Vino vino vino!

Finally made it to Mendoza!!! This is a greeeat city. It's much more laid-back then Buenos Aires, and the people look you in the eye and smile when they speak (and speak more slowly!). We stayed in the well-reviewed Monkey Hostel Adventure Park, where they are known for helping to set you up with excursion packages. Receptionist Kiki was utterly helpful on this front:

Friday: Made use of local company Bikes&Wines to check out 8 or so of the 11 bodegas (vineyards) featured on the tour. Yes, I drank a lot of wine while bicycling. Yes, I bought a lot of wine (and absinthe!!!). You can get some really fantastic bottles for great prices here. Many of of the Malbec variety. Malbec originated in France but the grapes there didn't go so well with the soil, hence the name "bad in the mouth". Luckily for us, they grew just dandy in South American soil and it's one of my favorite to sip here. The tour was also just plain beautiful- views of the Andes all along the road, basements full of vintage oak barrels, and a continually hotter (or was it the wine flush?) day. I picked up some Malbecs and ohhh just a bit of absinthe :).

Our Friday night at Monkey Hostel was lots of fun- a delicious asado (bar-b-que) and plenty of free wine included. Nothing like a pitcher of red to help ease the (Spanish) conversation with strangers. We met our really sweet roommate, who lives in Tandil, along with a number of travelers and educators from Western Europe and South America.

Saturday was an adventure day. We joined guides Nicolas and Frederico, and also a French student named Nico, for a day of trekking, rappelling, and rockclimbing in the foothills of the Andes. The climate at that level is REALLY dry, so we were navigating plenty of dusty rocks (which kept sliding) and cacti. The guys were really knowledgeable though, and I felt safe the whole time. I climbed 26 meters, which sounds short but feels really really high when you are up there. I was sore for two days after, but we finished up with a dip in some natural hot springs to relax. That night we went to an amazing Mexican restaurant (Taco Tobasco) with our roommate, Luisina, and then she used her native ways (i.e. actual ability to speak Spanish and very pretty) to get us into a bar for free. I ordered a double Fernet and Coke, thinking there would be enough Coke for two Fernet's....wrong. Both nights we felt like old ladies and hit the sacks by 1:00am. The only downside was that our room was in the middle of other people's, so we had late arrivals/partiers shuffling between our beds all night...lucky I can be a heavy sleeper when I choose to be.

We finished the weekend with a visit to the "thermal pools" or water park. Warning: don't always believe the brochure! I may very possibly be a spoiled American, or maybe its my 5 year career as a lifeguard and pool supervisor, but I decided not to get in the waters here. The sun was great though, and worth the sketchy walk we had to make along a railroad track and some shanty houses after the bus accidentally dropped us off at the hotel instead of the water park. It was a little kitschy, kind of like the scene from your average upstate-NY cheaper public pools...except they were warm (bacteria!!!) and crowded (more bacteria!!!)...maybe I'm just paranoid...

Ironically the "most relaxing" day was not my favorite, but there's is pleeenty to do in Mendoza and I wish we could have stayed longer. I would have loved to do some horseback riding, and even with no planned activities the city is full of clean and beautiful plazas and parks...and lots of cheap delicious wine!