Mendoza!

I don't know if the big city blues made Mendoza my favorite side trip, but I do rank this city second to our Patagonia hiking excursion. Enjoying the beauty of the fall weather in Mendoza was a real treat; Sunny days, falling leaves, colorful surroundings and exceptionally friendly people, who spoke at a tempo other than a presto. Our activities were somewhat limited due to time. Regrettably, we didn't tell our language institutes, (where we work,) to bugger off. Instead, we did something completely North American and bended to the schedule of work and only had 3.5 days in this wonderful city.

In order to accommodate our liking to the weather, we spent as much time as possible outside. Eating on the large sidewalk patios of restaurants (YES! they had large sidewalks!!), was more enjoyable with less traffic of both cars and people. However, the slow, inattentive service remained the same as all throughout Argentina. Since we arrived in Mendoza on a public holiday, (Argentina's equivalent of "Labor Day happens every May 1st,) everything was closed and we were not able to book some type of high adventure excursion. Dain and I had visions of white-water rafting, rappelling, zip lines and the like, but it was impossible. With our creativity, and newfound confidence with buses, we headed back to the bus station and bought a ticket to a little mountain town called Upsallata. Anyone who's a big fan of Brad Pitt might know that parts of his 7 Years in Tibet was filmed in this town! As usual, the mountains lived up to their reputation and I sensed a feeling of calm wash over me as I took in the scenery. After a light lunch, Dain and I strolled the dirt roads. Casually, we took pictures of scenery and stopped to pet random stray dogs and horses wondering the streets. Unlike the dogs, the horses had their hooves tied, loosely and harmlessly together so they wouldn't wander off. It didn't take much for me to convince Dain that we had to take a horseback ride or "Calbagatas" for the term to rent horses.

The two hour ride was calm with a slow walk, led by our young guide Manuel. Since it was Dain's first time on a horse, he was all smiles for the entire ride. His horse, Homer, was constantly stopping to aggressively pull as much green matter in his mouth as possible. His name was well suited for him as he accurately followed the habits of Homer Simpson. My horse, on the other hand, was annoyed to work at such a late hour in the day. After an hour of riding, Corazon, (Heart), came to an abrupt stop, flattened her ears straight back and sprinted maybe 10 steps down a rocky hillside before I fell off! It was more alarming than painful, but I still wanted to punch this horse in the rump for such attitude. Manuel quickly calmed the horses and I hopped back on the beast so we could finish the adventure. The ride concluded well after dark and we quickly jumped off our horses paid the nice old man, tipped Manuel and ran to catch our bus.

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