Let me begin by saying that Mendoza seemed to be what the told us Chile would be: very late night-life where the party doesn't start until 12 or later, and lots of meat. Oh, but they also speak clear Spanish and don't have Santiago's unfortunate smog problem.
There was some last-minute panic regarding the bus (I ended up leaving on a different bus from everyone else I was traveling with - not my fault!). And a nightime journey across the snowy Andes, though I slept through most of it, once the eighties music videos stopped playing. I woke up long enough to get through customs, which was the simplest process of entering a country I have ever experienced. Before falling asleep again I tried to see out my window. Being night and all, it was a bit dark, but I could see the black sky and mountains covered with stars and snows. It was beautiful.
I got into Mendoza before the others, since I traveled in a mini-bus. Once they got in we ate a wonderful breakfast of croissants. The cappuccino I ordered was much better than the kind I have had here in Chile, and a couple of the other girls got Submarinos, literally "submarines," which was basically a chocolate bar in warm milk. We walked across town to a hostel, then spent the rest of the day wandering and enjoying Mendoza's lovely parks. Thinking I would be able to go Sunday morning before leaving, I chose a nap over visiting the large park to the north of the city. Unfortunately, I never did go on Sunday. I only took eight pictures (8!) the entire trip, and here are two of them: Josie enjoying our lunchtime parrilla, "grill," and the park with all of the painted tiles.
In the evening we went to a tenedor libre, literally "free fork," basically a buffet, called Las Tinajas. I just looked up that name and it means "The Large Pitcher." Not quite The Leaky Cauldron, but I'm willing to bet the food was much much better. As part of the all you can eat, watch it get made smorgasbord of yummy there were more seafood dishes than I've seen in Chile (I ate mini octopus legs! and paella!) chocolate drizzled dulce de leche wontons, flan, crepes, any kind of grilled meat that is served in Mendoza, pasta, thousand layer cake, and so on. In addition to the food there was live entertainment, i.e. reallllly loud speakers for a guy singing karaoke by himself on a balcony. With artificial smoke. And at several points females from the audience singing along. We left right around/before midnight, and there were still families, grannies, and priests coming in to begin their dinner.
Saturday we headed out for the bicicle wine tour. I'll separate the trip into stops.
First stop: Grand estate, with olive orchard in back, llamas, and scrumptious desert wine.
Second stop: Italian family winery, converted into museum, awesome tour, and samples of olive oil with bread! I bought two bottles of wine here.
Third: Bad wine, cheap lunch.
Fourth: Wine "Museum" also running winery. Huge casks. Really huge.
Five: No wine. Homemade chocolate, olive based dips, and various liquors. I tried the absinthe. No I did not hallucinate; yes, it burned. Ran out of money here.
We didn't do much else that day, although two of the girls went to the nearby bars and (I heard) got banana split! Wow, I missed out on so much in Mendoza. First the park, then the banana splits... and we never even went paragliding!
Coming back to Santiago went well. On our way out of town we barely squeezed in enough time to get McFlurries--flavor Cadbury tres sueños. Since we left in the afternoon we got to see the countryside. Fall is beautiful. For some reason I wasn't actually expecting the leaves to change color and fall here, but they do.
So now that I wrote that, I'm going to leave again (in about ten minutes!). I'm heading north this time, to the town of La Serena. If everything works out, I'll be able to tell you about penguins, pisco and stars when I get back!
Olives and llamas! Two of my favourite things ;)
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