Blogs from Mendoza, Argentina, South America - page 97

Wow....sometimes there are those moments in life...that you really neeeevver thought would happen. My brother rode a horse! And he was actually better at it then the rest of us! We got to Mendoza, Argentina on Sunday. (im actually in chile now, because im a procastinator and i love it)...but it was a huge mistake, because there are festivals and soccer games in Buenos Aires on Sundays and we missed it to get to Mendoza where all the shops are closed and the people are sleeping or something. But Mendoza was a beautiful stay. VERRRRy dry. I never thought South America could be like that. But they irrigate the millions of acres of grapes with water from the mountains. We stayed at a hostel called Independencia, where my brother and 2 friends shared a room whose ... read more

So, since Jane´s Germanic birthday retreat, we´ve been travelling to the cities in the Central Pampas region. (Via a total of 20hrs on buses.) We left Tigre and headed to Rosario, a city that has a huge monument (you go up it in a lift) dedicated to the man who designed the Argentinian flag. There´s a whole plaza with hundreds of flags (all Argentinian), and a burning olympic like torch - all very over the top for a white and blue stripe with a funny sun in the middle. Then we went on to Cordoba, 2nd largest city, large student population and home of the largest all-you-can-eat restaurant. Did we? Well, of course we did! A long journey to San Juan next, through crazy small towns in the middle of nowhere and lots of nothing until ... read more

Sunshine, good food, good wine...without a doubt I can easily say Mendoza has been my fav place so far (we still have Buenos Aires, Patagonia & Rio to go so it could easily change!). We have had just under a week here and i could easily stay longer. Again we haven´t been up to too much as Matt was quite ill when we first got here so I forced him to do nothing to get better (otherwise it spoils my fun!) so we took it easy. Mendoza was detroyed in the late 1800´s by earthquake and fire so as far as the buildings are concerned it is modern, low and on wide streets that are tree-lined. There is obviously a bit of money in the town so it is really pretty. It is also full of ... read more

During our last week in Mendoza, we finished our volunteer project and said good bye to the children at Carlos Gonzolas Elementary School. Each of the boys at Pathways chipped in their own money to provide a meal of empanadas and ice cream for the children at the school. Empanadas are a traditional Argentine pie usually filled with meat and potatoes covered in a pastry crust. The children were delighted by our visit and found it hard to say good bye. Some of the kids even asked for our autographs before we left! Our next destination was San Rafael, a smaller town about three hours south of Mendoza. San Rafael is surrounded by fruit orchards, vineyards, and olive groves. We saw beautiful scenery along the way with willow trees lining the roads and an astonishing backdrop ... read more

Well, I am a bit delayed in starting this here TravelBlog, in fact the idea of doing this only occured to me yesterday afternoon, so please excuse me. Anyway, we (my school, aka Pathways, which has its own TravelBlog, and myself) have been in Mendoza for three and a half weeks now, and so far it has been a good time. So far we have gotten to know our native host, Julio, very well and have picked his brains in order to learn how to speak spanish and to learn about the culture and economy of Argentina. We have also made pretty good friends with some of the people that own/work at the hostel we are staying at. Other than that, we have just been exploring the city, going bowling, going to a couple movies, eating ... read more