On to Mendoza!

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Now, having purchased tickets for Easter Island, that weren´t due to leave Santiago for a week, we decided to take a little trip to Argentina, and see what all the fuss was about.
From Santiago, it´s about a 7 hour bus ride, through the Andes! On our way to Mendoza we went at night, though, and didn´t see to much. Found a hotel fairly easily, it´s a small city with lots of touristy things going on, like wine tours and outdoorsy stuff, so lodging in all price ranges are available.
After getting settled, the first thing on our agenda was to have a famous Argentine steak for lunch...score! Ok, this is what all the fuss is about. Super cheap, expertly prepared, and the best tasting steaks, ever. Suzy even liked it a lot. The best meal in Mendoza came after a day of trekking up Cerro Cabras with guided tour...a really cold day, we actually saw snowflakes...and went rapelling down a cliff by a waterfall...Anyways, back to the food. Todd had the parilla, which was a bigger than Todd´s head (which is saying a lot) sized steak, cooked perfectly. It cost about $3. Suzy had some sort of flank steak that was well done, thin and had an awesome roqufort cheese sauce, with some pan fried potatoes. Yeah, she still dreams about it. Plus, of course, the obligatory bottle of local red wine, a Melbec, I think...anyways, you just can´t go wrong in Argentina if you like steak and wine, or even if you don´t usually like steak and wine, you would love the steak and wine in Argentina. Okay, and pastries with dulce de leche breakfast smotherings.

Oh, and Todd went mountain biking one day, and he had a good time. (mostly a downhill ride since the van dropped me and the guide off close to the top of the mountain. Easy, but bella vistas.)

But mostly, we just want to go back to Argentina and have more delicious and cheap food.

Then, we needed to head on back to good ole Santiago, in order to catch our flight to Easter Island...and this time had a bus trip during the day...tried to take some photos, but don´t think our camera could do it justice. Best view ever from a bus...passing through some of the highest mountains in the world on a beautiful blue sky day.

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