Mendoza

Okay, so the past few weeks have been pretty crazy and I have not really had the time nor the energy to create a new blog entry until now. That being said, Mendoza was amazing. There were eight of us that went together as a group; Kela, Kate, Jessi, Sarah, Kelsey, Sheree, Will and I. We all arrived on Saturday morning and left Wednesday afternoon. We stayed at the wonderful International Hostel, which was recommended by a fellow traveler and we were all very pleased by how accommodating the people were.



The first adventure that we embarked upon was horseback riding at Sunset in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. It was pretty cool, I had never ridden a horse before, nor am I reeling to go again, and I thought that it was quite fun but a little nerve-racking because at times we were trotting on trails with cliffs and valleys on both sides with only mere feet of path for the horse to walk on. I just hoped that my horse, Leonardo, was very content with his lifestyle because there was literally nothing I could have done to prevent him from taking both of us off the cliff, but he didn't so it was fun. Although, Leonardo was not quite Seabiscuit and he had an uncanny desire for eating the shrubbery along the path's edge rather than keeping up with the group so I was forced, on a few occasions, to strike him like I were coming into the last 200 meters of the Kentucky Derby. After the 2-3 hour ride in the mountainside, we sat down for an asado with our fellow ranchers and guachos until the early hours of the morning, enjoying the bottomless wine and lively conversations of fellow travelers and alike.


The next day, Sunday, we awoke bright and early at around 8ish to start a new day of adventure. We were going white water rafting at 9am so we had to hurriedly cram some scones down accompanied by a cup of black coffee before setting off. The rafting location was more than adequate, it had a swimming pool, bar and restaurant next to the river for some post-rafting cool down. As you can see from the picture we had to wear helmets, full-bodied wetsuits, windbreakers and of course life-jackets. It was my first rafting experience and it was quite thrilling, not quite movie-esque but still pretty awesome. The actual rafting was about an hour and yes, I fell out but not until the very end when it was completely avoidable and the water...was cold.

Monday we wondered around the town, bought some wine and had a sort of picnic/lunch in the huge park that is as big as the city of Mendoza, located north of the city. We left Monday open for relaxation and that was exactly what we did.
Tuesday we did what all must do when in Mendoza, taste wine. We went on an all day tour of four wineries, one olive oil vineyard, and one chocolate liquor factory. Mendoza is famous for its Malbec wine with I believe is a pretty niche market, thus making it one of the only regions supplying it to the world. At each Winery we were taught different techniques on how best to really appreciate the wines and how to savior the taste...whatever, wine is wine.

Wednesday was spent at the hotel readying ourselves for our 15 hour bus ride back to BsAs, which concludes this post but I am still behind. I will have a couple new posts when I receive pics, one about Kate's visit here and another about my trip to Iguazu!