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Published: November 16th 2010
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So we have headed West, and made it to Mendoza after a 12 hour overnight bus journey. Again, not disappointed by the quality of the coaches, in fact this one exceeded all expectations. Not only was it comfortable, but they showed a movie in English this time, we had been getting accustomed to watching english films dubbed into Portuguese with Spanish subtitles, so this was a rare treat. The highlight of the journey was without doubt the game of bingo that the whole bus played. Am fairly certain however, that one of us would have been in the winner's enclosure had it not been for the slight language barrier issue. All in all not a bad way to learn some numbers in Spanish, made even more important as the prize was a bottle of plonk. For those of you interested, we can confirm that the translation of bingo is still bingo.
We arrived in Mendoza early and walked straight to our hostel. We had decided to stay in Mendoza Lodging Hostel as the reviews we had read mentioned great steaks there. The owner's name was Gustavo, and he told us that the hostel used to be his restaurant. We were dropping
a phenomenal number of hints, as we were very keen to sample his cooking. Although no longer a restaurant, the kitchen was still in place, and we all marvelled at how big the grill was (Parrilla).
Unfortunately he didn't get the hints (again, perhaps a language thing), so we decided to console ourselves by booking a tour of the wine region as Mendoza produces 70% of Argentina's wine, and is famed for its Malbec. We thought this had to be a good thing and thought this the best cure for "coach lag". Having done a similar tour earlier on in our trip when in Stellenbosch, we consider ourselves quite the conoisseurs, and were geared up for another chance to dazzle the group with our skills and knowledge. Language was again proving the sticking point as, once more, we missed most of the guides explanations. Not to worry, wine is wine, and although it didn't come in vast quantities, it was still very good indeed. The Argentinians do know there stuff, especially the Malbec.
We returned to the hostel, and decided to be a little more direct with Gustavo. Pointing and waving our arms around, along with saying how nice the
butchers around the corner looked did the trick, and Gustavo said that if we went to buy meat he would happily cook it for us the next day.
First thing the following morning we headed to the butchers, chaos closely describes this place, and with a bit more pointing and gesticulating, we walked out with steak and chorizo. Not sure if Gustavo was happy with our choice of cut, but he was still willing to see what he could do with it.
To build up an appetite we decided to walk around Mendoza. It is fair to say that the good folk of this city love to shop, especially for shoes with zapaterias all over the place. A bit like piranas smelling blood, these shops were a feeding frenzy of women tearing at each other to get to the best bargains with the biggest heels. Frightening.
Back at the hostel and the grill was on. The reviews we had read were not wrong as we were treated to the best steaks we have both ever had. We spent the entire evening chatting to our gracious host, and were soon to realise that the more malbec in the system, the better
our Spanish gets, as we ended up talking about various topics including the Argentinian government system?!
An early (and slightly tricky) departure the next morning saw us take a coach over to Chile. This was our first view of the Andes and we were treated to some spectacular views as we went. Oddly enough the weather on the Argentinian side was sensational, but as we neared the border it started to turn a little. The border crossing is at 3260 metres, and at this level we experienced our first snow, which in t-shirts, is not ideal. The rain started as soon as we crossed the border, and didn't stop for the rest of the day. It turns out that we were one of the last buses across the border that day, as the they had to close it due to the weather, and it didn't re-open for a couple of days.
Now in Chile we have made it to Santiago, staying in La Casa Roja. This is the best hostel we have stayed in so far. It has everything including 3 bars and a cricket net?! Who knew that the Chileans played cricket, but the hostel is owned by a
couple of Australians so that goes some way to explain the net.
We leave on our tour tomorrow, heading South to Patagonia, and then looping back up the East coast with our final destination being Buenos Aires. Going back to truck life for a month will be interesting, but we will cover a lot of ground and we get to see everything on our "to do list". I wonder if we have packed enough warm clothes.....
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Syd & Sue
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Wow...wine!
Hi Megs & James, so nice to hear of your travels, and James aren't you lucky you don't have baggage room for more shoes! It all sounds magnificent, and just wish we had kept the Pharmacists name, address & ph no. in Buenos Aires - you could have had the best accommodation ever - he actually owns the company.. Never mind you'll just have to rough it. The weather sound a bit like Australia...go over the border and sunshine or rain. Although this year you need to go west and its sunshine, everywhere else it is wet, wet, wet. We had a great trip on Indian Pacific - just got the flu but loved the train ride, food was magnificent and company was pretty good too. Take care and our love to you both. xx xx