Another stamp on the passport...

Another notch on the bedpost,etc. I love sayings.

But really, another stamp on the passport: Argentina!!! This last weekend I went to Mendoza to have my own Rice reunion with Jules and Linda. So this post is going to be in two parts. The first part is pretty basic with what we did, saw, etc. The second part is more of what I got out of the trip.

I took a 8 bus ride through the gorgeous Andes to get to Mendoza. The trip was surprisingly not that bad. I chatted with a French guy who has been studying in Vina for the last six months. I got extended naps. I had plenty of time to get super excited to see Jules when I got off the bus.

I easily found the hostel we were staying at for the first night and Jules found me the moment I walked in the door. We spent the first night just going out to dinner and talking.

The next day we packed up, checked out and met Linda at the bus station and went to our second hostel with free wine! Yes, it was shitty. But nothing a little Fanta couldn't fix! (Thanks Caitlin). As soon as we put our stuff down we headed out to the vineyards with this aussie and two irish cousins from our hostel. We rented bikes and saw Mendoza the way the tourists do. We thought we'd be on quaint dirt roads connecting the vineyards, instead we shared the road with trucks. Although it was kinda fun being almost run over. The six of us sampled wines and learned some basics. Although my favorite was going to the liquor and chocolate sampling place. I had chocolate banana something. It tasted like a milkshake until you got to the strong taste of liquor. But anyplace that gives you samples and free chocolate and marmalades is good in my book. After a day of biking we called it quits and had dinner with a big group from our hostel and went to bed.

Saturday was rainy and cold we did a lot of nothing and went to see Batman at the mall. I'm always amazed by the malls. I think Chileans and Argentines might be as commercial and consumeristic as Americans. We spent the night mostly at the hostel playing games. Kate this is when we broke out sextrology. It is an international hit now. Everyone playing loved it and even came up with great new additions.

Sunday we went trekking with a guide. I couldn't tell you where, but I do know the guide wasn't necessary because the path up the mountain was a road. Although it was nice to have someone talk to us mostly in Spanish and to hear his opinions of life in Argentina. After the hike the three of us hung out until Jules and Linda had to leave for the BA that night.

This is where my transcontinential adventure starts. I was planning on leaving Mendoza early the next morning, but the pass had been closed since Friday. I was still optimistic, especially cause it hadn't snowed again. But during the night some piece of snow plowing equipment broke and all the Monday buses across the Andes were cancelled. Which means I was stuck in Mendoza indefinitely unless I could find another way out. Considering I had only been in South America for a few weeks and I was now alone I decided to try the 30+ hour bus ride to a southern pass to cross. So I got on a bus at 3 PM on Monday and arrived in Santiago at 9:30 PM the next day and took another bus to Valpo and finally got home at 11:50 PM on Tuesday night. It was long, but things could have been worse. I had our aussie world traveler and four american students in Santiago to keep me company. So six days after I left I returned to Valparaiso.