1st trip: Mendoza-- wine country of Argentina
Thursday 8/12
Started the 14 hour bus trip to Mendoza. We had to leave at 8 PM.
Friday 8/13
We arrived in Mendoza at around 10 AM and to our surprise it was snowing! Legitimately snowing! At this point I was so out of it from the bus ride that I don't think I realized how crazy it was that I was literally just walking through the snow like it was no big deal. I understand this is only weird because I have lived in San Diego my whole life and there rain is a huge deal! We arrived at our hostel- there were 6 of us- but we had to wait to check in at 12:30. Luckily there was some breakfast still left over when we arrived so we were able to get some of that. After eating breakfast we just kind of hung out in the hostel for a little bit and tried to make our plan for the day. Apparently everything started earlier in the morning, but there was one thing we could still do and that was to go up to see the Andes, which was only about an hour away from us. The bus ride was only 12 pesos roundtrip (3 dollars) so we were pumped! We got to the mountains and it was freezing outside. I don't think I have ever been that cold in my entire life! We got to eat at a restaurant that was right next to the mountains, but this place was freezing inside too! We got some good food here and I had lasagna for the first time since being here! After eating we went down to go see the mountain which a had a lake right next to it. It was BEAUTIFUL! After this we had to flag down a bus to get back to Mendoza for the night. That night we just went out for dinner which was empanadas and had some dessert. We went to bed right when we got back because we were all so tired.
Saturday 8/14
Today we had scheduled our bike-wine tour. We had to catch a bus at 9 AM so that we could be taken to the place to pick up our bikes. When we arrived to the bike place, there was a man there who had already scheduled all of our stops at the wineries and had planned out our route. We took off on our bikes in search of the first winery. We got there eventually and along the way we got to see such amazing scenery. We biked right through the town, so there were cars along side us for the most part but on one side of our bike tour we got to see the Andes covered in snow! It was beautiful and made up for the fact that we were freezing. I don't think it is very common for people to do the bike-wine tour in the winter because we got a lot of weird looks from the locals, looking at us like we were crazy for attempting to bike in freezing weather. The first winery we got to was really small and family owned. We got to try 2 wines here and then we were off. The second winery was a lot bigger than the first and exported wine internationally including locations like the United States. We had lunch here which consisted of pizza, which was amazing! After lunch we had our tour around the whole winery. It's crazy to see how much wine can be held in one place and to just hear the process of how the wine is made. This second winery also made grape juice! We went to one last winery on our bike tour and this was an organic winery. They only made red wine because they were just started to prepare to make white wine. Once again, she walked us through the winery and talked about how wine is prepared organically. All in all the wine tour was fun and pretty enlightening on what goes into making just one bottle of wine!
Sunday 8/15
Today we had to leave our hostel at around 9 AM to take a shuttle to our adventure of the weekend. We had decided to do zip-lining today. I was very nervous about this trip because I hate the feeling of loosing my stomach and wasn't really sure how I was going to handle this. We got to the place where the zip-lining was going to go down, but had to wait about 30 minutes for another group to arrive so we could start. During this time I became even more nervous after seeing the zip-line that ran across the lake I was terrified! hah! Eventually it was time for us to get geared up and after asking a million questions of whether my equipment was on tight enough and pestering the poor instructor it was time for us to do the first zip-line. It was absolutely amazing! I didn't loose my stomach at all and it was just me flying in the air above the Andes! I still can't believe that I did it but am so glad I did. The last two zip lines that we did were over a lake and they were the longest ones. I can truly say that this was an experience that I will never forget and am so glad to have had the opportunity to have tried it! And I can officially say I have zip-lined in Argentina in the Andes!
More zip-lining
the group!
RECOLETA CEMETERY:
Last weekend I decided to venture to the Recoleta Cemetery. It is not just an ordinary cemetery, it is huge and there aren't really graves, it's more like a luxurious little house that people build for their whole families to be buried in. At first I was very excited because I had heard so much about this place, but as we got there I was a little creeped out just because the caskets aren't actually buried in the ground, but are placed inside the house that is built for that family. The cemetery is really cool though because a lot of famous people from Argentina are buried there like Evita, who was Peron's wife (the President at one time and who started the Peronist movement in Argentina). I'm not sure how much it costs to be buried there but when I asked my host mom, Matilde, she made it seem as though it is very very expensive. While walking around, I made a friend with a stray cat who I like to think lead us on a tour around the cemetery because he waited for us while we took pictures of some of the graves and then continued to walk with us. We eventually lost this little dude, but he kind of added to the creepiness of the place because he was a black cat. There was also a funeral that was happening while we were there, so that was kind of cool/weird. All in all a good day.
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