Monday, March 17th, we had a flight from Buenos Aires to Mendoza. For some really strange reason, there are no direct flights from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, so we had to fly to Santiago first. We arrived in Santiago and had plenty of time before our next flight... or so we thought... so we got some lunch and a bottle of wine (Jeff wanted to drink Chilean wine in Chile). We were sitting and enjoying our meal when I had some strange inclination to check the time. For some reason, the time change in Santiago is really strange... or I really jus didn´t understand it. I realized that our flight was going to leave at that moment so I told Jeff to pay for our half eaten lunch while I literally sprinted to our departure gate. I got there just as our plane was leaving the tunnel and we missed our flight. I went back to the restaurant to see if our lunch was still there, which of course it wasn´t, but our bottle of wine was. :) So, we arranged for the next flight out... unfortunately, it wasn´t until the next morning... and we sat down with the rest of our bottle of wine, two paper cups and my guidebook to figure out what we should do for the night.
Jeff figured that since he was only in South America for a short time, he wasn´t going to stay in the airport for a night and he had really wanted to check out Santiago anyway. Unfortunately, since the United States charges foreigners a lot of money for everything, other countries do it to us in return. So, it cost us $100 each to leave the airport and go to Chile! Crazy.
We made it to Santiago and actually had a really nice time there. We wandered around this large park with a castle in the center of town and then found a nice pedestrian street with cute little bars and restaurants and did our own little bar crawl, continuing to drink Chilean wine... for Jeff´s sake of course. We also tried our first pisco sour (the national drink of both Chile and Peru), which was disgusting and I don´t think I will ever drink one again.
The next morning, we were running a little late... perhaps from the quantity of wine we both consumed, and almost missed our flight again! Luckily, we did make it and arrived in Mendoza where our luggage was waiting for us.
Mendoza is a nice little city with great restaurants and tons of bodegas (wineries) located in the countryside. Mendoza is where the majority of Argentina´s wines are made. :) It´s also a great area to do lots of outdoor activities and we definitely took part in some, the first of which was white water rafting. It took a little bit, but Jeff finally convinced me that I had to try it. I´m a little scared of the water and for some reason, I knew that I was going to end up in it at some point... which I was. We were heading down the river and when the rapids got pretty intense, our guide told us to duck in to help keep the boat balanced. Somehow, the boat almost flipped over and with it, everyone but our guide was in the water. It was a bit of a scramble to get everyone back in the boat... luckily I was first because I was closest to the boat and I was already in front of it, heading down the river through more rapids. I swallowed a lot of water.
After everyone was in and safe, we continued down the river. To lighten up the mood in the boat, our guide decided to use me as the brunt of a joke. He told me he really needed me to go sit in the front of the boat and he took my paddle. I thought, because I was the only girl, that he just needed me out of his way because there were some more rapids coming up. Really, he wanted me in the front because he knew I was going to get absolutely soaked... and I swallowed a whole lot more water. I´m not sure that I will go white water rafting again, but it was definitely an experience.
The next day, we went horse back riding. It was really nice, with beautiful scenery and delicious smelling wild lavender everywhere. We met some more americans that were actually going to the same school and Jeff´s friend. Everything went really well except that my horse, who looked like a donkey, kept trying to eat everything along the way. The guides kept telling me to pull back the reigns to keep him going and I was with all my strength, but he just kept walking over to the side of the road to eat more daisies and leaves. I wasn´t really able to take many pictures because of this, but it was still a great experience.
We did make a trip to a couple of bodegas and they were nice, but it was the same thing at each place... go see how wine is made and check out the facilities. Then go try a couple of wines. It wasn´t quite as nice as wine tours in the States.
After Mendoza, I was planning to head down to Bariloche, but Jeff convinced me to go back to BA with him. I think he was a little intimidated to go by himself because there are not very many people who speak english and he had already been ripped off by some. Buenos Aires was nice the third time around, but I´m not sad that I won´t be there for another four months. Having Jeff come down for a visit was really nice too. It was really happy to have someone to travel with consistently and actually talk to about things other than where he´s from and how long he´s traveling.
