the first day in Mendoza... or how I thought I was going to lose my life in the ghetto...

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I arrived at 9am on the cama bus... which is the most amazing thing every invented. I've also never been on a Greyhound that I remember, so I have nothing really to compare it too. But if you read my other entry-- dinner, breakfast, movie, what more could you ask for? I must say, I held onto my things as tightly as I could...

I took the cab to my hostel, which actually isn't that far away from the bus terminal. I really could have walked. This just means that it is far away from town (which I will get to later)! So I got in, got situated, got some breakfast, and tried to figure out what I wanted to do. Immediately, wine tour and Andes are on the top. Other things to consider: trekking and rappels, paragliding, horseback riding. By the time I figured everything out, it was about noon. I didn't want to walk into the main plaza, so I decided to go take a nap and then get some food before my wine tour.

As much wine tasting as I've done, I've never done a wine tour. Maipu is where all of the wineries are, and it is absolutely beautiful. Someone recommended the bikes and wines, which I kinda wish I did. However, the wines we tasted were interesting, and the olives were delicious (we went to an olive farm. I had no idea those existed). The tree lined streets were beautiful, and it was absolutely an amazing experience. Better yet was watching the sunset along the strees on the ride back. I wish I was sitting in a better location on the bus to take pictures, because those sights were quite unforgettable.

That evening, I got back and met the two other Californians that are staying in the hostel. It turned out that Heidi graduated from Cal in 2005 as well. It was kind of weird to find that out, to say the least. Her friend Shaun went to high school with her. That's the second Shaun I've met that is a girl! That evening, we decided to go out to dinner in the main town. It's about 20 minutes to walk, and we had no idea what we wanted... but we just thought it be nice to wander around. Instead of taking a cab, like I had hoped, we decided to take the bus. We thought that any "6" bus or one that said any of the main streets (like Las Heras) would indeed drop us off here. After a long bus ride, we got to the end of the line, where the bus driver told us to get off. I had no idea where we were. We tried to get a bus to go back into town and we waited a while. We saw that a lot of the busses were turning, instead of coming up straight where we were. We walked around the corner and I noticed that it was completely dark. I decided that we should turn around and stay on the main road where there were lights, stores and some cars playing music out. I had no idea where we were, but we were not on the map of my lonely planet guide-- meaning we probably shouldn't have been there. After about 20 minutes or so of waiting for a bus, we finally saw a cab. I didn't care how much it costed, I wanted to get the hell out of there. We got in the cab and I asked the cab driver to take us to Plaza Independencia, right in the center of town. Immediately, he asked us if we had any documentation. I thought that was weird. He said there were police up the street, and he needed to know who he was transporting. I was the only three of us that actually spoke any Spanish at all. When we got to the police, the police asked the cab driver if we were bad girls (Las chicas son malas?) The cab driver said, No they are tourists. They're very nice! I thought this was the weirdest thing ever. So after the cab driver gave the police his information, I asked him, "What was that all about?" in my best spanish. He told me that there was a lot of crime in the area, and cab drivers taking bad people into different parts, with different drug crime going on... at least that's what I think. So the police documents every cab and car that comes from this part of town to see where they are going, and the cabs are tracked via radios. WOW. I was really in a bad part of town. Luckily, we made it into the center-- 15 pesos cab ride away... which means that we were really really really far away from the center. I asked him what he recommended for a restaurant. He was very nice about letting me know, but we couldn't find what he recommended. We went into another restaurant instead. I ordered for the three of us.

SO... here are the things I can say in spanish:
Hello, How are you?
Where are you from?
I'm cold.
Do you have a pen I could borrow?
Order food.
Ask for the bill.
Ask for the bathroom.

That's all I really need to know, right?

I'm definitely taking Spanish classes when I get back to the states.

Oh. I've also been using an accent mark instead of a conjunction this whole time. Thanks to Jen, who I was g-chatting with, and told me my typing was cute because of the accent marks. Go figure Spanish keyboards...

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