Mendoza

okay so im in my new place now and unfortunately i fell behind in talking about my trip which hopefully i wont do again. but i'll break this into 3 short posts about 3 different parts of the trip

Mendoza.

I arrived on mendoza via an overnight bus from buenos aires. First, i guess i should talk about the buses here. they aren't your typical greyhound. for about 220 pesos (70 usd) you can get a 12 hr bus ride that is, for all intents and purposes, 1st class. seats are wide enough to fit someone significantly wider then me. plush leather, recline all the way, and a place to raise your feet and lie down completely flat. it was great, and i'll def. take advantage of them in the future.

i arrived in mendoza and spent the first day walking around the city and doing a wine tour. i met a girl from la and a bunch of irish who were pretty cool. the main highlight was a winery called cecchin that exports almost exclusively to the us because they are completely organic and do not use sulphur dioxide (which virtually all wineries do but cause an allergic reaction for some *cough* kristin *cough)

when i got back from the wine tour i ran into a swiss couple. we ended up sharing dinner together (and 3 bottles of wine), talking about what we had in common (the guy had studied english in toronto at yonge and college) and a bunch of other things ranging from how different argentines live to the us election and the way argentines negotiate.

the next day we took it easy and enjoined the extremely large and relaxing park in mendoza. the pace of life in mendoza is even slower then that of buenos aires, and i took full advantage of it to sit in cafes, the plazas and large parks and just enjoy the surroundings. it was on this day that the swiss couple and i also arranged for a trek in the andes. that in itself was a bit of a debacle because all the tours in mendoza are conveniently arranged by one company and outfitted by another. this works great for argentines when you dont get what you expect as both will blame the other as being at fault and you wont get what you want.

case in point: on the wine tour on day 1, they told us at the hostel before we were picked up that we could drink as much as we want. but as soon as we go on the tour, the wineries said no they cannot promise that and instead we would get 1/2 an inch of wine. fwiw i didnt mind this as much as the irish that were also on the trip, but it was a bit annoying

another example would be the trek. at first we kept saying we dont want to go on a 12 hr bus ride to take photos we want to go for a walk around- thinking something similar to what we could do in the alps, a nice 2 hr walk, then lunch in the sun then a 2 hr walk back. at first they said oh this does not exist until we were talking with one tourist agent and a man joined in and said 'oh no problem yes we can do that, yes no problem (to everything we said we wanted)'. that should've been the first warning sign. the next day (day 3) we are picked up and taken to a place a good hour drive from where we wanted. the trek was about half as long as we wanted as well but nothing could be done (from our point of view) as the people who ran the operation kept saying they were not told of this agreement that was made.

i feel bad ranting about this, as it was a great walk/time that i (and the swiss couple) had on day 3 walking around but figured i'd want to remember this episode of how argentines do business / how annoying beauracracy can be...

anyways, day 3 was a trek for the first half of the day, we had a good time. walking around the city of mendoza i also noticed how friendly people were. constantly when i'd pull out my map just to double check my location people would approach me to give help/ advice etc constantly. at the check out line in a grocery store people would stop to try and talk to me etc.

day 4 was my last day in mendoza and i went to maipu, rented a bike and visited wineries. this is a bit of a common thing to do for tourists in mendoza, and i had a good time- although my bike had horrendous brakes- i went relatively slowly from vineyard to vineyard, visiting 3 in total. I also met up with 2 canadian women and went with them for a little bit. this was good cause they knew a lot about wines.

that night i took a bus from mendoza to cordoba and the next morning met up with Evan and Thuy (two friends from BsAs). I'll make that my next post and dont' have photos up- but they will be here soon.