I'm home I'm home I'm home I'm home!!!!
Just wanted to let everyone know that I landed safe after a day of traveling and I'm thoroughly enjoying my first night at home.
My dad was able to recover my photos from Iguazú off my memory card, so it officially looks like I'll have everything I lost when my laptop was stolen!!
I'll be writing a reflection later in the week on my experience, but for now my contacts are blurring and I think I need to catch up on sleep.
I love home.
- Meagan
Showing posts with label Traveling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Traveling. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
An Iguazú Weekend
Before I start on how amazing my weekend was, I need to get this whole robbery story out of the way. Yesterday I was sitting in a Starbucks with my roommate, and I left to go to the bathroom so I left my laptop with her. In the two minutes I was gone, a group of people distracted my roommate, and used that distraction to swipe my laptop off the table without her noticing. I had a major mental breakdown in the middle of the restaurant and I probably can't show my face there ever again but I did all I could. I filed a police report, and remotely wiped my computer using find my iphone, and that function went through today, so take that thieves. Losing your laptop absolutely sucks, but i'll be home three weeks from today, and I know I can survive until then without any issues.
On Friday morning we left for Iguazú and of course, it was raining like it always is in Buenos Aires. We boarded our morning flight and made it to Iguazú before noon, and eventually headed to our hostel. Originally we were told we would be staying in a four star hotel, so we were all kind of upset to find out it was a hostel, but it turned out to be a really nice place besides the rooms we stayed in. The hostel had a huge pool and a restaurant and bar as well! On the bus on the way to the hostel a representative from an excursion company gave us brochures and we decided to do one of the packages that afternoon! It was pretty inexpensive, and we would be zip-lining, hiking, and wet-rapelling a waterfall! After we got to the hostel, we got ourselves situated and then headed out on our adventure.
Saturday was the day I had been looking forward to on this entire trip, and unfortunately it was a little chilly an rainy. I'm not going to lie, I was an absolute debbie downer all morning because of not having a jacket or anything, and I was dreading every time it would rain. So for the morning I put on a brave face and went with it. We took a bus into the park where we met our tour guide, Carlos. Carlos took the entire group to the train that would take us to the largest waterfall in their system: La Garganta del Diablo (The Devil's Throat). Once we got off the train we walked along a bridge which crossed over a river and eventually we made it. I have no true words to describe just how incredibly massive this waterfall was, but let me just say that niagra looks like a faucet. We spent about a half our or so just appreciating the falls and the view that we have, and despite it being overcast and raining, the view was spectacular.
We re-boarded the train and it began to rain again, and then we did some more walking through areas of the park. We took a break for lunch and to dry off and then finally the rain let up! We continued to walk and see some of the other amazing waterfalls along the paths, and the sheer magnitude of how many falls there were is just incredible. Every stop seemed picture perfect, and my day really started to pick up then. We eventually got to the bottom of one of the falls, and we saw all the people in ponchos because of the spray at the bottom of the platform. Naturally, we didn't have ponchos, so we all went to the edge and just played in the water and took silly pictures and laughed and it was wonderful. By that point, I didn't care about being cold or wet anymore, and it only made me more excited for what we'd do next...
The boat ride. We had an excursion paid for that would take us under the falls in a speed boat, and we were all extremely excited. We made our way down the path to the boat, where they gave us rubber bags to store anything we needed to keep dry, and we were given life-vests and got on the boat! I don't think any of us realized how soaked we were going to get, but it was beyond anything we thought. First the boat took us to the bottom of a smaller set of falls, where we were able to take pictures until they told us to put our cameras away (I had a waterproof case). They got really close to the bottom and the water poured in the boat and we all just screamed and laughed. They then sped out of that area and started towards a HUGE set of falls, where they did the same thing until we were so close to the fast moving water that the boat was spinning and rocking like crazy! We were literally soaking wet with water, hair dripping not caring whatsoever about it.
Back to happy talk.
This weekend I went to Iguazú Falls with the group and it was quite possibly one of the best weekends ever! Unfortunately I lost the good files of all my photos from the weekend in the robbery, so the facebook versions will have to do.
On Friday morning we left for Iguazú and of course, it was raining like it always is in Buenos Aires. We boarded our morning flight and made it to Iguazú before noon, and eventually headed to our hostel. Originally we were told we would be staying in a four star hotel, so we were all kind of upset to find out it was a hostel, but it turned out to be a really nice place besides the rooms we stayed in. The hostel had a huge pool and a restaurant and bar as well! On the bus on the way to the hostel a representative from an excursion company gave us brochures and we decided to do one of the packages that afternoon! It was pretty inexpensive, and we would be zip-lining, hiking, and wet-rapelling a waterfall! After we got to the hostel, we got ourselves situated and then headed out on our adventure. 
We started by getting into an open air vehicle, and our guide Andres showed us some of the more rural parts of the town on our way into the park. We were in a group with people from all over South America, which was pretty awesome. Andres told us about Puerto Iguazú, and also informed us that zip-lining (or canoping, as they call it) would be our first activity of the day! We arrived at the location for zip-lining and I was beyond excited. Zip-lining has been on my bucket list, and what better place to do it for the first time than in the jungles of Argentina! The entire length of the line was 800m split up over three sections, one longer, and two faster. I wasn't nervous at all, and it was an absolute blast!
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| When I ended up in the falls... |
After zip-lining they told us to keep our harnesses on for our little hike, which turned out to be a leisurely walk to the wet-rapelling location. I was really excited for wet-rapelling, but as it turns out I was absolutely terrible at it. The waterfall itself was 14m high, and it looked like it wouldn't be that hard. Unfortunately when it came to be my turn, I slipped before I could even take a real step and managed to body slam the waterfall rocks. Once I finally got a footing I slipped again and ended up right in the waterfall instead of on the side. My knees took a beating from body slamming the rocks, but eventually I made it to the bottom to the laughter and applause of everyone watching...
Wet-rapelling concluded our adventure for the day, and we climbed the stairs back up to our ride which took us home. After that we all got in the pool and swam until it started thundering, so we headed to our rooms and siesta-d for a bit. We were told that dinner would be provided for us, so we headed to the common area of the hostel where we got some drinks and passed the time before dinner! Overall the milanesa dinner was really good, and we had a great night. We met some obnoxious guys from Australia that tried to get us to hang out with them and kept telling us stories about the "Drop Bear." Google it.
Saturday was the day I had been looking forward to on this entire trip, and unfortunately it was a little chilly an rainy. I'm not going to lie, I was an absolute debbie downer all morning because of not having a jacket or anything, and I was dreading every time it would rain. So for the morning I put on a brave face and went with it. We took a bus into the park where we met our tour guide, Carlos. Carlos took the entire group to the train that would take us to the largest waterfall in their system: La Garganta del Diablo (The Devil's Throat). Once we got off the train we walked along a bridge which crossed over a river and eventually we made it. I have no true words to describe just how incredibly massive this waterfall was, but let me just say that niagra looks like a faucet. We spent about a half our or so just appreciating the falls and the view that we have, and despite it being overcast and raining, the view was spectacular. 
We re-boarded the train and it began to rain again, and then we did some more walking through areas of the park. We took a break for lunch and to dry off and then finally the rain let up! We continued to walk and see some of the other amazing waterfalls along the paths, and the sheer magnitude of how many falls there were is just incredible. Every stop seemed picture perfect, and my day really started to pick up then. We eventually got to the bottom of one of the falls, and we saw all the people in ponchos because of the spray at the bottom of the platform. Naturally, we didn't have ponchos, so we all went to the edge and just played in the water and took silly pictures and laughed and it was wonderful. By that point, I didn't care about being cold or wet anymore, and it only made me more excited for what we'd do next...
The boat ride. We had an excursion paid for that would take us under the falls in a speed boat, and we were all extremely excited. We made our way down the path to the boat, where they gave us rubber bags to store anything we needed to keep dry, and we were given life-vests and got on the boat! I don't think any of us realized how soaked we were going to get, but it was beyond anything we thought. First the boat took us to the bottom of a smaller set of falls, where we were able to take pictures until they told us to put our cameras away (I had a waterproof case). They got really close to the bottom and the water poured in the boat and we all just screamed and laughed. They then sped out of that area and started towards a HUGE set of falls, where they did the same thing until we were so close to the fast moving water that the boat was spinning and rocking like crazy! We were literally soaking wet with water, hair dripping not caring whatsoever about it.  |
| The view |
The boat then continued back to the original waterfall for some more fun, and then down the river to our drop-off point. We were able to see Brazil, and then we got off the boat for our "jungle tour" which was basically just a time to get us back to our tour guides. We were all wringing out our clothing and we stopped at a little market before we re-boarde the bus. After this adventure we headed back to the hostel where there was an asado!
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| Attractive |
For dinner there was different kinds of meats, along with some free drinks and salads, so we had a great night! We spent the night playing games and talking, and eventually we all made it to bed. Sunday we didn't have much planned so we headed to a precious stones store in the town, but then just hung around the hostel for the rest of the day. Our flight was in the evening so we got back to Buenos Aires around 8 ish, and I was back in my apartment by 9. Overall, it has to be one of my favorite weekends of the trip. If you ever have the opportunity to go, I absolutely recommend it! It's one of the NEW 7 Wonders of the World!
So yeah, I'm not going to let the absolute let down of being robbed of something as valuable as my laptop get me down. I've accepted the fact that it's gone and I've done everything in my power to keep myself secure, like changing passwords and wiping the computer itself with find my iphone. Things like this happen, and I literally have less than three weeks here. A little lack of computer never hurt anyone....
As always, I can't wait to see everyone! Until next time...
- Meagan
Monday, October 1, 2012
Uruguay, Where Buses Wait For No One.
This weekend was absolutely wonderful! After finishing up the last week of midterms (thank goodness), we headed to the lovely country of Uruguay for the weekend to do some adventuring!
We started off our Friday morning by meeting at the university at 7 am... which meant a very long morning for all of us. We took a van to the Buquebus boat port where we would get on our boat to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay! We originally thought we were going to take the slow boat (about 3 hours) but we ended up on the fast boat which took about an hour to get there! I was super excited because now I have new stamps in my passport... it's the little things.
Once we got to Colonia we headed to a tourist center where we watched a multimedia presentation about Uruguay as a whole, which was really cool because it was projected onto all the walls. After that we took a walk with our director and headed into the old area of the city, which is really well known. Along the way we stopped to look at the Uruguayan view of the Río de la Plata, which looks way more like an ocean because of how big it is. We hung out down by the water, and then the sun started to go in and it got kind of overcast, unfortunately. After that we went to see their little harbor, and eventually headed out for lunch. After lunch the group split into those of us who would continue to travel in Uruguay, and those that were going to take the boat back to Buenos Aires that night. All in all there were 8 of us who were going to stay in the weekend in Uruguay.
After taking a little time to go see the lighthouse, the 8 of us went to the bus station and bought our tickets to Montevideo, and our transfer tickets to Punta del Este. Taking buses in Uruguay is much cheaper than in Argentina, and the buses aren't a bad quality either. On the bus ride to the capital I noticed that the country side reminds me a lot of home in Pennsylvania. Lots of rolling land in farms. At the same time, it feels a lot like going back in time because of the old cars and machinery. There was even a moment where I saw a man with a sheep tied to a tree that he was using to eat the grass on his lawn for mowing. Overall it was a nice bus ride. For our bus to Montevideo, we would have about a half hour time between when we arrived and when our next bus would depart to Punta del Este.
The next day would be our day to explore Punta del Este. The city is what south americans believe is the equivalent of Miami, but much smaller. I can see what they meant, but the weather wasn't exactly in our favor. Normally there are blue skies and beautiful beaches, but it was rainy and miserable for the majority of the day. Originally, our plan was to rent scooters and explore on our own, but the lady at the hostel advised us against that and also told us we'd be much better off on a bus tour. We were all kind of disappointed because the scooters seemed awesome, but scootering in the rain seems less than fun.
We ended up booking a bus tour for 3:00, so we had some time to kill before that started. We went to La Mano (The Hand) on the beach that morning, which was sculpted in 3 days in the early 80s. It was so cool! Despite the rain, we had a lot of fun taking pictures with the hand as well as the beach. After that we walked across the peninsula and saw the river side of it and walked on a boardwalk along that. We had a constant companion for this portion of our day, which was a stray dog who followed us everywhere, but he was pretty cute. At one point Jenn and I walked under a pier where Jenn found some sort of bone... so that's the day Jenn became a paleontologist.
We went out for dinner that night, and then got back to our hostel where we decided that we would go out that night, but unfortunately I started to get a headache, and pretty much everyone was too tired to function so most of us went to bed. The next morning was another early day because we had a lot of traveling to do. We came outside to an absolutely beautiful day in Punta del Este, and had to get on the 8:45 bus to Montevideo. After getting to Montevideo, we had 4 hours until our next bus, so we decided to find Plaza Independencia which was recommended to us by our tour guide. Turns out, the plaza was WAY farther than she told us, and overall not that impressive. We grabbed some lunch, eventually reached the plaza and decided to go find the water. We walked along the water for a little bit back to the station, where we ran into a man selling puppies on the street. Naturally I grabbed the fluffiest one and was instantly smitten. I wish I could have stolen that puppy but that would probably end badly. We also saw a little fountain with tons of locks that couples add to (like the ones in Europe), and I thought that was pretty awesome.
We started off our Friday morning by meeting at the university at 7 am... which meant a very long morning for all of us. We took a van to the Buquebus boat port where we would get on our boat to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay! We originally thought we were going to take the slow boat (about 3 hours) but we ended up on the fast boat which took about an hour to get there! I was super excited because now I have new stamps in my passport... it's the little things.
Once we got to Colonia we headed to a tourist center where we watched a multimedia presentation about Uruguay as a whole, which was really cool because it was projected onto all the walls. After that we took a walk with our director and headed into the old area of the city, which is really well known. Along the way we stopped to look at the Uruguayan view of the Río de la Plata, which looks way more like an ocean because of how big it is. We hung out down by the water, and then the sun started to go in and it got kind of overcast, unfortunately. After that we went to see their little harbor, and eventually headed out for lunch. After lunch the group split into those of us who would continue to travel in Uruguay, and those that were going to take the boat back to Buenos Aires that night. All in all there were 8 of us who were going to stay in the weekend in Uruguay.
After taking a little time to go see the lighthouse, the 8 of us went to the bus station and bought our tickets to Montevideo, and our transfer tickets to Punta del Este. Taking buses in Uruguay is much cheaper than in Argentina, and the buses aren't a bad quality either. On the bus ride to the capital I noticed that the country side reminds me a lot of home in Pennsylvania. Lots of rolling land in farms. At the same time, it feels a lot like going back in time because of the old cars and machinery. There was even a moment where I saw a man with a sheep tied to a tree that he was using to eat the grass on his lawn for mowing. Overall it was a nice bus ride. For our bus to Montevideo, we would have about a half hour time between when we arrived and when our next bus would depart to Punta del Este.
Here's where things go bad.
After the 3 hour bus ride, we arrived and were all pretty much starving. We decided to go to the McDonalds in the station and grab something quick. By the time we were in line we only had a few minutes until the next bus left, so we were a bit crunched for time. In line, one girl in our group said she wanted ice cream, and when the mcdonalds told her she had to go upstairs to that one to get it, we told her it was a bad idea because of time. Usually, in Argentina things are always late and never leave on time. Funny thing is, this isn't Argentina. Even though we told her not to go, she went anyway and the rest of us went to get on the bus. First, we got on the wrong bus and were informed by the people in our seats that we had 2 minutes to get onto the other one... and to "hurry" if we could. So we ran to the second one and got on. One other girl waited in the doorway and told the bus driver that we were missing someone and she would be here any minute. As it turns out, that means nothing to them.
The driver literally closed the door on our friend so she had to come inside, and pulled away leaving our other friend in the station. There was a momentary panic among the group, so we emailed our director, who then called us and told us that he couldn't get ahold of her, and neither could any of us. Basically, we needed to trust that she would buy another bus ticket to Punta del Este for that night, and we'd find her at the station later.
After the 2 hour bus ride we headed to our Hostel in Punta del Este and checked in. A few people went back to the station to wait for the other girl, and the rest of us just kind of sat around wondering what we should do. About an hour later they came back to the hostel WITH our friend so there was a collective sigh of relief with the group. We wanted to go out and explore the town that night, so we started off by spending the night hanging out with the guys that worked at the hostel, but eventually some of us were too tired to go out so we went to bed while others went.
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| La Mano! |
We ended up booking a bus tour for 3:00, so we had some time to kill before that started. We went to La Mano (The Hand) on the beach that morning, which was sculpted in 3 days in the early 80s. It was so cool! Despite the rain, we had a lot of fun taking pictures with the hand as well as the beach. After that we walked across the peninsula and saw the river side of it and walked on a boardwalk along that. We had a constant companion for this portion of our day, which was a stray dog who followed us everywhere, but he was pretty cute. At one point Jenn and I walked under a pier where Jenn found some sort of bone... so that's the day Jenn became a paleontologist.
We then walked towards the harbor, which was really nice, and after decided it was time to go to the grocery store to buy food to make lunch. It was a successful meal, and then it was time for the bus tour! I have to say, I normally fall asleep on bus tours but this one was great. The woman who gave it was really engaging and nice and we could understand her completely. She showed us around the town, and then off into other areas of a surrounding town, Maldonado. We got to see the Beverly Hills neighborhood, as well as stop off at lots of look-out spots in the rain. Eventually, we made it to a look out spot and it stopped raining! As soon as the sun came out the scenery changed and it was so beautiful. We then took the bus to Casapueblo, which is the house of Carlos Páez Vilaró, an Uruguayan artist. It was absolutely incredible! The sun started getting lower and the orange and yellow light was shining on the white structure. I could have spent all day just looking over the water there, but eventually we needed to head out to our final destination where we would watch the sunset on the beach. Luckily the clouds had broken so we could see the sun, and it was a great ending to the day.
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| Casapueblo |
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| Plaza Independencia in Montevideo |
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| Smitten |
We got on our bus to take us to Colonia, and we had a pretty uneventful ride. Straight off the bus we got back onto the boat (yay more stamps!) and headed back to Buenos Aires. Unfortunately we were stuck on the slow boat, so it took over 3 hours. Luckily, we were able to go up on deck and watch the sunset and see the moon. We arrived back in the city around 10, and caught a bus back to our apartments and finally got some rest! After lunch yesterday I had started getting a little sore throat, but by nighttime it was absolutely terrible. I convinced myself that it was a result of all the traveling/buses/weather/dehydration/tiredness and that it would go away overnight, but I woke up this morning to it being worse, unfortunately. I ended up not being able to go to class because of my headache, so I'm really hoping that I start to feel better tomorrow.
In other news, my Dad comes to Buenos Aires on THURSDAY!! I am so excited to get to spend some time with him and I can't wait to show him the city on my long weekend! :) Also, Exactly one month from today is my last actual day of classes, and the week after that I have finals, and then I'm home... what? This is going way too fast.
As always, I miss everyone at home! Ciao ciao! :)
- Meagan
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| The modern winery |
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| Finally, a white wine! (All reds, all day) |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| The view from the top of the mountain. Breathtaking! |
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| 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
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