The bus from Santiago to Mendoza was extremely scenic! Driving directly across the Andes and into Argentina. Surrounded by mountains, driving through valleys, next to rivers and springs. The border crossing was unfortunately uneccissarily long, being full of cars and buses all taking their holiday time. On the bus I met an English couple who befriended me once they found out I could speak the language. They seemed like cool people so we agreed to stick together and find a hostel. I stayed in Mendoza for three days, three long broiling hot days. So hot that you do not feel like moving, or doing anything of any sort. It was a pity because there is a lot of options of things to do and activities around Mendoza.
Mendoza is one of the main wine capitals of the world, surrounding the entire city is a plate plane of grassland. All over the province there are vineyards everywhere. Bottles of wine commonly can be found for around 4 or 5 dollars. Naturally thats what we drank the most of. Aside from wine tours, there is rock climbing, mountaineering, horsebackriding, and much more. Heat and prices were quite discouraging factors in me not ending up doing anything. I sat around mainly, plucking away on the cheap guitar I had bought in Santiago, forcing myself to learn, as well as reading. I had little interest in seeing the city either, I had spent the last 2 weeks or so in Urban city areas and I was getting thoroughly tired of it. That being said, everything I saw of Mendoza was very nice, a very calm city with trees lining both sides of all the streets everywhere you go. It provides lots of shade walking, although it hardly abates the 40 degrees that is constantly a factor. There are hardly ever clouds to shade the sun so as soon as the sun is slightly in the sky it is hot. This means that even at 10 or 11 AM the strength of the sun resembles that of 2PM. It stays steady like this until around 6 PM and still provides light up until around 9. It is a long day of sunlight and the days would only get longer as I went further south, which was the plan.
What I did do in Mendoza was a short horse excursion through some hills on the outskirts of the Andes mountains. We were told at the hostel that it included winetasting although they must have been referring to the wine included with dinner, which was an endless supply. The horseride was educational and exciting though rather anticlimactic. I was blessed with a horse that didn´t really feel like moving at any rapid speed, nothing I could do would motivate it. Me obviously having a lack of experience and the horse obviously realizing that cared not about what I did or how I did it. At any rate it was still fun and made me want to do more. The evening was finished off with an ¨ASADO¨ or BBQ. Bread, fresh tomato salad wine and an endless supply of sausage and steak. Argentina also being famous for its beef made me quite excited to try the asado here. The beef was absolutely stelar, perfectly done, the best I have ever had. Each plate the pieces consecutively got lacker and rarer. The wine came in liter bottle and we, a group of 8 total, must have drank about 4 or 5 of these bottles by the end of the night. We were all stuffed, yet continued to eat, not having the willpower to pass up the wonderful meat. Backed by near full moon, wandering horses, and a drunk, guitar-playing gaucho, we all were rather satisfied by the time we returned. Luckily for our sack it was not the gaucho that drove us back to the city.
After the next couple of days I got rather uneasy and wanting to move-on. The couple and I left on the same day althoug they onto Buenos Aires to eventually take a plane down to Ushuaia the southern-most city in the world, and I south 18 hours or so by bus to San Carlos de Bariloche, one of the northern points of the large Patagonia plateau encompassing the southern third of the country. We both agreed that would stay in touch and try and meet up again when I arrived in Ushuaia.
I was looking forward to Bariloche. Sitting on the southern shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi it would naturally be much cooler. As well being surrounded by the older national park in Argentina, by the same name as the lake, I would have a release from the endless urban attack that had taken of last few weeks of my trip. It would only get more and more rural as I went further and further south!
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