Our Family Time in Mendoza

---

So I haven’t written in a few days and with good reason, we’ve been on another BENDER!! It’s been a great last few days and I will now tell the tale that has been our time here in Mendoza. On Monday we went on a bicycle tour of some wineries here around the city. We had to take a bus 45 minutes outside of the city to get to the place where we rent the bikes, it was a place called Mr. Hugo’s and he gives you free wine before and after the tour. I went with Brett, Joey, Aaron, Aldo, Xenia, Marjolein, Doortje, and Rihanna. It was a great day. We started out at the chocolate and olive oil museum where we sampled some olive oils and some liqueurs. We got our choice of shots and all the guys chose Absinthe, it was so strong and went down fairly rough. After that we got back on the bikes, which to the Dutch girls was like second nature, they said that they ride their bikes all the time in Holland when they are drunk, they can talk on the phone and smoke while riding bikes it was pretty funny to me to hear them tell the stories from Holland. I felt a little buzzed up while riding and we decided that we’d ride the longest leg of the tour to one of the wineries on the outskirts of the small village we were in. the road was rough and dirt, there were many potholes and it took a lot of effort to make it out there. We arrived and purchased quite a few bottles of very good wine and enjoyed some empanadas for a small lunch. After this we were pretty well drunk and began our ride back to Mr. Hugo. We stopped at one more winery and had some more very delicious wine, a few glasses of each to taste. Marjolein and I sat together all day and talked a lot, she was feeling a little emotional because her father was sick and was in surgery that day and she wouldn’t know exactly what the outcome of the surgery was until later on. We rode back to Mr. Hugo, pretty well drunk again and when we arrived it was somewhat of a party. Mr. Hugo was giving out wine to everyone and we drank for about an hour before catching our bus back to Mendoza. Marjolein and I got a private room in a different hostel so we could be together and we kept that room for two nights. It was a nice little room with a private terrace and when we got back to shower and changed our clothes and went to meet up with the guys and with the other Dutch girls at their hostel. We arrived and they were nowhere to be found but we asked one of the guys at the hostel where they went and they told us they went to the first place we stayed at, the Mendoza Inn for a free tequila party. The tequila was indeed free and they served us a ton of it. Aldo was doing what he called a “tequila suicide” some of you may know it by another name, “the stuntman” where you snort the salt, rub the lime in your eye and then shoot the tequila! It was wild. I had about four shots of tequila and was properly fucked up, Aaron was even more so, and his crazy ass took about 8 shots and was just straight blackout drunk! It was a really fun time for sure. We started walking back to the hostel and we all were walking in the same direction, good and drunk, we got a couple hot dogs on the way which was delicious because I had only had the empanadas that day and had been drinking wine and then tequila! God was I hammered. Marjolein and I spent a wonderful night together and got up around noon the next day, we were both pretty hung over. She got a message from her stepmom and her dads surgery went really well so that gave her some relief and I think she felt a lot better knowing that fact. After we got up and around we went to the girl’s hostel where Aaron, Joey, and Brett were also staying and we ran into Aaron on the stairs and he looked a mess. He said he’d never felt worse in his life and then we saw the girls and they were also all really hung over! Everyone was a serious mess the day after the wine tour and tequila party, that’s not surprising though. We decided that we wanted to make a nice breakfast/lunch from the grocery store so the girls went to the market and got some meats and cheese and eggs as well as some veggies and bread and in the meanwhile I went to get my laundry. I met them back at the hostel and while heading there I met Joey and Brett on the street and we walked together, they also had to get their clothes. When we got back we had some delicious sandwiches and some juice in the open air bar that their hostel had. Aaron was a mess and just lay on a nearby bench while we ate and all the guys decided to change hostels because they found a nicer one that wasn’t quite as shitty as the one they were staying in. Marjolein and I decided to take a walk around the city and see some sights, take a few pictures and spend some time together. We reserved another night at our private room so we could spend a second night together because we both had so much fun the night before and really wanted to enjoy our time together since we were parting ways on Thursday. We walked through a few plazas and got my little brother a few gifts and then we took a long walk to the huge park that is just north of the city. We sat in the park for a while and then since the walk was about an hour we decided to head back to the hostel because we were all planning a huge “Asado” that night which is an Argentinian tradition that includes meats on the grill as well as peppers halved with fried eggs and cheese inside. We arrived at the hostel and the meat was already purchased and the girls brought the left over veggies from breakfast. I prepared the seasonings for the meat, which was cool because the hostel where the guys were at had an amazing kitchen that doubles as the kitchen for the restaurant next door after 8pm. That meant that there were legitimate spices and cooking tools which made it a lot easier to do this kind of work, as opposed to many of the hostel kitchens that have nothing but what you bring to them. There is large enclosed table outside with seating for our entire family, as we began calling it, and its right next to the pool and huge grill which makes it a lovely place to have dinner and relax with everyone. We got the fire going for the grill and opened many bottles of wine and began to chat and smoke and we had some appetizers as well. I love the conversations we all have. It’s always so interesting to hear what everyone thinks of the world and the different points of view that two Australians, three Americans, two Dutch, and one Frenchman have to offer. They are all so different yet as is always the case on this trip, they are similar too. We talked for a few hours and then decided to go to the bar outside the hostel that is connected to it and have a drink. We were all really tired from the night before and the long day of just being awake, haha, so we had our drink which was too expensive and then headed home. Marjolein and I had another wonderful night in our room and packed up our stuff because we all booked a trip for the next day, Wednesday; to do some hiking and some repelling and then we would finish out the day in a thermal hot spring. Again, we enjoyed our night together as it was the last we’d have in our private room. We listened to some music and talked for a long time before heading to bed. We woke up early, after not having slept so well either of us; we woke up during the night actually at the same time and talked about how we had some bad dreams. We were up and out the door by 830a and headed to the girls’ hostel to meet the bus that would take us to the trek and repelling as well as meet the guys who like I said, were staying at the other hostel where I had booked a room for that night as well. We got to the girl’s hostel and waited around for this damn bus for almost an hour! We could have slept a lot longer and that’s my main gripe with all of it. We got on the bus and it was about an hour outside of Mendoza where we stopped and got off the bus and started our hike. The mountains were nice but compared to the Colca Canyon and Macchu Picchu it clearly paled in comparison and the hike itself was pretty unimpressive. I was wondering how well id do since I’ve been huffing dogs like a Wildman lately but it was fine and the hike was maybe an hour and a half long and when we got to the top we took some photos and then began our descent down the other side to do some repelling. There were three cliffs that we repelled down, the first was 14 meters and it was pretty cool because I hadn’t repelled since college when I had a climbing class. The second cliff was 7 meters and that was over before we knew it. The third cliff was 40 meters and that was pretty serious. Marjolein was pretty scared because she is slightly afraid of heights so she went second to get it over with, we all cheered her on. Xenia was on a precarious rock trying to take some pictures and the guide got mad at her because it was quite dangerous and she could have fallen. We all got down to the bottom and had lunch together. They were lomo sandwiches and they were only so so. We all decided that the food could have been better but it was free so whatever. We got some beer and wine as well and then went and sat in the hot springs for nearly three hours. We were all exhausted when we got out of the water and joey and I got another beer before the bus came. I passed out so hard on the bus and woke up when it stopped and got off to head to the hostel and take a power nap. I slept for about an hour and then got up and had a shower. The girls were meeting us again to have another BBQ and again they were bringing the veggies and Joey, Brett, and I went and got the wood for the fire and the meat. We had sausage and rib eye, just like the night before and again it was amazing. We had some wonderful conversation after dinner, we played the game “never have I ever” and my god were some of the stories hilarious! One of note that I have to mention here was told by Aaron, to the statement “never have I ever had sex on a boat”. He said that he had and that he was in the Mediterranean Sea in Greece and he was on a separate boat from the girl who he was with and when he got done and woke up his boat had gone and docked at another place. The captain of the boat said that because it was the middle of the night they couldn’t drive him over to his boat and he couldn’t borrow flippers and a noodle to swim over there. He said the captain went to bed or something and he stole some flippers and a noodle and tied his camera in his hat on his head with his shirt and jumped in and started swimming! He said he swam for 3 hours in the middle of the night until he finally found his boat and that he “thought he was going to die, and properly could have died” oh my god to hear him tell this story was just the most hilarious thing I have ever heard in my life we were all on the ground laughing! We went to the club after dinner and had a really great time however we were all super wasted and Marjo and I got into a little fight because there were some Argentinian guys dancing with her pretty aggressively and I wasn’t too keen about it, it wasn’t a big deal but they were taking advantage of the fact that she was so drunk, I don’t care if a girl I’m with dances with other guys just not the way these guys were groping her! We went outside and talked about it and everything was fine, I realized it was like 530a and the girls and I took a cab back to their hostel since I didn’t want them going alone at that hour of the night. I slept at Marjo’s place and left early that morning back to my hostel. I slept until about 1p when she came and woke me up, everyone in the room was still sleeping at that time I thought that was pretty hilarious. We spent the day in the sun by our pool just lying around hanging out; she was leaving that day so we wanted to spend some time together. The other guys, minus Aldo, went to the winery again, which I couldn’t fathom the way I was feeling. Doortje and Xenia turned up at our hostel a few hours later and we all hung out and talked about how hung over we were! We basically just lay around all day and didn’t do much at all until it was time for the girls to catch their bus to Cordoba. It was a sad goodbye that’s for sure but I never say goodbye forever and I hope to see Marjo and the other girls again someday, we’ll see. After they left Aldo and I went to dinner and had some pasta and a beer and then came back to the hostel and watched 300 and had another beer. I did some writing in the blog and hit the sack by 1a. Today I think we’re going to check out another winery on some bikes and probably get a little buzzed up. Tomorrow we’re leaving for Bariloche which is in the south of Argentina and from there who knows what our plan is but the time is rapidly approaching that the big guy and Mattcam are coming down here so that’s exciting for shizzle. I’ll update later and hopefully not four days from now like this is currently being written! Take care all, miss and love you.

---

Comments

[Sean]

Let the good times roll
Hey Tom, Enjoyed your post. Funny story about your friend Aaron being lost at sea. Glad you're having fun. Be safe, be well. Oh, btw, I just put up a new blog post--a crucial success principle we can learn from Robert Plant. I think you're demonstrating it! www.yourextraordinaryfuture.com/blog Peace man