Long Weekend in Mendoza!

This post is going to be long and picture happy, so I apologize in advance.

Long weekends are different here than in the states.  On any given week, we don't have Friday classes, so it's always a "long weekend" by american standards. However, this week we also had Monday off so it was actually a four day weekend.  As a group we decided to take a trip on our own because we didn't have anything planned with our program.  So 12 of us headed to Mendoza, Argentina!

Our weekend started off with a bus leaving from the Retiro bus station in Buenos Aires around 7:15 on Thursday night. Classes ended for most of us around 5:30 so it was an interesting adventure to get there. The bus had two levels, and the top level was all seats. It was really cool because there were seats right at the front that just had windows in front of them. Also, the seats reclined pretty far and had foot rests, so it made the 14 hour overnight bus ride moderately tolerable. We got dinner on the bus, which was a nice surprise too. We ended up arriving in Mendoza round 10 on Friday morning, and we got picked up by a van at the bus terminal, who took us to our hostel in the middle of town. Once we got there, we discovered we couldn't check in until 2:00, so we had a lot of time to kill on a rainy day. We ended up exploring a little and found a hole in the wall restaurant where I got a delicious burger that ended up being the size of the average dinner plate. It was so nice to have a bigger meal after being stuck on a bus for the entire night. Mendoza is definitely a pretty sleepy town. It has a very slow pace of life and felt similar to home. I liked it, but I don't know if it's somewhere I could permanently live.

Once we got into our rooms, it was obvious that we were in a hostel, not a hotel. We had three rooms of four people with two sets of bunk beds in each room. Not only that, but I could reach from one wall to the other in the bathroom. It was a tight squeeze, but it made for some interesting stories. I had enough time to get a shower before our city tour at 3, so I was thrilled about that.

I could have done without the city tour, to be honest. It was raining, and we were on a bus (again) so it was pretty boring overall. We drove around the city (and it was cold!) and would stop every now and then. I guess one of the cooler things we did was we stopped at the monument on the top of Cerro de la Gloria and got to take some pictures.

The monument to the army of the Andes

Unfortunately it was a pretty crappy day overall. Afterwords I just wanted to take a nap, but we headed out for dinner as a group, which was a really good time. The next day we had an excursion planned for horseback riding! Originally we were all a little stressed because they were 45 minutes late picking us up, but it was absolutely worth it! The name of the excursion was The Gaucho Experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone who visits Mendoza. You can find information about them on their facebook page here!

The building where we ate lunch and hung out

We started off by meeting Javier and his brother Danny, who work on the ranch. We talked for a while and were told that we had to wait for some extra horses to arrive. We took the time to enjoy the scenery and to pass around a mate. And I have to admit, I hated mate the first time I tried it, and it has absolutely grown on me since. I really loved it that day, and once I told my host mom last night, she made it again for us this morning to have with breakfast! We also got to enjoy the scenery, which was incredible looking towards the Andes.

Part of the view!

So we got to talk with the guys, and finally it was time to head out on our horses! I don't have much horse riding experience so I was a little nervous but definitely excited. My horse's name was Nejo, and as I came to find out later in the day, Nejo is extremely stubborn and doesn't like to take direction. But he was pretty so it was good.

Nejo!

I trotted on a horse for the first time and it was fun, a little intimidating, but definitely worth it! But I have to admit, I'm still sore and it's Wednesday! We took about an hour and a half ride beside the mountains and it was SO beautiful! A few members of the group went running with their horses, but I think I'll wait until I have a little more experience for that. After we got back from our ride, we had lunch with everyone! They made us a traditional meal of beef and chicken along with roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes and onions with a tomato and onion salad. We watched them cook it in the oven outside, and the smoke filled the air. They also served us some fresh wine. The afternoon was perfect, and I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Some of us with Danny and Javier!

We got to take lots of pictures too, which was awesome. Later the guys told us about a BBQ party that another hostel in the city was having that night, and that we should go. We did, and we got to see them again later that night! The party at the hostel had fresh BBQ and food, and it was incredibly delicious. It was nice to see the guys outside of horseback riding and getting to interact with more locals and other international people traveling that weekend.

We had an early morning on Sunday because we had a wine tour starting at 8:30 am! We got picked up in a bus, and we had a pretty adorable tour guide who was really enthusiastic. The first place we stopped at was an older bodega called Don Aruto that used traditional methods for making their wine. The winery was over 100 years old, and it was awesome to get to see the giant barrels and here about their processes.

Barrel!

Argentina is known for the malbec grape, so a malbec wine was one of the first things we got to try at our first wine tasting! We tasted three different ones at the first winery, and the malbec was definitely the best in my opinion.

The first tasting!

The second bodega we went to was a much more modern winery built in 2007 named Vistandes. Or literally, view of the Andes. It was an absolutely beautiful facility with lots of modern machinery and processes. We got to learn about the different types of wood barrels and the flavors they can give to the different wines.

The modern winery

Finally, a white wine! (All reds, all day)

View at Vistandes

We got to try more wines at the second bodega, and I finally got to a white wine! Argentina is mostly known for it's red wines, so finding a white was definitely a treat. During the tasting we also go to learn about how wines start as closed, swirling them, and how they become open. And I have to tell you, the smell completely changes! I'll never actually understand how it works but I'll definitely keep it in mind for at home. After the last bodega we headed to an olive oil factory, and that was great! It was called Pasrai, and we got to learn about how olive oil is made, and how it can be altered in different ways for flavor. Finally at the end we were able to taste a bunch of different ones with bread, and it was awesome because we were all starving by this point. After the olive oil factory we headed back to the hostel and then off to explore the market in one of the plazas in the city.

On Monday we decided to go for a hike on Cerro Arco... you think that would be an easy thing to do on your own when you're at the foot of the Andes, but it was definitely a process. We finally were able to call three taxis to take us to the specific mountain we wanted to climb, and they ended up taking us to the completely wrong area of the park. After they drove away, we then figured out that we were pretty much screwed. We ended up asking a man working at the desk at the zoo (where we were dropped off) how we could get there, and he said it would take hours to walk, and that we should catch the bus. Naturally, none of us had change for the bus. The guy then proceeded to tell us that he was going to call his brother to see if he could get us a ride (in what we thought would be a van). After about an hour of waiting, we see an old pick up truck arrive, and as it turns out, that was our ride. We negotiated a price and we all piled in the back of this guy's truck and he drove us to the foot of the mountain we wanted to climb. It was definitely an incredible experience to ride through the park in the open air and experience the scenery!

Once we got to the mountain, we got to climbing. It started off pretty easy, but by about 1/4 of the way in I was struggle-bussing HARD. Luckily I had a great group of friends hiking with me who were willing to not go quite as fast so I wouldn't get sick and die on the trail.

Hannah and I less than halfway up!

Right after this point is where it started getting pretty difficult. There were a lot of very steep sections that didn't quite agree with my lungs. One girl in my group was actually scared that I had asthma or something, but I then just reminded her that I'm out of shape and need to get my butt in gear. I stopped taking pictures until we got to the second highest point and people were going paragliding off the mountain. It was really cool to watch and I wish I could have done it.

Last stop before the final ascent! What a view!

After we watched the paragliders I contemplated giving up and walking down with a different group, but we were less than 10 minutes from the top and I told myself I would regret it if I didn't make it all the way there. In the end, it was completely worth it! My legs felt like jello, but the view was spectacular. All in all it was about a 5 1/2 mile hike round trip and a 2000 foot elevation change. About halfway up the mountain we met two guys named Germán and Leonardo, and they became our coaches and friends to get us to the top. They were really funny and would physically pull us up the mountain if we started slacking. I'm so glad I made it to the top!

The view from the top of the mountain. Breathtaking!

Part of our group with our new friends we met on the trail

Our group and the guys then walked down the rest of the mountain taking a few short cuts along the way, which was fun! When we got to the bottom we realized that the bus stop was really far away, so the guys actually offered all of us rides to the bus stop, which we ended up doing in two trips in the car. It was definitely an experience I'll never forget.

The mountain from the bottom where we started. 

In the picture above you can get kind of an idea of what we hiked. The mountain that's back in the distance has radio towers on top of it, and that indicates the highest point on Cerro Arco. I was really proud of myself for making it all the way to the top without dying, but I did fail on my goal of not falling on the way down. Oh well, close enough I suppose.

We then had another 14 hour bus ride home. We never got to shower after the hike so we all smelled terrible on the bus, but at least we were all together. Unfortunately I wasn't able to sleep on the bus because of how sore I was from horseback riding and hiking combined. We arrived back in the city on Tuesday morning and I had classes from 1-5:30. It was definitely a struggle to stay awake and alive but I did it!

Something pretty interesting happened when we got back to the city. Once we got off the bus and we were back into the craziness that is Buenos Aires, it was the general consensus that the city felt like home. After an incredible weekend in a town with a much different pace of life, it was almost nice to get back to the hustle and bustle of the city. I was so excited to get back to the apartment and see our host mom so we could finally have a home cooked meal for dinner.

Overall, it was an amazing weekend. There is no way that I'm ever going to forget about everything that happened in Mendoza. If you ever have the opportunity to go there, you should go in a heartbeat!

On another note, I've officially been in Buenos Aires for a MONTH (on the 21st)!! How crazy is that? Time really does fly... I miss everyone at home, and I apologize for making you read all of this. I just loved Mendoza.

Until next time, ciao. <3

- Meagan