I meant to write a post about this trip last week but as it turns out I was swamped by a 15 page paper and a test. I have decided that this post will be brief because I would rather talk about Bariloche which goes down as maybe my best weekend in Argentina.
I decided that I really wanted to go to Mendoza which is a really pristine city on the border of the Andes famous for its Bodegas (Wineries). I have also been wanting to travel alone just to see what it would be like. This didn't quite happen, because Ameesha joined me the next day. Anyway I took one the most uncomfortable 14 hour bus rides of my life, but no the most, that will come later. We rolled into Mendoza at about 8 the next morning and what a sight it was. For those of you who have driven to Colorado it was very similar. Nothing...nothing...nothing...amazing mountains. I checked into my hostel, but could not do anything with my morning because I had a take home essay test due that night that I didn't finish. I was the loser sitting in the hostel on his laptop writing a paper about comparative politics.
I finished up my paper and decided to explore the city, but I really wanted to meet some people to explore with. About that same time two guys travelling alone walked into the hostel. I ended up exploring Mendoza with Martin a 30ish year old Argentine who played tennis but had arms the size of a pencil, needless to say he was no Roddick. We walked through the city to this amazing park that had everything from palm trees to a lake with mountain views.
We grabbed some lunch across from the other University I could have studied at in Argentina. This city gave me some second thoughts, beautiful school, pristine city, proximity to the mountains, and incredibly attractive people. Oh well, the grass is always greener on the other side is what I keep telling myself. Except that we don't have grass in Buenos Aires, we have cracked side walks.
After our walk I decided to catch up on a bit of sleep and took about a three hour nap. When I woke up there was another girl in my room, I should say woman. She was an Accountancy Professor but only about 30-33 years old I think. We had a nice talk, I spoke spanish and she spoke English. Though numbers are fun, I didn't really want to spend my night with a professor so I went down to the lounge where I met a couple of Aussies. We went to the grocery store to buy some food to make dinner. I bought about a pound of ribeye for 3 American dollars, and a potato. My dinner was very simple, some ribeye and homemade french fries. He made something a bit cooler but I'm not sure what it was. We later walked to this really cool park where this gigantic Spanish Fair was going on. The very unhelpful hostel workers somehow did not manage to tell us that there was a huge fair going on about oh 10 feet from our hostel where we could eat Paella from every region of Spain. We decided to share a thing of Paella from Valencia which they informed me was the best. It was pretty darn good and the way Paella cookes is also very very cool. Sorry no pics from this one.
The next day I woke up with a phone call from Ameesha because she had just arrived. We chilled for a bit and walked around the city again. We then hopped in a van for a Wine tour, also chocolate and olive oil. This was a pretty fun time with some really really good food and drink. I also tried absynthe for the first time, but I don't really see what the big deal is. After buying a few things we headed to the first Bodega and were instructed on how exactly to taste wine and what to look for and smell.
Needless to say I feel more cultured now. After that we moved on to an organic vineyard where evertyhing was done by hand and tasted much better actually. Finally we hit up an Olive Oil factory and had this amazing bread covered in sundried tomatoes dipped in Olive Oil.
That night we went to easily the worst Hostel Asado I have been to yet, but thankfully it was saved by the people we met. Ameesha made friends with these two Brasilian girls who are now legitimately in love with her. I talked to them for a bit but I spent most of my time talking to Roberto who is a Mexican student studying abroad in Buenos Aires as well. He educated me in the art of the Mexican drinking handshake.
Note: This clearly is not the short post I thought it would be so I apologize for that.
The next day we woke up to go on a trekking, rapelling, hot spring tour in the Andes. I really enjoyed parts of this day and others not so much. I thought the climbing part was great and there was some pretty cool scenery. I have found out thanks to Argentina that I really do not like Rapelling. It is extremely uncomfortable on the groin region and you never feel like you have accomplished something afterwards. I do however love jumping of rocks and running down hills. It appears there are better and worse ways to get down from a mountain.
After finally getting down from the mountain we wandered over to the hot springs which turned out to be nothing more than a gigantic hot tub filled with unappealing people, haha, is that mean? I decided like I often do to just wander off by myself and climb something. One thing I really wanted with this trip was to feel like I was in Latin America and not Europe. I wandered through over to this suspension bridge I found that was filled with locals. It was obvious because not one word of another language but Spanish could be hear...finally. I climbed down below the bridge and found rock in the middle of this river to sit and think for a while. With the rapids around the rest of the world was zoned out and I really enjoyed that and found peace.
It was also pretty cool because below the bridge was a base camp of sorts. There were tents and people grilling. The most amazing thing was watching this lady climb straight up the bridge with seemingly nothing to grab on to. Our time ended at the hot springs and we hopped back in our van to go back to the Hostel. We decided to grab some Mexican food that night. The Brazilian girls somehow had never tried Mexican food in their life. They though that it was great but I really saw it as mediocre to the max like all Mexican food down here. There is no spice in anything which to me takes away its Mexicanity. Some creepy French dude followed us to the Restaurant and after dinner Ameesha and I headed back to the hostel while the Brasilians and the creepy French guy checked out the Spanish festival.
The next day Ameesha and I wanted to do different things so I went whitewater rafting while she decided to go Horseback riding. The rafting was a lot of fun although it wasn't anything too crazy. This was one of the coldest days I've ever had in my life though. I met a bunch of people though so from that aspect it was cool. The first people I met were two guys from Portland travelling through South America, one was an Asian guy and the other reminded me of Ben Kantner which I found funny because I couldn't help but thing of Kantner and Hai. I also spent a lot of time with a group of probably late twenties Argentines. This was nice practice for my Spanish and I think overall it went pretty well.
That night we were set up to leave Mendoza at about 8:30 when all hell broke lose. We showed up at the bus station where the people from the company told me that I did not have tickets although I bought them and received a confirmation number. Because it was a holiday weekend it was impossible to find tickets. Not one company had tickets back to Buenos Aires and both Ameesha and I needed to be back. We finally found this awful company that gave us tickets to Rosario which is in between the two cities and from there we would get a bus back to BA. We got on this bus which was Greyhound style barely recline seats only to find that Ameesha's seat wouldn't even recline. This ammounted to 12 of the worst hours of our collective lives. We showed up in Rosario and rather than go back to BA where it was already too late to go to our classes we decided to go back to the amazing Restaurant. We sat down and ordered the same thing as last time, but immediately I realized there was a problem. I had ordered my steak and no one was manning the grill. This meant that my steak was obviously going to be overcooked, and it was. Just as I was about to give up all hope on this trip the waiter brought me out another huge steak, perfectly cooked this time because the last one was, "chiquita", Argentine BS for sorry we ruined your last steak, forgive us! and I did. I think both Ameesha and I were on edge from this long trip an we had some really intense arguments. Finally we got on a bus back to BA and were home at last.
The next day I checked my bank statement and was charged for the tickets that I did not receive, and that was the last string. I freaked out Jon Hyosaka style on the phone and at the bus station until I got my money back. What a weekend. After two hot-cold trips finally I was presented with an amazing trip to Bariloche which hopefully I will have an update up soon. These blogs really take a lot out of me so it's hard to write them one after another.
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