Last week was a short one (only one day of work for me) and it was off to Mendoza, Argentina for my first foray into another South American country. I crossed the Andes to spend the long Easter weekend there with ten of my fellow English teachers. Supposedly, it's a six-hour bus ride from Santiago to Mendoza, but with customs, traffic, and the windy, treacherous roads through the mountains, it was more like eight. But, the scenery was gorgeous (though I forgot my camera in Santiago), and the bus super comfy (I'm developing an obsession with South American bus travel) so it wasn't so bad as you might think.
We arrived in Mendoza hungry and raring to try the famed Argentinian asado (grilled meats), and we headed to Estancia la Florencia. I had a pretty good steak, though some of my fellow diners who ordered thicker cuts raved that theirs were the best steaks they'd ever had, and I suffered some serious food envy. We also had a delicious Malbec, one of the best known varieties of Argentinian red wine, and all for under US$15!
Mendoza is definitely a city built on its tourist industry, with over 100 vineyards in the surrounding valley, and myriad opportunities for adventure excursions like horseback riding, rafting, trekking, and skydiving. Of course, we wanted to get on all of these, and, of course, we didn't really take into consideration that it might be hard to organize excursions for 11 people the day of, and on a holiday weekend. Needless to say, we spent the entire morning Friday dealing with logistics. Unfortunately, the bike wine tour (yeah, sounds kind of treacherous right?) was totally booked, so we settled with booking some rafting-hiking-riding activities for Saturday, and spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in the Parque Independencia in the center of the city. Of course, it wouldn't be an afternoon in the park in Mendoza without a couple bottles of wine to share. We found a cute wine shop, grabbed a couple of great (and super reasonable) Malbecs, and asked the clerks to, por favor, open them for us. Naturally, they were infinitely amused by the gringos asking for three bottles of wine to be opened in shop at 4 in the afternoon, but hey, it's not every day you're in the heart of Argentinian wine country :)
Our sunny and gorgeous Friday gave way to a cloudy and chilly Saturday. For some reason though, we were all in denial about the uncooperative weather and, donning our bathing suits and shorts, headed out to the Andes for our adventure activities. Bad move.
Part of the group had signed up for trekking and rappelling in the morning and rafting in the afternoon, and some others had opted for horseback riding in the morning. Our "trek" consisted of walking across the highway to a hill and an 8 minute scramble up the side of it. Once we reached the top, there were thirty of us standing on a 10 x 10 foot patch of rock surrounded by cacti. I guess you could say it was good we were huddled together, because the wind was bitter cold and blowing hard. And then...we waited: about an hour and half, as each one of us rappelled down the 75 foot cliff.
Our guide, Gustavo, must have been mislead about our familiarity with rappelling, because he didn't feel the need to give any sort of instruction, briefing, safety tips...or say anything really. When it was finally my turn to go, Gustavo grabbed my harness and hooked me up, to my protests of "No sé como hacer esto!" (I don't know what I'm doing!"). I guess there's not that much to rappelling, because all he told me was hold one rope in one hand and the other in the other, and go. So...I did. Six minutes later I was back on solid ground, with a mild adrenaline rush, but nothing to write home about. Needless to say, I won't be taking up rappelling as a hobby.
Having frozen my butt off for the past two hours, the thought of getting splashed by frigid water made me want to cry, so I backed out of the rafting portion of the day.
With Saturday's extreme physical exertion as our excuse, a couple girls and I decided to book a spa treatment at the beautiful Hyatt hotel for Sunday morning before we headed back to Santiago. My Thai massage was wonderful, and, priced in Argentinian pesos, very reasonable. Though, I'll say, I've never had my masseuse climb onto my back and crawl on it before. (Don't worry, it was a woman). Must have been something to do with it being "Thai." Who knows?
One of my favorite things about the trip was that, after a month of feeling ashamed and defeated when I try to speak Spanish, I left Argentina with my confidence restored in my language abilities. (I knew my ten years of Spanish instruction wasn't completely in vain). They speak SO much more slowly and clearly there, and they didn't look at me like I was from Mars when I spoke to them in Spanish. Maybe they're just better than Chileans are at humoring gringos with bad accents, but I'm hoping it's more to do with the fact that my Spanish at least to a certain extent resembles their own. The "ll" sound and the use of "vos" aside, it certainly resembles their speech more closely than it does that of the speakers in my own South American hometown.
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