LAN

Buenos Aires to Mendoza takes 10 hours on a bus or 1hr 40 by LAN (a plane), the cost difference is about 10 quid. Ten minutes by taxi to the local airport, check-in took about 30 seconds,the flight left on time and arrived 10 minutes early. The only comical moment being the food served - a free drink and a box of grub. Opening the box was a classic Argentinian moment. One alfajor - a cookie type thing with dulce de leche (spreadable caramel) in it, a lemon cream biscuit and 3 crackers. They just don't do balanced diets here.

As an aside by far the biggest sections in a supermarket are meat and biscuits. The full array of cracker choices has to be seen to be believed.

Moving on, Mendoza's airport is tiny, my bag was second off, the taxi to the hostel was 2 quid and a free beer was imbibed whilst signing in. A charming little hostel, but small dorms but then seeing as i'm the only one in it and it's about 4.50 a night i'm not complaining. A "cultural" event was due to start at 10pm which left me enough time for a quick stroll and another beer.

The show finally started at 11pm, none of the hostel guests were there so it was me and 20 locals. First off was a Middle Eastern cooking demonstration, blending 2 baked bananas with mayonnaise, cayene pepper, salt, sugar and half a lime - an arabic guacomole. This turned out to be gorgeous - spicy; zesty with a subtle banana undercurrent. Poems were recited - didn't understand them, but were enjoyed by everyone else, later i was told they were all a bit perverted which would explain the nervous laughter from some areas.

Some short films followed. My favourite was produced in Gateshead of all places and was entitled "economic development". A beautiful country scene was depicted and then using time lapse and photoshop it showed the growth of a city over this area, very funny if somewhat depressing. The over quality one was an american piece on materialism, it had one great line: " the will to consume terrorises you". After the films more food all arabic and all very good, a load of truly cheap plonk and abit more unintelligible poetry. I collapsed at about 3am.

Woke up with a serious hangover, have since investigated the wine and discovered that even though it came from a bottle it cost 1 peso 90 - 30p. This must be about the cost of the bottle, label, shipping and shop costs. Christ alone knows whats in it - the label definitely wasn't giving anything away. Today i plan to go upmarket winewise.