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Plaza Independencia
Main Plaza right by our hostel Hello Everybody,
I finished the last blog when we were leaving Pucon in Chile after the weather worsened.
We took a overnight bus all the way up to Santiago de Chile where we were able to avoid a possible five hour wait by jumping on an earlier bus for Mendoza.
This journey was very beautiful, winding up through the mighty Andes, snow-capped mountains and pristine lakes.
We came out the other side in Argentina and the city of Mendoza - the wine making capital and more importantly 290 days of sun a year!
Getting of the bus we were approached by a representative from the hostel that we had planned on staying at, we got in his buggy with a very drunk scot and turned up at our hostel - bar downstairs, free internet and on first sight lots of activities going on.
We stayed in perhaps the pokiest room in Argentina, with no natural light - we dumped our things and left to explore the city - L.P describes it as leafy which is probably the perfect adjective, lots of well maintained beautiful plazas and streets with an affluent european feel.
In the evening we met the other travellers
in the hostel including an Israeli that clearly has gone out of his way to look like John Travolta from Grease, the ridiculous hair, cheesy smile and a black T-shirt that barely covered his belly button.
The next day we went on the wine tour in the area surrounding the city called Maipu. The first winery was quite small and family run. On arrival everyone hungrily ate the free grapes and tried to look interested in the rather rehearsed speech the guide was giving us explaining the long process and showing us various machines. We then got to the wine tasting - I´m not a big wine drinker every wine I have tried seems to taste the same but these wines were much nicer and had very distinct flavours - the guide was explaining.
Later we visited a larger winery where the two israeli girls in our group werent even listening to the tour just taking hundreds of photos of themselves - posing in true miguel sanchez uvita style (no pyramid as there were only two of them) against really insignificant things.
We also visited a liquour factory where we got a taste - a few of our tour group
were looking a bit rosie cheeked by this stage.
We finished the tour at a chocolate factory where we bought some alfombras - cakes filled with dulce de leche and covered in chocolate.
We asked Chipie our guide about good restaurants in the area and he recommended us this place where for 20 pesos ( 4 pounds) you get all you can eat /literally every type of food, me and Laura ate so much that we both waddled back to the hostel feeling very sick!
The next day we rented bikes and cruised about the city up to a huge park with views of the Andes as well as a picturesque lake with mendocinas going for their daily jog. Luckily we made it back for me to watch the Champions League Final, great game, Arsenal were very unlucky.
In the evening we got a bus to a huge shopping mall outside the city to book the Da Vinci Code for Thursday - the day it came out, we aren't the coolest! The lady at the box office seemed to find something funny and when we turned up the next day to watch the film with the other eight people we
the camera loves them
Photo number 1762 from the wine tour realised. After the film that if anyone hasnt seen is quite different to the book we decided to go bowling (Laura doing the same thing I did when we played about two years ago - wenna you know!)
Friday we spent the day doing a tour into the Andes organized by our hostel. We stopped at various incredible view points, a famous hotel, ancient bridge with the other travellers that included a rather strange Israeli - not the first I've met on this gap year who taught us a bit Hebrew and a lovely couple- the man from chile and the woman from colombia.
After stopping for lunch and trying mate again - (this time with sugar which was a lot more drinkable) we visited Aconcagua National Park which protects Cerro Aconcagua over 6960 metres high (nearly twice as high as Cerro Terbi). Between January and March every experienced climbers come to try to climb the mountains that takes 14 days. We walked to a mirador but unfortunately we couldn't see the mountain due to localized cloud not to mention extreme cold and a snow blizzard.
Back on the bus we stopped at the only naturally made bridge in the
world supposedly - puente del Inca.
In the evening we went to a barbeque and party organised by the hostel which was great fun, we ended up at the busiest club I have ever been in, girls got in free so there were hundreds.
On saturday we booked our bus ticket to Buenos Aires which according to everyone we have spoken to is absolutely amazing! more steak, tango, beautiful architecture, great shopping and a notoriously good nightlife await!
For those who read every word of that I congratulate you.
hope you are all well
Nathanxx
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