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Published: August 8th 2007
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what more could a vegetarian girl ask for on her summer holiday through South America, than a final hurrah in Mendoza?
open air terraces, grand pedestrian plazas, vineyards ....
or, lots of meat, of every conceivable variety, and snow
yes, snow.
after our 30 hours or so with our friends from Turbus, we indeed found ourselves in wine country.
sweet wine country.
ok, so we arrived around 10pm, had to sort out accomodation and were met by a queue and lack of taxis that would rival xmas time in Sydney, but, nonetheless, we sorted out some accomodation, checked in and wandered down the street to find ourselves in a little tapas place that did a good plate of tostadas, red meat of some variety (or course) and a nice malbec.
all good so far, albeit that a quick shower led to a stream of water flowing down the outside of the water boiler, extinguising the flame, and leaving a steaming wet floor, and a lovely gas smell in the room....
the next morning we wake up and wander into town, realising that our hostal is not only quite a walking distance from the centre of town, but it is also darn
cold.
once again, we find ourselves wearing everything in our packs to ward off the cold.
must be those mighty Andes ...
we roam aimlessly for a while taking in all that Mendoza has to offer and then settle into a street side cafe where we brave it outside in the few rays of sunshine that are trying to warm a weary city.
another nice bottle of malbec helps to warm the cockles.
Mendoza was always going to be a resting point to organise the next leg of our adventures, and this is exactly what we have done.
whilst we have changed flight tickets and shopped for new clothes (punched some big holes in the credit card, but it had been a while since we last used those cards), we also took some time out to head up the hill to see what the snow fields had to offer.
can honestly say, that skiing was the last thing on my mind when i was packing all my skirts and singlet tops into my backpack, tho, as it has been a long time since i have seen them, one must take opportunities as they present.
so, skiing it was.
the dutchman
was particularly pleased with the prospect of being able to ski in the Andes, so with enough enthusiam for the both of us, we boarded the little bus first thing in the morning and headed back up to 3,500m to don a pair of skis and swoosh down the mountains.
the only thing was, that we picked a day that was bitterly cold and snowing. what didn't help was the severe lack of any decent rental gear. meaning that even i had to wear ski pants 4 sizes to short, and for Rene they didn't even have any left! no snow goggles left either, and ski boots were past their use-by date, and also very very cold and wet on the inside....
visibility was pretty rotten and it was hard to visualise the Andes soaring above us, but our imaginations filled in the blanks and it was pretty amazing to be skiing in the second highest mountain range in the world.
one could say this was the silliest thing we've done on this trip so far, but then again possibly also the most fun thing!
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