I thought it was about time i sent my first group email from south america as i have been here for 2 weeks already and have just arrived in my 3rd country ! So we left oz back at the end of feb and flew into Santiego (Chile) only had a couple of days there as so much to see and do, plus we had missed both tours by a day so couldnt go anywhere without it being too expensive. The City is ok but nothing to write home about, lovely old (grey) buildings and nice streets to walk around. We did have a wander up Santa Lucia to see the big Virgin Mary statue that over looks the city. Nice view but it was a bit cloudy. We took a 2 hour bus trip out onto the coast to a place called Valparasio which was nice then took a 20min train ride to "Bognor Regis" of Chile aka Vine de Mar which was actually a nice seaside town. We caught an elevator to the top of a hill to admide the views and also count the american tourist getting of the Saga Cruise ship that had docked for a couple of hours.

At the start of March crossed over into Argentina, Mendoza to be precise the drive up through the Andes was stunning, the windy roads, the mountain goats and the odd farmer, we even saw a bit of snow ! Mendoza is a lovely city and we did have a good chuckle or 2 there especially when a group of use hired bikes for the day and did our own tour of the vineyards ! The first place we went to we tried 6 varities of wine and the samples were huge so im sure you can imagin the state we were in when we left there ! Its was also bloody hot too! 3 vineyards in total and we even came away with a free bottle of wine each whis was a bonus. After Mendoza, Tom and i did our first big bus trip to Buenos Aires (18 hours) on Semi Cama coach which is basically where the seat lies right back so we can have a kip. We had good food and wine and even a couple of films it was great and a goodnights sleep was had.

Buenos Aires welcomed its city to us with RAIN ! its the horrid thin rain that gets you wet quickly. We roamed the streets and took in the sights such as Evita's grave (which is lovely), Casa Rosado (parliment house with the famous balcony where Evita did her speech), went and saw a TANGO show which was excellent and even treated ourselves to a few good steaks and bottles of wine as its cheaper to eat out then to cook ourselves (good excuse ah). I even survived a La Boca Football match and thats something to be proud of so im told ! Saturday night we went to BINGO and had such a laugh as we didnt have a clue with the numbers and there was no 2 fat ladies or sitting ducks ! We went with aother couple (Alan and Steph) who speak really good spanish and they struggled too which made us feel better !

Iguazu Falls have also been visited and that is magnificent ! Did you know that there are 275 individual waterfalls in total covering an area of 3kms ! We even saw a few Cappachino monkeys ! Didnt bother heading to the brazilian side as it was only for one picture.

So today we are heading into URUGUAY and thats where i shall leave it for today..... Hope to hear from you soon as its been a while (from some of you !) Lots of love Jo and Tom xxx