Experiencing going from Buenos Aires to Mendoza is a little like going from London to Hereford. If that were your only experience of The UK then you might be forgiven for not really getting the gist of The UK, but in their contrasting hues you might well be able to fill in the gaps you missed in between. With a lot of poetic license. Well OK you wouldn’t. And so we haven’t.

So, the high points for us in Mendoza – we only stayed a few short nights and missed out on the wine growing thing due to feeling a bit crook – was a trip around the wonderful parks on the Andean side of the city, plus Carina.

Carina isn’t a suburb of Mendoza, neither is Carina an Argentinian wine, in fact Carina is an Estonian girl of medium height but of maximum heart.

Carina decided at a very young age that travel was something to be done, not chit chatted about. Therefore, Carina is in the midst of doing it. Not only did she head off across asia to Japan from Estonia, then back again, then back to Japan, then around the world, she has also recently taken the step of doing it soley off of the kindness of those she meets along the way. The reason Carina is in Mendoza is that she took a fancy to some pottery she saw at some point in her travels, so she decided to pop in and say hello to the author of the said pottery. It’s a but like knocking on the door of Eric Clapton if you happen to like the silken strings and saying ‘hi, like what you do, can you please show me how to do it’. Who would refuse? The potter didn’t so Carina is now pottering about in Mendoza.

And what did we pop into Carinas pot? Well this is it I guess, I’m peddling Carina here.

You see Carina and I are a little alike, but I’m doing what I believe to be a male version of what Carina is doing. Carina is cute, blushing and brimming with sincerity, the only attribute I can compete with is the Irish ability to redden. Plus, as male the only way you are going to get the kind of assistance that Carina does on a regular basis is to look a little like Jesus Christ – In fact without offending anyone out there in websville, perhaps he was an early adopter of the idea that a little kindness can take you a long way. Not looking or acting anything like Jesus Christ I therefore have wonderful people fund my travels by my working for them. We’re in the same kind of work Carina and I, I can recognise a fellow gypsy when I see one.

So here is Carina’s website address followcarina@blogspot.com, if you’re feeling a little flush she needs a ticket to Antartica, which is where she’s heading next.