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Olatz and I got a ride about 5 minutes after we stuck our thumbs out. Fortunate considering it was about 5pm by the time we started due to the shop being late repairing my glasses. Two guys stopped and said they were going about 20km down the road, good enough. We hopped in. Abut five minutes later as they were chatting away about what they did and where they live, they offered us to come into their place for a bit of whisky. No thanks, we answered, we just want to get to Mendoza. This could be a bit dodgy I thought but we just thanked them for the offer and assured them we just wanted to get to our destination and our boyfriends were waiting for us there - our martial-art-instucting-boyfriends. We got another ride quite easily, an old man who was going to a place called Rio Cuarto and chatted to us quietly, stopped to buy us drinks or food and then offered us money when he found out we were young unemployed travellers hitching to save money. No thanks we said but he was insisting and indicated that he had more than enough. We persistently refused and thanked
him for showing us a cheap hotel in Rio Cuarto and the ride. Still not sure if he was just a kind old man or a lonely one.
We stayed in Rio Cuarto for what ended up being 3 days. It was one of those cities where there really is nothing to do unless you know someone or work in the damn town. Worse still everything shut at midday and stayed closed for 3 hours - a real siesta town. We did meet up with Olatz's mate Gorka though - a guy who I waould end up randomly meeting three times in South America. We hung out with an Argentinean friend of his from Couch Surfing and had a good old fashioned BBQ Argentinean style washed down with lots of beer. I got tired towards the end of the night after talking Spanih for 6 hours straight and it being 2am and all, and dragged Olatz back to our one star hotel.
We arrived in Mendoza the day before New Years, lucky enough to catch a ride with a truck driver going all the way to Mendoza without stopping. I couldn't understand a work he said through his thick accent so was glad Olatz was there to translate. We also had a funny ride with a couple before that who I could actually talk to and when they got excited about the fact that I was from New Zealand they asked me if we have beaches. I reiterated that New Zealand is an island and therefore is surounded by the sea and has many beaches.I think they were a bit embarrassed about that but ask a silly question.. It's not as bad as the Argentinian who thought we were joined to Asia and Australia - but you're from the Australasian continent right? No you don't understand I replied, it's an area of sea and land, not just a land continent.
Anyway so in Mendoza we checked into one of the only hostels we could find which was barely upto standard and I'm sure gave me bedbugs for the second time in Argentina. Everything was closed so we spent 2 days there walking around the plazas and streets and eating food out of petrol stations. I learnt the hard way it is very hard to find anything there that has any fruit or vegetable content, and I was supremely happy when the supermarkets opened again. On that day we were informed by the hostel that we had to leave as the people from the 'March for Peace' (30, 000 of them) had bookedout all the accomadation in Mendoza. Great timing! We rented a tent and took a local bus to the mountains as Olatz had been pining and wining for the mountains non-stop for the past 4 days. They were amazing to look at and we hopped off at las penidentes and set up our tend beside the river as all the accomadation was ludcrisly expensive na who needs a bed anyway? It worked out quite well with the first night me meeting a fellow Wellingtonian in the local cafe while I was cheekily getting them to boil my rice for me. We talked together for a while with a bunch of Columbians I met and figured that she and I had a common friend in Wellington and used to work in the same building. crazy huh?
Olatz and I walked up the mountains behind us the next day for 6 hours, stopping by crystal clear streams to splash our faces and admire the view. There really is nothing like it. We only turned back when we meet a river we couldn't feasily cross and then saw some policemen mounted on horseback. I'd never had a run in with the police but they were rumoured to be corupt in Argentina and I could see them demanding a fee or paper so show we could walk here.
After 3 days camping Olatz decided to continue onto Chile and head South. I needed to head to Bolivia and so bussed back to Mendoza and return the tent and take the next bus to Salta in the North of Argentina.
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