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Other entries in Mendoza

On my own - Day the first (and second)

After a 20 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires, I hung out with Amy for about 5 hours before hopping on another bus, on my own this time.  It was actually kind of sad.  Though Amy and I were mostly just acquaintances before this trip (we´d seen each other outside of hockey only once, on a random whim to do the grouse grind), she was the best person to travel with!  She is so good natured and easy going, that it was impossible not to get along.  On our last night of camping (before the 20 hour bus ride to BA), she found a $1 box of wine, yes, a box!  It was awful, but for 4 pesos, what would you expect!!  We got quite the giggle out of it though!

During the 13 hour, overnight busride to Mendoza, I kept wanting to tell her things.  Like when I got dinner, we would always take bets on if the hot meal was chicken or beef (along with the cold ham & cheese of course).  And I had to laugh when I tried mine and it was pork!!  We would have both been wrong!

So, first impressions of Mendoza: Mierde, it´s just like Buenos Aires!  Busy, lots of traffic and buildings and those damn dripping air conditioners!!  But it´s no where near as bad!  In fact, it´s pretty nice!  I found a hostel that has a pool (but no kitchen, not exactly a good trade off!).  Last night, I had my 4 bed dorm all to myself, and better still, my room has it´s own bathroom, so I plugged in my ipod stereo and had a super long shower! 

There is about 3 or 4 blocks in the central touristy area that are completely pedestrian, and there are tons of restaurants, cafes, and excursion agencies there.  Its such a cute little area.  My first meal in Mendoza was a great one!  I had the best late lunch yesterday at a table ouside in that pedestrian area, which was AgriDulce Pollo (Bittersweet chicken), and it came with noisette patatas and stir fried veggies!  First of all, finding a dish with actual flavour is amazing enough, but to have it come with veggies (potatoes are the veggie in this country!), was down right unbelievable!! It was the best meal I´ve eaten out since I arrived!!  Unfortuantely, I couldn´t even finish it!  My stomach had shrunk from three days of bus travel and the lack of sufficient food.  I just cannot eat any more ham and cheese!  FOr all the ham in this country, I´m surprised I haven´t seen any pigs!! 

After two nights of sleeping (or trying to at least) on a bus, and three nights camping before that, it was great to sleep on a real bed (well, bunk bed!).  I managed to stay up until 10pm, then stayed in bed for 12 hours!  I tried to sleep the whole time, but I just can´t sleep that long!  I read my book for a couple of the hours.

I lazed around most of the afternoon, since I had to pick up my laundry at 2pm.  I had dropped off every thing I owned the previous day(except the clothes I was wearing of course).  I hadn´t had my laundry done since Calafate.  When you have very few clothes, and you are doing alot of hiking and camping, 2 weeks is a long time to go without cleaning your clothes!!  I don´t know why it had to take this lavandaria 24 hours to do one load of clothes, but I guess they´re very busy.  I had strict instructions to pick it up between 2 and 3pm.  Because after 3pm, they are closed until Monday.  Geez!

So I had brunch at a cafe on the pedestrian ave, while I waited for the appointed time. I had the Desayuno Americano, which is the best.  It comes with OJ, tea or cafe con leche, toast, and scrambled eggs (with ham of course!).  It is the easiest thing to order, and is quite fulfilling.  But I just hate saying it aloud.  Can´t they have something on the menu named after canadians??  I´m sure that every time I order one the server is rolling her eyes thinking "Great, another american!" (no offence to my american friends!!)  I haven´t seen the difference in treatment myself, but I met a couple today from Colorado, and they were joking about how much easier it would be for them if they pretended they were from Canada. 

Anyways, after my lazing, eating, and my long awaited laundry, I booked a couple of excursions.  I knew the staff at the excursion desk spoke english, because I had been there yesterday. So I went in speaking english, and the guy behind the desk must have assumed I didn´t know any spanish, because when he called to confirm my excursion for this afternoon, he was giving my name and information and said to the other man "Si, muy linda!" (yes, very pretty).  I tried not to roll my eyes.  This country is very vocal, with constant cat calls comments just while walking down the street, in broad day light!  People don´t do that in vancouver unless their drunk!!  I suppose it should be good for the confidence, but it sounds more like they´re calling dogs when they whistle and make noises to get your attention.

So, this afternoon I went on a Parapente (Paragliding) up in the mountains.  It was absolutely amazing and so beautiful!!  It´s like a cross between parasailing (off the back of a boat in mexico, totally boring!!), and skydiving (thrilling free fall from 10,000 feet, but it´s over so fast, you don´t really get to relish it).  The most awkward thing about Paragliding is that you have to run off the side of a mountain.  BUt I had an hour and a half to watch several people do it, while our pilots took the first two people down, then repacked the shutes/sails, and drove back up the long windy trail up the mountain.  By the time it was my turn, I wasn´t even nervous. It looked super easy, and it was.  My guide was a cute young guy named Andreas, who had been doing this for 15 years. I was in good hands.  It was serene and peaceful, and he explained how it all worked with thermals being big bubbles that you could ride up in.  Then I told him that I´d been skydiving, and while I loved the thrill, it was just too short.  So we did some tricks!  He did this side to side swing, where you go one way, so your almost level with your sail, then become weightless and fall back down to the proper position, then to the other side!  It was awesome!  Then we did some loops! The weightless feeling was just like in skydiving, except instead of only 1 or 2 minutes of fun, we were probably up in the air for about 20 minutes or so!!  I loved it!!    Now the only aerial adventure left on my list is riding in a helicopter! But after skydiving, paragliding, hot air ballooning and the ride in the Blimp, a helicopter might be slightly mundane.

Tomorrow, I am taking a full day tour out to see Aconcagua, one of the huge mountain peaks. I won´t be climbing it.  We´re just busing to a viewpoint, with several touristic stops along the way, none of which I can remember the name of right now!  Monday I am leaving for Santiago, Chile, and should be officially finished with Argentina.  There are a few other spots I would have liked to see, but I´ve already spent over a month in Argentina (minus the 5 days in the south of Chile), so I feel the need to move on!

Thanks to everyone who is keeping in touch!  I love hearing news from back home! 
And no, I was not on that bus that crashed into a train in Eastern Argentina!  But that can happen anywhere, even in canada.  So there´s nothing new to worry about!!

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