23rd November 2007
We either attract or cause a lot of chaos the way we travel because it always seems to be a nightmare to get anywhere on time and in one piece. Today we were leaving for Mendoza, Argentina. For some reason we thought we had all the time in the world to get to the bus station by 8.30 to catch the 9.00 bus to Mendoza, that is the only bus to Mendoza. By 8.30 we still hadn’t left our hotel and Chrissy was freaking out and to make matters worse we were leaving in peak hour traffic. We arrived at the bus station and ran to the bus catching it with three minutes to spare, if you ask me it was perfect timing… no waiting and no hassles! I don’t actually know the reasons we feel we have to continually push the limits to how close we can cut it for time… but apparently the stakes are pretty high because we cut it finer and finer every day!!
Anyway not to worry … we made it and that’s all that counts. It was at this point that this ‘surfer type’ Canadian asked me where we were from… unfortunately this conversation was wasted on me as the girls were the ones who thought they were hot I was just standing there. We spoke for the whole three minutes we had before we needed to board the bus. The bus ride from Vina to Mendoza was 8 hours long on really very uncomfortable seats with no ‘in flight entertainment’ which made it the longest 8 hours of our trip so far. Actually my in flight entertainment was watching the reasons the Canadian boys came up with to come and talk to gemma and chrissy. My favourite was when he came and asked Gemma and Chrissy if they had any reading material as he just finished his own book. They didn’t and said that I did… oh poor boy… as if it wasn’t already obvious enough that he didn’t come down here to ask to borrow ‘reading material’! Out of pity I gave him my book, which was girly and I knew he wouldn’t read but was all I had. I pre- warned him that he wouldn’t like it which he used to his advantage by standing there leaning on gemma’s chair reading the blurb and the first page. I believe, that somehow this boy had redeemed himself and he was back in the game! When it finally became too difficult to impress the girls and stand on a bus and of course when he ran out of a legitimate excuse to continue to read standing up on a moving vehicle he went back to his seat. To cut a long story short when we arrived in Mendoza at 5 pm that day, the boys asked us to meet them at 10 pm that night for dinner. The only monument that we all knew was ‘plaza independencia’ so we decided to meet there.
When we arrived at hotel Lao we were so excited, it was the best hostel ever! It had free wireless and computers, hammocks, a pool, tv with foxtel in English and Spanish, free breakfast and kitchen facilities, nice bathrooms and bedrooms and best of all awesome people. We booked in and decided to look around the city. Also we were starving so at 5.30 we went to a pasta place that Mike (the owner) recommended to us. It was fantastic however hilarious as we were the only three people eating dinner in ‘the afternoon’. When we finished we walked around a little more and then got lost… of course as we had no map and were hoping our memory would serve us and no it didn’t…
By 10.00pm we were rushing to leave the hostel for dinner, having no idea where plaza independecia was. At 10.15 we arrived at the largest public park I have ever seen, for those playing at home probably bigger than the size of the entire newfarm park but packed with people everywhere. MASSIVE. Finally after about another 20 mins we found them, and we were all starving. Our waiter was really good, he learnt all our names and told us that the movie ‘Ten Years in Tibet’ with Brad Pitt was filmed in Mendoza, and that he was in it as one of the monks. He must tell this story a lot because he kept a photo album of it in the restaurant. Argentina is famous for its beautiful meat so we all ordered steak and they were fabulous. Because everything was so cheap we all ordered cocktails and wine and we all got funnier and happier as the night went on. We asked our waiter where a good place to go out was… to cut a long story short we were told if we went to an Irish pub across the road have a few drinks he was going out and would take us. We all had $1 tequila shots at the Irish pub and were well and truly set on our way for happy town!
SORRY I really should explain our waiter… well, he was about 45, massive bear gut, military cut, Asian/Argentinean and most likely bi as he was hitting on the boys just as much as us. Nice waiter, but sleeziest guy to hang around socially basically. We all worked this out quickly, and once he got us all in for free we made haste to get rid of him.
While I was inside the ‘discoteca’ this guy came up to me and shoved a bottle of alcohol into my face, apparently asking if I wanted some and chipping my tooth in the process. I told gemma, but she was too drunk or too gemma to care and so I decided that I would deal with it tomorrow after I went to the bathroom and realised it wasn’t that big of a chip… plus what dentist is open at 4 am?
We had such a good night, some (particularly gemma- who kissed Dylan the blond) better than others. I danced salsa and regatón and crazy and sexy and then danced myself out at about 5 am! Chrissy again was the drunkest and needed to be taken home so we all left at around 5/5.30!
Great night to cap off a day of travel!
24th November 2007
We made plans with Dylan and Ray (the Canadian hotties) to rent bikes and do a wine tour at dinner the night before…. We were supposed to meet at 9 in the park again… however we were woken up – by Dylan – at 10 due to the fact that we missed this little deadline. We showered and ate breakfast and then caught the bus out to Maipu where all the vinarias / wineries are! Much to chirssy’s despair Ray had already made plans with a girl called Hilary from their hostel to go with her, and as we slept well past 9 we missed them, however we did plan to meet up with them later.
We knew that we shouldn’t do the tours that are run out here as you pay exorbitant prices and its way less fun because you have to stick to a schedule and time slot for everything… so we found this place that rented out old school bikes for 15 pesos a day (5 bucks people!) and just found whatever wine tours were on! Firstly we just rode around on our bikes doing tricks and enjoying the sun – plus it was a little early in my books to be drinking so much. Our first tour was a chocolate and liqueur factory. They enabled us one free shot of liqueur and then after that you had to pay and to ‘chase’ we had a piece of homemade chocolate and both were amazing. Gemma was suffering severly from what she called ‘bike sickness’ known more commonly by the general public as a hang over. The sight of more alcohol was making her even sicker so she didn’t buy any liqueurs. Chirssy and I bought a dulce de leche one – which is a big deal in Argentina and tastes similar to a milky and rich caramel and very very sweet, as the name suggests. Literally translated it means sweet milk – but its more like sweet condensed milk as it is thick. This liqueur was based on this, but luckily wasn’t so sweet and was just to die for.
We were not allowed to drink the alcohol inside the ‘tasting’ room so we went outside to the driveway to ‘taste’ our purchases. There was a big piece of beef roasting slowly on the bbq and we decided to sneakily cut some off and eat it. In the process being caught! We all jumped on our bikes and raced away so we didn’t have to pay for it… the meat was so good we all wanted to go back and risk stealing more. Unfortunately we didn’t. The next place we went to was a wine museum with free tastings however it was closed for siesta. The next destination was a vina about a half an hour’s ride away. By this time we started getting drunk as the ‘tastings’ were a lot more generous then the others- oh and also we were all drinking beer on the bike ride between vinas. And we all had drunk a small bottle of liqueur to ourselves… Chirssy fell off her bike… literally this time… twice! Good effort there love!
The cars absolutely hated us because we had to drive on the road due to lack of footpaths or any other place to ride but the road. Some frustrated locals made good fun out of getting as close to us as was possible without killing… we were drunk so we thought this was hilarious. Anytime a slow driving car drove past we all tried to race it … kinda like dogs actually!!
By this time it was around 5/6 pm so we bought ham, salami cheese bread and biscuits from a corner shop on the way home to have a picnic lunch as we were STARVING!
Today was so fun! Mendoza has the most spectacular scenery; I pretended I was from a movie all day because it was a day exactly like the one in wedding crashers where they ride the bikes in between the big trees. The Andes and the vinas and the spectacular day made it so much more picturesque and the highlight of the trip so far.
We returned our bikes and with sore bums and a lot of disorientation had to walk back to the bus. We got home – after getting lost on the bus and having to catch a second bus back (we are not so good with the direction thing) at about 8 and packed and got ready to go midnight water rafting.
We left at 8.30 with about 8 other people who were all really great. There was the Norwegian couple Guia and Ingrid, Richard and Harriet who were from London, the three Irish girls and another girl from England, we were all petrified about how freezing cold it was going to be in the water! All we could do was console ourselves by knowing a parrilla was following the rafting.
We did some initial training and instructions with our guide who didn’t speak much English so his basic response to every question we had was ‘just take it easy’. ‘What if we fall out of the boat?” ‘Take it easy’ ‘what if we aren’t strong enough to pull the overboard person back into the boat?’ “Take it easy”…. Anything could happen and all we had to do was ‘take it easy’. The wetsuits were full body and nice and warm however we knew that if any water got in them we would be screwed… and we were right. The water was like ice… literally! The river water was ice which had melted from the Andes … and yes it was a little chilly. You can’t swim in any of the water here because it is all freezing melted ice water.
Despite the fact that during and for a long while after the raft I couldn’t feel my hands or my face, it was so much fun and so cool to do it at night under the full moon. Even the moon in itself was a sight to see, I have never seen a full moon that low or big before. One of the Irish girls suggested that it is because the Australian moon is upside down and that it must be smaller that way….I didn’t really know how to respond to that idiocrasy so when I realised she was serious I just said ‘Probably never thought of it that way at all!!”
After showing and warming up we had a Parilla (par- rish- ja) which is an Argentinean tradition of roasting cuts of meat on the grill/bbq and served in a specific way. It was really good… eventually this black sausage thingy came round and many people were refusing it. I took some, Guia told me to taste with caution and chrissy said I probably wouldn’t like it- I didn’t know why so I ate it anyway and it was nice, different to anything I have tasted before like not my favourite thing but I still really enjoyed it… then they told me what it was. Don’t you hate that? Knowing always ruins everything, always! It was blood- pure blood put in sausage form.
After we finished dinner we all sat around the fire as it was so cold. There was a party on but as we had only gotten four hours sleep and it was already four o’clock we decided to give it a miss and just go home and SLEEP!
