Red wine, red meat.

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Over the Easter holidays, I went to Mendoza, Argentina with two other Rotary Scholars. It was a spontaneous trip. We booked bus tickets and rooms at the hostel about 24 hours before leaving. As a result our spontaneity, the "bus" was actually a van without any leg room or a bathroom. I do NOT recommend this method of travel. The trip across the Andes is ~8 hours, depending on border control and that van was mightily uncomfortable.

We left Santiago late Thursday night, went through customs at the Chile/Argentina border at about 1:00 a.m. and finally arrived in Mendoza at 5:00 a.m. The taxis wouldn't accept the large bills that the ATM spit out, so we walked to our hostel and crashed into bed until about noon. Friday afternoon, after recovering from the international van ride, we hopped in another van and toured two vineyards and an olive oil processing facility. The tours were great fun. Tours were offered in Spanish and English. We quickly learned the English tours were significantly smaller and got the people received more free samples, so we kept to our mother tongue! Friday evening we cooked dinner at the hostel and stayed in.

Saturday we ventured outside the city to spend the day at some natural hot springs in the foothills of the Andes. The views were stunning and the water was relaxing. We returned to Mendoza, cleaned up, and went out for a very nice dinner. We were joined by a dutch guy we met at the hostel and the four of us dined on ceviche, steak, hand-made pasta, dessert and two bottles of wine. It was divine. Splurging in Mendoza is unbelievably inexpensive. My 200-gram medium-rare filet mignon (vegetarian, what!?!)* cost a mere $18 USD. Amazing. The four of us racked up a bill of...approximately $120 USD. Considering the quantity and quality of the food/wine - it was a steal!

After eating and drinking ourselves silly, we went out to enjoy Mendoza's nightlife by dancing our way from club to club...the perfect way to work off a rich meal!

Sunday we three scholars enjoyed an "American breakfast" of eggs, ham, toast, coffee and juice before hopping back on the dreadful van for the trip West across the mountains. This time, we passed through the Andes during daylight hours, which offered beautiful views of the hills. After a headache, three-hour border crossing to get back into Chile, we arrived in Santiago at ~9:00 p.m.

When I asked others for advice of what to do in Mendoza, the answers were "drink wine" "eat beef" "relax" "enjoy". And that is precisely what we did. Just being away from Santiago was relaxing. Our hostel was wonderful, we met fun people and had a really nice weekend. I'll go back in a heartbeat....on a different bus!



*The opportunity to consume high-quality, inexpensive, grass-fed beef (or other meat) is why I'll never be a "full-time" vegetarian. Eating beef is part of experiencing Argentina, and I wasn't about to pass that up, even if I did get quite ill the next day! I'd eat that filet mignon again and again and again.

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