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Published: November 8th 2012
Today we woke up nice and early and decided we needed to be on horses pronto. Our hostel was able to find us a very romantic sunset horseback riding tour which we booked immediately. We had a few hours to kill before hand so we decided to take a lap around the city.
Mendoza is a super cute, medium sized town. I'm not sure what business goes on here other than wine, but they seem to be doing very well. The city was rebuilt after a devistating earthquake a ways back so now the streets are nice and wide and there are many open plazas intended to be used as evacuation zones in the event of another disaster. There city also as a quirky gutter system where the gutters serve as a four foot deep moat around the streets. Its a matter of time before one of us falls into it.
We ended up at the city park, which was HUGE and absolutely gorgeous. Unprepared but unafraid we started into what ended up being a pretty intense hike. We hiked up the mountain found in the middle of the park which gave us phenominal views of the city below.
Sporting dresses and flip flops we probably looked like fools climbing up the hill, but that's nothing new. We eventually made it to the top, and as it was probably a good 90 degrees out we collapsed immediately. The view was spectacular though so I'm sure one day I'll look back at it and think it was worth it.
Our walk back went very quickly as it was all down hill. We found a cute little pizza restaurant to grab food and the obligatory liter of Quilmes before heading back to the hostel. We cleaned up and got ready for our horsebacking adventure.
Two guys picked us up in a van along with 5 other Aussies. We then proceeded to drive 40 minutes into the mountains until we reached their ranch. Here we saddled up and headed into the mountains. Without and instructions or tips for riding a horse, our guide decided to give me the tiny racehorse known for it's crazy antics. When I told him I'd never ridden a horse before (elephants sure, horses no) he just laughed and said I'd be fine. We wound our way up a mountain until we reached the top right
as the sun was about to set. We had a great view of Mendoza below.
We eventually made it to another spot where they had prepared a huge barbeque for us. We sat around a bonfire, ate 15 pounds of DELICIOUS steak while they sang traditional Argentinian folk songs while playing the guitar. We bonded quickly with our Australian friends, and as is typical when there is an endless supply of delicious red wine we had an amazing evening.
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