The Next Post

I have never been so tired as the 2 days after Valparaíso. We finally reached Mendoza -Argentina's wine country - at 4:30 am after crossing the moon-soaked Andes that night. We actually slept until 6 or so on a bench at the bus terminal along with a bunch of homeless people with their hands in their pants (don't ask).

Since we had lugged our camping gear with us we had the bright idea to go camping in this city of 1 million people and started finding out how to do it. We finally took 2 taxis to the middle of nowhere- completely out of town, and, logically had them drop us off in the middle of the middle of nowhere, where we then had to walk 20 min to the campsite that was closed for the season making us walk another 20 min to another campsite which 60 schoolkids had rented out for the whole month. Tired, dejected, and pissed at ourselves we took a bus back to town which we couldn´t pay for cuz NOBODY IN THIS COUNTRY HAS CHANGE. So the bus driver told us to get off (in the middle of nowhere, of course), so we panicked and foraged together a few coins for our ticket.

We had no idea where the bus was taking us or where we needed to be, so we just picked a random moment to get off, and were never so happy to find a hostel at our feet. That's what happens when you get less than 4 hours of sleep for 2 consecutive days. We then slept and slept and did the park tour of European Mendoza that afternoon. People here are even more white than in Chile and there are basically no indigenous people left. That and everybody's last name seems to be Lombardi, di Tommaso, or Abruzzi.

Well, the next day could only be better. And it was. We rented bikes in Maipu (pronounced my-poo for those who are interested) and did a tour of this winemaking territory which resembled exactly that of Toscana or southern France. We visited wineries and degustated some good Argentinean wine as well as olive oil and chocolate liquor (Mmmmm).

Upon our return the superflously nice bike people invited us for a glass of wine and some laughter with their pet parrot. To end the day we watched a Maná tribute band play great covers at a Mexcian restaurant before tiredly settling into our beds.