A long and winding road

Taking the bus from Santiago through the Andes isn't the quickest way to reach Mendoza in Argentina, but it definitely makes for some jaw-dropping scenery.

The journey takes six-to-seven hours - depending on the weather and the traffic at the border - and once you head out of the smog and chaos of Santiago and into the mountains, it's like entering another world.

Enormous, mind-boggling peaks rise and fall all around you and fade into the distance like sepia backdrops in an off-the-scale film set. Patches of ice and snow cling to their sides in the sun and the clearest trickles of water flow into the river that runs alongside the road.

After a couple of hours, a series of hair-pin bends leads us up the steep climb to border. We queue behind three other buses for what seems like ages, then we're told to get off and line up. Customs are strict: all hand-luggage is x-rayed - some are searched - and three bags from the hold are selected at random. One of them is mine and I have to open it for the officials. They don't dig deep though and everything is fine. Which is a relief as I wouldn't want to be stuck at the border for longer than necessary - it's chilly to say the least and the air's a bit thin. That's probably because we're 3,500 metres above sea-level.

This is Kathy and Jacqueline - they work at the border questioning the hundreds of tourists who cross it every day. They approach me while I'm queuing to have my passport stamped at the immigration window and ask me various questions about my travels: how much money have I spent in Chile, have I been to any tourist attractions, where am I going after Argentina. They take down my responses on a handheld palm-pilot. It's all very high-tech up in the Andes.

An hour through the border, we pass an upturned bus in the road. It must have happened that morning as the police are still there, though there's no one in it now. Everyone around me gasps.

Further down the road, we hear sirens and two ambulances roar past us, followed by a fire-engine and two police cars. Something terrible has happened on the road behind us and it sends a chill through us all.

Still our bus ploughs on. I eat my ham roll that's included in the bus fare, put my feet up like the Chilean woman next to me and pray that we arrive safely.