comfortable flights on Brazil’s budget airline Azul complete with free snacks and soft drinks - easyjet take note! Our next mission was to cross the border into Argentina and get to the town of Puerto Iguazu where our hostel Residencia Noelia awaited us.

Rio Fabulous Carnival

As luck would have it our arrival in South America was also when carnival explodes nationwide across Brazil so it was a no-brainer for us to make Rio De Janeiro our first stop. We had seven crazy days in one of the most famous party cities in the world. Cariocas (Rio locals) love to party and during carnival the entire city comes alive to host the world biggest street party. Rio Carneval is not just about the Sambodrome where the cities best samba schools parade, every Rio neighbourhood hosts a bloco (or five) over the four day carnival weekend too.

Sunrise Over Angkor Wat

We left our yoga retreat feeling rejuvenated and with just two days left in Cambodia it was time for us to visit the star attraction, the temples of Angkor Wat. To save time and hassle we organised a half day tuk tuk tour through our hostel. We really wanted to watch sunrise over the Angkor Wat temple so we set off bleary eyed at 5am but the chilly 30 minute drive soon woke us up and we were ready for action.