Argentina

Hola a todos! We had Monday off of school due to a holiday in Chile, so a group of 7 other girls and I decided to head to Mendoza, Argentina for the weekend! Mendoza is about a 6 hour ride from Santiago, not including stopping at customs at the border.

We left Thursday evening, bussed there overnight and arrive at about 5am Friday morning. After locating an ATM, we caught a taxi and went to our hostel to sleep a bit more. Then later that morning, we got some breakfast from a nearby supermercado and made our plans for the day. We went on a biking tour of the vineyards in a nearby town called Maipu. The climate in Mendoza reminded me a lot of Colorado in the summer- hot, dry and elevated! So we got our bikes and chose a vineyard to go tour!

I took this photo along the way! Does it remind you of the Sound of Music? Because I felt like there should be children swinging from the trees in their curtain-clothes!

This photo is from a bodega called Carinae. We got to try many different kinds of wines, my favorite was the Malbec. I really like red wine, I've decided!

The photo on the left was from our next stop, another winery+restaurant. It was such a cute restaurant and we had a coupon for free wine with purchase of an entree. I had a great quiche, which tasted good after my bike ride. The food I had in Argentina was all fantastic, and a lot of it was suprisingly different than Chile's food. It is quite obvious that Argentina has a European influence, particularly from the Italians.

Our next stop was a fabrica de dulces- 'sweet factory'. We paid 10 Argentinian pesos, which is about $3 and got to try different chocolates, mermelades and liquers. I bought some pumpkin and cinnamon mermalade for my Chilean family and it is so great. I wanted to bring back chocolate too, but I knew it would be gone in a heartbeat. This was definitely the cherry on top of our day!

We ended our bike tour around 5 pm and then had to figure out how to get back from Maipu. Taxis are easy to catch in Mendoza, but apparently not the rural towns! We walked for about 20 minutes along the main road and not a single taxi went by us. Upon leaving the bike place, the lady in charge asked us if we wanted change for the bus ride back. We thought that wasn't necessary, as we'd take a taxi, but boy- we should have listened to her! We asked a few different people about calling for a taxi, and then decided the public bus would be the best way to get back- but you have to have coins to pay for the fare. And coins, or monedas, are NOT easy to come by in Argentina. They are very stingy about giving you change, it is bizarre. So finally we stopped at this restaurant, seeing if we could get some change and a bunch of people offered us their money [it didn't hurt that we had some blondes girls with us, the Latino men just love the blonde girls here!] It was nice of them and a much-needed surprise, because at that point we were worried about how to get home! Traveling in a foreign country in a foreign language always proves to be interesting.

On Saturday, our group split up for the day! Three of my friends went skydiving, while the rest of us went rafting on the Mendoza River! It was about $30US for transportation from Mendoza (about 1 hr each way), the gear and rafting! This is one plus to studying in South America in general, prices are cheap! We had a great time rafting! Our guide was from Iceland- pronouncing water 'vater' and what not! He had arrived in Mendoza only two days before us, fresh in from Japan. This guy is truly a world traveler- he was very interesting to talk to. While rafting, we saw a dead alpaca body decomposing--it was so gross and cool! After we finished, we ate at the restaurant located where our rafting was and enjoyed the beautiful scenery for while.

That evening, we went to Plaza Independencia- a huge park in the city that has a lot of really cool artesanias and cute cafes. A lot of the artesanias had very different things than the ones I've seen in Chile! Argentina is known for it's good meat, and thus also leather! There was a lot of leather and neat gourds to drink mate out of. Mate [ma-tay] is a South American tea, the national drink of Argentina! I didn't get to try any, but you see a lot of people drinking it out of these elaborate straws. One time in Chile I saw my friend Beth's [Chilean] dad drinking mate out of the gourd and I thought he was taking an illegal drug, or something! Fortunately it was only tea! :) After the Plaza, we went out to a bar and then a local discoteche, to check out the Mendoza night life! We tried the local cerveza, Andes, and I thought it was pretty good (though I think I like wine more!)

Plaza Independencia (in the daytime) is below

Sunday was our day to explore the town of Mendoza! One thing we forgot was that almost everything is closed on Sunday! Chile does not uphold this custom quite as much, so that was poor planning on our part. We were able to see some of the other nice parks in the area, and ended up returning to Plaza Independencia to make some purchases and enjoy the nice weather! I bought a cool turquoise bracelet that I am excited about! It was about 30 pesos, less than $10! On a side note, as you might notice in the photo, one aspect to Argentina that I absolutely love is that there are no stray dogs in the streets! In Chile, they are everywhere you look and they are often sick, limping, blind and just gross! I did not see one in Mendoza, and that was so nice!

That evening we packed up our stuff and then went out to eat at this fantastic Mexican restaurant! We Americans had all been craving chips and salsa like none other and this place just hit the spot. Sarah, a friend of mine, mentioned that she is turning 21 soon to one of us, and the restaurant surprised us with free margaritas! That was really fun, a good way to end our time in Argentina!

And then on our way back was the fateful 13 hour ride back. Was it supposed to take 13 hours? Absolutely not! Our bus was stopped for a protest about 90 mins outside of Mendoza for awhile and then once we arrived at the border, we were stuck in the bus for about 4 more hours. It was terrible! It was a holiday weekend, so there were a lot of people trying to get through. Also, getting into Chile is much harder than getting into Argentina, because Chile is very stingy on what they let into the country. A friend bought a wall hanging that had un-torched wood on it, and they cut the wood off her piece of art!

The bright side of the day was the gorgeous scenery through the Andes mountains, as you can see below! Overall, I am very glad that I had the opportunity to go to Argentina. It was such a fun weekend and I had a fantastic time with the girls!