We arrived back in rainy Buenos Aires, it has been raining for a week now, and spent the night at the same hostel. Monday was spent at the bus station booking a bus to Mendoza for that night and then braving Florida street once again to change the last of my US dollars. We headed out at 8:30 PM for Mendoza. The buses in South America are amazing. There basically 4 classes. Regular, semi-cama, cama, and cama suite. The seats recline to varying degrees to the point of laying flat with a foot rest that comes up flat so you essentially have a bed. Cama suite is usually a separate section of the bus that is closed off with a door and you get some degree of service with a blanket and pillow and some food. CATA, the company we went with for this trip, offers amazing service. We had a hot dinner with wine or pop, coffee, tea or champagne after and breakfast. The trip was about 14 hours but its amazing how fast it goes, especially when you travel overnight.
Mendoza is really just a stopover for us as I didn't want to do the whole 20 hour trip in one go, although in retrospect it would have been okay. It was just as well though. Unfortunately I've developed the same gastric problem we had in Peru. It looks like it may be caused by a parasite. We didn't recognize it at first so it got quite bad. It hurt all the time and eating was excruciating. I did some research on gastritis and ulcers and figured out what to take. Fortunately its fairly easy to get medications here, you don't need a prescription so we went to the pharmacy and got what I needed. We also managed to get Tums when we were in El Calafate. We knew from past experience that I needed to eat a no fat, no acid diet. The first few days were brutal, it would take me 1/2 an hour to eat a bit of soup and I would just give up. We were only in Mendoza for a couple days so when we left again my diet was reduced to buns. Its taken a couple weeks but its getting better. I still have to be careful what I eat but hopefully not for too much longer.
Mendoza is a nice city, a relief from the bigger cities. We didn't do a whole lot, walked around a bit and went to the aquarium. There is a tortoise there that washed up on shore about 20 years ago. He was in waters that were too cold for him and couldn't survive so he was sent to the aquarium in Mendoza. He's been there ever since in a small tank. It's really sad to see. They have a write up on the wall, in English, explaining how he was found and why he's still there but it still doesn't seem right. This is wine country and we could have done some winery tours but neither of us is into wine we passed on that. Its worth a stop if you're into wine though. Its really cheap to buy as well.
Next stop Santiago.
