Laura and I embarked on our journey at 8pm on Wednesday. Laura, by the way, is a good friend of mine and another rotary scholar. Standing at just under five feet and one of the few who can go toe-to-toe with me in terms of inappropriateness, I knew she was going to be a great travel companion.
What I did not know until I arrived here, however, is that South America is not like Europe (duh!). The rail system is almost completely defunct and the one south american low-cost airline is laughable. No weekend jet sets "across the pond" here, if you want to travel you either need to shell out the time or the money. Since I'm broke, I chose the former. A thirteen hour bus ride is never anything to look forward to, but man, the Argentines know how to travel in style. This bus was literally the equivalent to a first-class airline: leather seats that recline to an entire bed, food, movies, and free booze.
Surprisingly, I didn't get much sleep and Laura and I decided to make Thursday a lazy day around the town. Never one to relax for too long, things picked up quite a bit on Friday. For those of you who don't know, Mendoza is not only an interesting little city just west of the Andes/Chile border, it is also Argentine wine country. As there are approximately 35 vineyards in the surrounding area there are quite a few offers from companies offer tours. Which to choose: bus? taxi for hire? rickshaw? Oh, there it is! Bicycles.
Myself, Rowan (our hostel mate), and Laura ready to rock
Biking through wine country, however, did not prove at romantic as I had previously idealized. Instead of gingerly strolling through vineyards, stopping to picnic or pluck grapes we fought gears on our crappy bikes as we made our way down a semi-paved (read: full of pot holes) road littered with truck traffic. Strong-willed and quite thirsty, I was not going to let this 12km loop of pollution ruin my time, I was on vacation.
We initially made our way all the way down to the last vineyard (there were 6) in the loop, figuring it would be better to work our way back up (read: less distance to ride after consuming copious amounts of wine). This vineyard, Carinae, was amazing. Not only was the tour guide informative, she was quite cute and didn't seem to mind myself, Rowan, and even Laura drooling over her. The two fun facts I learned from here are that:
1) they plant rose bushes next to the vineyards since roses are generally susceptible to the same illnesses as grapes, so if something happens to the roses it forewarns them about the vines.
2) Since they were a smaller vineyard, they couldn't compete in quantity, meaning they had to focus on quality. To do so, as the grapes came in they cut one of the two bushels off the vine so that all of the nutrients could be focused into that one set of grapes. Pretty interesting.
We tried three half glasses here and liked them all. They also let me sample their premium brand (a 100 peso bottle, probably about $100 US in the states) for ten pesos. Although I loved it, it made me realize that I am nowhere near the point that I can appreciate such a good bottle of wine.
The rest of the day was filled with cycling, sweating, and consumption. The highlight came when we stopped for lunch at this restaurant setup and run by a couple of Canadians. What can only be described as an oasis, Dumaine Du Mont is everything you would expect wine country to be. A little house with a beautiful yard, a rap around porch and magnificent view of the Andes...I didn't want to leave.
A minimum of two pictures still can't do this place justice. Sorry if it appears crooked, I think my computer is on a contact drunk from the wine seeping out of my pores.
After a long day in the sun, we spent the better part of the late afternoon and early evening resting up. Additionally, we knew we had a long day full of adventure ahead of us the next day so we threw all of our efforts behind the BBQ our hostel was hosting Friday night. Nothing too exiting, except that when you offer Laura and me all you can drink booze, we are going to get our money's worth. Having spent the day with Rowan and downing about 3 bottles a piece by dinner time, we were all working off a synergy that not even Stephen Covey could explain. Of the twelve or so people at our table, most were British (I love the british because nothing ever appalls them) and the rest we won over through wine, because by the end of the night people were choking on their food laughing so hard at just about anything that came out of our mouths. I guess most had thought we were a couple (big mistake) when we first came in, which we chose to clarify not by outright declaration, but with various jabs at each other to the likes of "say that again and I will kick you right in the crotch" and "sleep lightly my friend." That’s the PG rated version at least, good fun.
SATURDAY
Not nearly as hung-over as we should have been, we headed out to the mountains for a day of adventure with trekking and kayaking. I wanted to white-water raft but the river is lazy this time of the year...kayaking was equally as boring though. Even though the trek was nothing spectacular (a little hike through a hill) our half way point ended at a small waterfall.
This waterfall really wasn't anything to shake a stick at (coming from a person who has shaken many a stick), but the cool part was that we got to rappel down the wall just to the left of it (as seen in the picture).
Same story for the afternoon/early evening: rest up and a little bit of food. We actually ended up meeting a few people from Buenos Aires in our trek and decided to meet up with them that night. Saturday was quite possible one of the dumbest things I have done in my life, though I can't post it quite yet as it requires at least one picture that I am waiting on from the local Portenos. Sorry to keep you in suspense but it will be up within the week.
RANDOM THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
I've always wanted to have somebody "sock it to me." Having not been a child of the seventies and never really doing hard core drugs, I can only imagine what this would be like. I theorize that this "socking it to someone" is almost like a state of enlighten that usually takes place on a dance floor. Two people on the dance floor become lost in the sacred art of dance, nothing else is important: the music, others around, the copious amount of sweat pouring from their bodies. Then all of a sudden one of the pairs does some sort of move that resembles a "fatality move" from Mortal Kombat (without the actual killing part) and all is known in the world. I figure it's either that or an STD, in which case I would politely decline.
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