Mendoza Ho!

I went to Mendoza, Argentina this past weekend. The first attempt to get there was blocked because there was apparently snow in the mountains and we couldn't leave the country. Chile is completely bordered by the Andes on almost its entire east coast. Because of this, you have to go thru the Andes if you want to get to any other country by bus. This was the case for getting to Argentina. After leaving, taking a harrowing ride thru the Andes where our bus teetered multiple times over the edge of a rock cliff, we made it to Mendoza. Per usual, here is a bullet pointed list of activities and observations:

1) Mendoza is completely devoid of Street dogs, unlike Chile. I don't know if its a different attitude with the Argentinians as far as spaying and neutering dogs and NOT just throwing them into the streets after they're not cute anymore but I only saw like 2 in the entire country. I like this.

2) Argentinians are NOT easier to understand than Chileans, contrary to popular belief. They use "vos" instead of "tu." Vocabulary is completely different here too. Probably because Chileans have their own vocabulary that will serve me no use in the rest of South America. Argentines also seem to speak with an Italian accent but it's still spanish...except for the time at our hostel where the woman working was speaking to me and I found out it actually was Italian. I found out she was from Rome.

3) Mendoza has better food. I will say this again: Chile has terrible food. Everywhere I ate in Argentina was good, cheaper than Chile and had flavor. I think this is probably because they use different ingredients than the main ingredient of all Chilean food: salt.

4) The weather was better. The effect that Chile's unique Geographic features has on its climate is remarkable. It's been super hot during the day and cold at night. You can't win. Argentina is pretty temperate all day long.

We went to a enormous park in Mendoza that is probably 4 x 4 miles in size. We also went on "bike wine tours" where you pretty much get a map, get on a bike and go to the cornucopia of wineries around Mendoza and do tastings. I don't really care or know much about wine but it was probably the most adult thing I've done in my life... besides holding a steady job.

Of course, as soon as we got back into Chile after a ten hour overnight bus, it was raining and cold. I'm trying to maintain a good attitude here...