It turns out that blogging is harder to keep up with than I had expected. I thought now is just as good as any to bring you all up to date on my eventful 2010 year. After my sister's 11 day visit I had the week to recharge my batteries before I was again swept up in my official tour guide position. This time with two of my best friends from high school Carolyn and Chris. For their visit I decided to jam pack as much traveling and cover as much ground as we could in the period of 7 days. I had barely let them put down their bags and freshen up before we were off devouring steak and wine and went out for a long day and night exploring Buenos Aires. Early the next morning, after getting home at 6, we left our house at 8 and headed over on the Buquebus ferry to Carmelo, Uruguay for 1 day and 1 night.
In Carmelo, Carolyn and Chris got their first taste of horseback riding, we kayaked out to swim in the sunset, they experienced a traditional asado and the official wine of Uruguay, tannat along with home made cheeses made at a family run vineyard called Narbona. Writing about it transports me back to the rustic style restaurant with bottles carefully stacked together to create a wall and a sleepy feel to the restaurant where you can wander the vineyards or lounge lazily on comfy couches enjoying the best dulce de leche I have had in my life. Trust me, I'm an expert now.
The day after we got back from Carmelo, the three of us flew out to Mendoza, the official wine country of Argentina. Mendoza is located to the west of Buenos Aires and to the east of the Andes Mountains and has it's claim to fame for the Argentine wine Malbec. I had insisted to both Carolyn and Chris that we stay in a hostel, it's more economic and it's part of the Latin American travel experience. After calming Carolyn's nerves I reassured her that this hostel had been highly recommended by my friends, had a pool and that hostel's are generally fun and safe places. Chris and I had backpacked Europe together and knew how great hostels could be, Carolyn, on the other hand had never had the joy of sharing a room with 5 strangers. Confident and cocky I walked into our hostel looking forward to hanging by the pool and flopping down on my bed. We get our room assignments, and walked to our 6 man room. As we entered the room we were greeted by a truly awful stench and sight. His name was Lewis and was a 38 year-old Canadian that was lying on his back on the bottom bunk mwith his grotesque belly hanging out over his unzipped trousers, "Sorry I've been pretty sick lately he grumbled." I looked at Carolyn and noticed the on-edge "I'm going to kill you" look that I have seen only a few times in my life. "I hope you feel better," quips Carolyn. We quickly discard our belongings in their respective lockers and pray that Lewis is not in the room when we get back.
Jaws
I try to make the most out of our smelly living situation. "At least he's only here for one night. In the meantime lets check out the pool." We agree and walk into the sunny, arid air and look for the pool. The pool is deceptively small. It's like a giant hot tub, but cold and grimy looking...not something that any of us are willing to wade into. I started feeling anxious about our accomodations, I was the tour guide after all! Everything had to be perfect. I started playing with the GIANT but friendly German Shepard in a frightening game of fetch. I would toss the ball and he would bring it back and drop it in my lap then I would reach for it and his humongous jaws would reach for the ball as along with my hand. Chris, Carolyn and I decided it was best to go explore before we became a chew toy to this monsterous animal.
We headed out into the famed town of Mendoza to figure out how we could get to some vineyards. We ended up taking a tour that picked us up from our hostel and took us to a large and small winery, olive oil factory and an artsenal liquor store. The wine tastings were brief but fun but nothing that moved me to buy bottles of wine. The next day we decided to venture beyond vineyars and hit the local thermal spas. For only a few hundred pesos we got picked up from our hostel and taken into thermal spas within the Andes mountains, given a massage and an unlimited lunch buffet! We relaxed in different temperature pools and slathered our bodies with mud and then baked ourselves in the sun. At the end of the day Carolyn and I felt like we had a face lift and were burned to a crisp! Our last day in Mendoza was spent on the rapids of River Mendoza white water rafting. We had a lovely day trip paddling the level 3 rapids and hanging out with our friendly boat mates.
The thermal spas in Mendoza
That night we took the overnight bus home to Buenos Aires. The buses in Argentina are light years better than Greyhound but they are also quite bizarre. For example there are different bed options: semi bed and full bed. We decided on the the semi-bed for price reasons. They started off our 16 hour bus ride with a full bus game of bingo, where the winner walked away with a bottle of wine, followed by a dinner. Hmm, the dinner was very interesting. They gave us trays with little compartments that contained a piece of bread, rice, and cheese which we all picked at warily assuming that this was our dinner. About 15 minutes later our bus attendant dropped hot mashed potatoes and beef on our trays, which were suprisingly tasty. We were also given a choice of orange soda or nothing to drink. After dinner the lights were dimmed, this was an over night bus ride, and the movie Madagascar 2 came on full blast. Nope, there were no head phone options. The noise was very distracting as were the people around us trying out new ringtones on their phones.
Back in BA, Carolyn, Chris and I had one last hoorah before I put them back on their plane north, bound for the USA taking with them memories and a large supply of dulce de leche.
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