classes? ¿Qué clases?

Two weeks ago was semana mechona ("Freshman Week") at lots of the universities here which means that: 1. all classes are canceled after 11am and the ones that are supposed to happen before then usually don't because the professors know that not very many students will come and 2. the universities host outings (bonfires at night, trips to the beach, etc.), parties, and concerts during the entire week. The particulars depend on the university but it's a guaranteed good time...

Since it's an entire week off, almost all the gringos take advantage of the free time and go to Patagonia, Perú, whatever...some went to Uruguay, others to Buenos Aires, all over. My friend Tamma and I chose Mendoza, Argentina because it's beautiful, close, easy to get to, and there's lots to do.

We left Tuesday night at 10:30 and arrived around 5am, which includes going through customs. So the bus ride isn't really that long at all. We took a ginormous, double-decker bus that did 180 degree turns going through the mountains. I went downstairs once and it was really scary because the front of the bus is flat, so the driver would drive right up to the wall of the mountain almost stop, and then turn, turn, turn, turn and start up again (taking up the entire road in the process). I'm pretty sure it's way safer at night because you can probably see the headlights in advance...I don't even want to think about what would happen if you had to pass another car after one of those turns during the daytime. The car would get smooshed flat or knocked off the mountain, pobrecito.

The first day we checked into our hostel and slept a bit and then walked around and planned out what we wanted to do. We went to Parque San Martin which is almost as big as the city and really nice (picture below) and bought avocado, tomato, and crackers at the mercado central for lunch. Argentina is way cheaper than Chile and has better food (I don't think there's a Latin American country with worse food than Chile, actually...sorry chilean friends). Comparing Chilean food to Mexican food (real, not Tex-mex, U.S. style mexican) would be like comparing food in England to food in France or Italy. So we used fruit stands and supers for breakfast and lunch (breakfast for two = 4/5 pesos = $1.75 tops) and then got to go out for dinner every night :)

Other cool things about Argentina is that they have licuados (a blended fruit drink that's thinner than a smoothie, thicker than water, and super delicious every time) and you can get them with almost any fruit and with either water or milk.

70% of the male population has a mullet. I could write an entire blog about mullet varieties in Argentina...

Almost everyone drives really neat old cars.

Argentinean guys are really attractive.

They have REAL coffee. Not the instant Nescafé shit, which is fine, but gets old real quick when it's the only thing you drink.

Not so cool things about Argentina: people refuse to speak to you in Spanish. Even when we responded in Spanish or repeated what they were saying in broken English back to them in Spanish to verify what they were saying, they wouldn't switch over to Spanish. It was kind of frustrating because it makes communicating a lot more difficult and it makes no sense. One theory we have is that maybe they judge the amount they think we understand based on the fact that we looked like gringas and/or had different accents and just assumed that they were helping us out. At any rate, it was frustrating.

Nobody in Argentina has coin money...people literally laughed at me when I asked for change. They give you candy instead of monedas when you buy something and are supposed to get a few cents back. It's absurd. We finally figured out that 1. the machines on the buses don't give change back so that sucks them out of the system and 2. everyone hordes the monedas that they find to put into the coin-eating bus machines. No-one could explain where the coins went after the machines ate them until we met two random guys about our age who told us that they go the Buenos Aires to be processed and then are returned to banks so sometimes (only sometimes) the banks will have monedas. Very weird.

Other not so cool thing is that all guys ages 8 to 80 whistle or make noises or say irritating 'piropos' when you walk by. Piropos = compliments, but they're more irritating than flattering. It's super easy to ignore when it doesn't happen constantly, but it was almost constant in Mendoza. It's sometimes funny when a guy assumes you don't understand him but you do, but it's still irritating. We walked past a group of old men sitting in a group in the plaza and one was like "there go some pretty girls" and his friend was like "you're right, there go two pretty girls that don't want us (seeing as we're old and ugly and loitering in the plaza)" ... anyways, the point is that it happens a lot more in Argentina than in Chile.

All the big clubs are 20/30 minutes outside of the city in a line out in the middle of nowhere. We didn't go out but we drove past them on the way to hiking. I have no idea why it's set up that way...

So enough random facts...what'd we do?! The next day we took a bus to Maipu, a dusty flat town about 45 minutes outside of Mendoza, and rented bicycles for the afternoon. We got a map and rode to a family-owned liqueur and chocolate factory (the most delicious chocolate ever!) and to a few wineries. We did a tasting at one with the sample chocolate from the other store and then on the way back stopped at this guy's yard. He had converted his open-air garage into a kitchen, set up some tables, put on some classic 80s music, and had a full-blown super-cheap super-good restaurant going. It was a wonderful way to end the bike ride. Then I spent almost an hour begging for monedas to get back to Mendoza...but before that it was great :)

The day after that we went hiking in Aconcagua and then rapelled back down. There were three drops we got to rapel down: a baby one, a medium one, and one that was over 100 feet tall. It's pretty neat because you're basically walking/hopping down a vertical rock face and you can control your speed and go back and forth to explore and you're suspended in the air the entire time. Good fun. Finally we went to a hot springs for the afternoon to rest up and soak up some sun.

The final day we drank real coffeeeee and did some souvenir shopping in the plaza. They have really nice leather things in Argentina (belts, shoes, bags, bracelets, earrings even). Then we came back to Viña/Valpo... I really want to go back to do more hiking and to snowboard this winter, especially because it might be cheaper in Argentina than in Chile. There are lots of cool spots to go in Aconcagua, we just didn't have enough time or the right equipment. Also, it's probably two more bus rides of about the same length to Buenos Aires, which is totally doable from here (time and money permitting) so with some luck, I might end up going back...if not this semester then some day! Here are some photos: