Survived the 18-hour bus ride to Mendoza. Actually wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. Showed three movies (My Boss's Daughter, Catch Me if You Can, and some other one I can't recall) in English, offered bingo (in spanish) and a meal. The guy who was supposed to sit next to me moved elsewhere, so I had lots of legroom too.

Anyway, Mendoza was nice. Lots of pretty squares and a huge park and tasty restaurants and bars. An Aussie fellow on our tour, Stu, had previously contacted the owner of a winery (Familia Zuccardi) here and set us up with a nice tour and a really snazzy lunch. Fun day.

Also went paragliding while in Mendoza. Had previously done it years ago with Eric in Switzerland. Don't recall being scared back then, but I was a bit this time. All went fine other than the fact that I landed "arm first" rather than "feet first". Scraped myself up pretty good...but it just makes me look tougher.

From Mendoza we took an 8-hour bus (Lethal Weapon was the film of choice) across the Argentinean border and into Chile. Arrived in Santiago last night and just had a nice group dinner to say farewell to my roommate, Adrian, and one other woman, Jean. We add TEN new people tonight to bring the group up to like 17....which is ridiculous.