the details of mendoza..

wow.. this week has been so busy i havent gotten a chance to catch up so i'll try and remember as much as i can.. basically we got up super early on sat morning (greeted by our drunk house boy who was talking super loud and woke up the other one.. funny people come in at 4 30 from a night out) we arrived a the airport at 5 and again on the way saw tons of people out like it was the middle of the day or something...the flight to mendoza was quick and i even got to lay all the way down in the back of the plain. Our breakfast was some cookies that amounted to 1000 calories.. something i realized after the fact! we dropped our things off at the hotel once in mendoza and headed straight to the rafting place. the bus ride was beautiful and even more refreshing than the sights was the air! i could definitely notice a difference in the air quality going from the enormous city where i feel my lungs being blackened to the prestine wine countryside..it was good for the soul. Anyways, while on the bus we met our guides.. Pablo or Caru, the other Pablo (the "professional photographer") and later the 3rd Pablo.. haha they aren't too inventive with names here. We were given an awesome neoprene wet suit with boots and gloves to top it off.. the water was freezing! Our guides name was Crusty..and he was interesting. ITs funny becuase alot of the people i've met thus far speak english and you just dont know it.. that was definitely the case with 2 of the pablos and alot of the other tourist people..i suppose they have to know english bc thats who comes here to visit. Wouldn't you know half way through the meandering river.. i had to go to the bathroom. We had stopped for a minute on the side and i decided to run up the hill and go. However i didnt want to take off my neoprene suit because it would take a while and the air was COLD..so i just went in it haha It didnt really occur to me that nothing would be able to escape my jumpsuit which was kinda nasty but just made me laugh. I was nervous everyone would see just what i did because all the boats were waiting for me as i can running down the hill.. oh well mission accomplished and only 1 person asked how i did it so fast...and i told them :) By the time we finished our escapade down the river, we were cold and hungry. Everyone was able to rinse off and put back on their warm clothes. After a little while we were seated a large table and the food started to come! Whenver they eat lunch here... they eat! Breakfast and dinner are miniscule and lunch is huge.. (too bad back in the city we eat lunch on the go making the amount of food i eat in total not much). It started with empanadas, then salad, then bread, then papas fritas and then a mystery plate.. This man with a sick mustache came out and started to cut into something that looked like a huge bread casserole..but of course inside it was a TON of tender meat.This guy was proud of his cooking and everyone could tell :) so we're enjoying this beautiful meal all the while looking out the glass windows at the andes, the clear river and the beautiful blue sky when all of the sudden I CHOMPED on my tongue. Talk about ruining a moment.. this hurt SO bad I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, all i could do was sit there and tears started running. NO one knew what had happened and with the sun beating on me.. i was literally in the hot seat with my friends wondering what happened. It was so stupid.. but i gathered myself.. informed everyone what had just happened and that i was ok.. and continued to try and enjoy the moment. Later i went to the bathroom and i've never seen such a mangled tongue from one chomp..not to self.. eat SLOW and carefully haha. Once finished (a couple hours later) we loaded up to head out..however I was in the bathroom when they started pulling out and ran out there just in time (they said they were simply backing up but i dont know :) ) also there was a super cute little mut running around and he brought so much joy to me! all the dogs here just bring comfort because they remind me of mine and how much i love animals. We headed an hour away to the canopying place and the 1st guy we met was NORMAN! haha we were signing waivers and what not when all the sudden a bench these girls were sitting on just split and they went falling to the ground.. haha it was really funny because they had noticed it rocking earlier and enjoyed it. We got the run down on how to do our caribeaners and then hiked up to rope number 1. The view was somewhat contrasting but still beautiful. We were on mountains made of a bunch of little rocks, and dirt and twiggish bushes.. not very eyecathching..but when you looked out, there was a beautiful blue/green lake that backed up all the way to a pretty mountain in the back. I loved the air rushing by, sounds of excitement, the whizzing of the cable and the silent movements of the guides telling us to slow down. This activity was one of the first that got my hear rate up in like 2 weeks.. climbing up to the ropes that is. I dont get to work out or run much in BA becuase people just dont do that here. It was funny that i was enjoying the view so much and talking about it with my friends when all of the sudden one of the prissy black girls says " I dont know why yall like this.. they're just a bunch of big rocks"...which is a ridiculous description of the freakin ANDES. after we finished the 8 zip lines including on HUGE one over the lake.. we all gathered on the porch and got to sit for a while. Will and I were just taking in the beauty accompanied with some smooth spanish songs when a hip american song came on and put a whole new spin on the view. the ride home was enjoyable but everyone was exhausted. We showered and went to dinner where we got the special "malbec" wine of mendoza. I dont know what it is but wine by itself is just too much so i mix it with sprite and its perfect. Luckily we were planning on going to bed right after the meal because the wine made us all soo tired. That was one of the first nights since arriving to argentina that I slept soundly. Breakfast was a large one thank goodness as we had a long day ahead of us. the picture on the left is acongagua which is where we went sunday. it was a long 2 hour ride there but enjoyable still. we stopped a little touristy shop and i got a mug to use for my tea here since they're cups are the size of a little girls tea party set. we walked around a little loop for 45 mins or so and that was our activity for the day. One of the coolest things though was that bonnie brought andes mints... so we had fun eating andes in the andes! we were kinda bummed because the walk was cool but not a replacement for skiing. However they couldnt really do anything bc we stopped by the ski place on the way.. and not a drop of snow was there. Instead of telling us theres not enough snow to ski, they should've said NONE. haha it was a cute little village though that looked somewhat like vail without all the stores and resturants. we stopped at a another little place on the way home that had some cool hats made of alpaca fur. There was an old spa that was closed because some huge rocks fell on it and killed 7 people.. the rest of the people that were there got out but it has been closed ever since. It was a spa with natural hot springs and since its been closed for a while.. the hot water has discolored the rock to orange and green slime looking stuff..it was really weird looking. I was bummed i didnt get to buy anything there because it was all hand made and good quality but i'm sure i'll have plenty of other places to get things. From there we headed to eat lunch at a small little place. We got empanadas, salad, papas fritas and then meat. ONe of the choices was intestine and i tried it.. NASTY. another choice was goat and even though i love those little guys.. i tried it.. and it was good. We went back to the hotel and i just needed to work out.. so i got my stuff on and went down to the hotels little gym. I on one of those machines that has the weights and you can sit facing them and pull the bar backwards to work your triceps or pull the bar from above to work your biceps. Well i tested both bars before sitting down and then pulled the bottom one to get it working.. wouldnt you know the top one feel off on to my head and gave me a huge welt. It most definitely could've knocked me out but thankfully didnt. Again an unfortunate event that hurt!! After that i just needed some fresh air so we went on a brisk walk around the town.. we didnt make it too far before we ran into a festival. We took a look and found some things we liked and wanted to go get some money. The last table was a group of old men that knew a few words of english like beautiful and come back.. haha and they said them to me. We came back with our money and got a cool journal, some earrings and some other people got wine holders and stuff. The men starting singing to us an english song when we were leaving and it was just funny. We showered and went to subway afterwards and one of the same old guys who had told me his favorite resturant came up and was like.. umm this isnt where i told you to go and we just said we needed to american food. After that, the boys wanted mcdonalds ice cream so we went there! We got back around 12 and a group was getting ready to go out to the club with one of our younger guides (about our age). I decided i was only in mendoza once and went with them. We went to apeteco and it was aweosome! we got in free and only the boys had to pay. It was a classy place with blue lights and it was happening. We sat down and everyone got their drinks of choice and at about 2 30.. it started getting crazy. The table of boys behind us was super rowdy and when they started to bang their cups on the table in a rythm it was time for us to join :) That entertained them for a while and then one of the quietest girls got up on the table and was dancing..unfortunately the club owners didnt like this and it came to an end.. but only for a minute. The tables started to disappear and it got super crowded. Our little group was staying closely knit because its so obvious we're foreigners. There were some interesting run ins but nothing too weird. I think everyone had a good time and half of the group left at about 3 but some of us stayed until about 4 me included. We were so tired and our ears were ringing after 4 hours of dancing! I loved the music there and the fact that the dancing there wasnt the same type as in american clubs. I liked this club much better than the one in BA because it was not sketchy, the music wasnt american and overall feel was much safer. Im glad i went but dont envision myself frequenting clubs like the rest of the argentines do. THe next morning came quickly as we headed out to horse back ride! it was kind of a last minute decision but i am supre glad our group leaders worked it out. We went in the opposite direction this time and it took a while to get there. The horses were so old and just a bunch of followers but it was great to get up into the mountains and then see out over the city. We went in two groups and ours was the first. I was on a beautiful tall horse that i spotted immediately and asked to ride it (gringo was his name). When the next group went, i got a chance to wonder up the hill and just sit admiring the beauty of where i was. It was some much needed quiet time as that is few and far between thus far on this trip. I also got to chat with Marcela who is one of the cordinators here.. she speaks english but we chatted in spanish for about 20 mins just about alot of Afterwards, Gary (one of the professors) and I realized that over the hill offered some good shots and we took off to do that..while the rest of the group went to see the guanacos (llama like animals) Apparently my friend and traveling partner katie was enjoying the animals and went to take a picture when all the sudden he let it out on her and covered her in spit! My other friend bonnie was laughing at her and he turned and got her toO! haha they were covered and it was gross. They had little goats and i was so glad to see animals. From there we went to a quaint little wine place and had a spread that was unbeleievable. There were like 30 little trays of everything you could imagine. It was beautiful and we were all served some wine to go with it. we soon learned that the spread in front of us wasnt even our lunch and thats what empanadas started coming. Then other little things came and it was great. We had a pretty intense conversation about religion with one of the boys and we tried to keep it friendly but this particular kid is an intersting character. We had a wonderful dessert, took some pics and headed to the winery for some wine tasting. Unfortunately at this point my big camera's battery was just about gone so i didnt get as many pics as I would've liked. It was also really funny when we were on the bus to the winery because everyone was feeling a little something from the wine. The tour was nice but I didnt really listen because I was busy taking the few pictures i could. We tasted two different kinds of wine after walking through the underground cellars.. they are SOO huge! The first one we tasted was a combo of 3 diff types and was 2005 i think.. and the second was a 2000 something malbec that was super bitter. Then of course everyone got to buy stuff and be a tourist. We headed back to the hotel, got our things together and then headed off to the airport. I would say i had a wonderful time on this trip because we were in the outdoors and the whole group was together. During the week in BA we dont really see everyone besides our group lunch and tango lessons. ONe of the black girls danielle was fed up during the hiking trip and said "alright I'm done being dora the explorer for the day".. i thought that was hilarious. So thats a wrap.. so sorry for the long post but i just gotta get it all down somewhere!