Week 7: Mendoza, Cordoba and adios Argentina!

For July 14^th-July 22^nd

We left El Calafate at noon on the Tuesday the 14^th, after running all over the town looking for an ATM that actually worked, so that we could pay our hostel which only accepted cash. It would be about 46 hours before we reached Mendoza, directly to the north of El Calafate, about 3,045 km away. We first had to go further southeast to Rio Gallegos, to catch a transfer bus that would go non stop to Mendoza. The bus ride itself was pretty chill. I had my book on the Bushes, which I enjoyed reading greatly, and got through about 600 pages during the bus ride. However, just as my traveling luck goes, there was a 2 year old kid, Rodrigo, sitting in front of us for the whole trip. Sporadic wailing was common, as well as smelly diaper changes. Little Rodrigo took a liking to Isaac, who of course encouraged him, and spent a good amount of his waking hours standing on his chair looking back at us and saying ‘Hola nene’, and ‘dame dedo nene’, and trying to grab our fingers. Our bus made a lot of stops at non descript little Patagonian towns. Through Wednesday, I think I peed in about 5 different towns. There was one moment of extreme panic for me. It was evening, and we had made a 10 minute stop at some random bus station. Isaac and I both got off the bus to use the bathroom, and buy something to eat. I returned after about 5 minutes. After a few minutes, the bus started moving, and Isaac hadn’t returned. I ran to the front to tell the driver to stop the bus (in Spanish). He smirked, told me that he had a schedule to follow, and to say bye bye to my friend. After I pleaded in panic a bit more, he stopped the bus. I got out and ran all over the bus stop looking for Isaac, but couldn’t find him any where. I came back to the bus to check if for some reason he had gone to the upstairs, but he wasn’t there either. As I came down, Isaac calmly entered the bus, totally oblivious to everything that had happened. It took a while for my heart to stop racing as I contemplated what would have happened if either of us were left at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere in Argentina as our luggage lay in the bus.

There was no shortage of things to do in Mendoza, and I think it would qualify as my favourite destination in Argentina. The first day, we walked around the city. The Parque San Martin was beautiful and sprawling. Isaac got his first haircut in Spanish. Looking to find a wine appreciation class, we somehow stumbled upon a wine and cheese event at the Hyatt, which we crashed, and felt sufficiently awkward in, though the wine and cheese were great. That evening we were invited to the house of the president of the local AIESEC (for those wondering what aiesec is, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIESEC) chapter in Mendoza’s for an ‘asado’, or barbeque, where I met Colton, a Yalie doing an internship through AIESEC there, and Bruno, who I had been in touch with in the past few months to organize that internship, as well as a lot of others. Most conversation was conducted in Spanish, though at times I was lost, especially when some of them started arguing politics in rapid Spanish, which was quite discouraging.

The next day was an active one. In the morning we went horse riding, just outside the city, in the Andes. It was my first time riding, and was pretty fun. It was amazing how well trained the horses were. One tap with the foot on their side and they start walking. Another tap, and they start trotting, and one more and they gallop. Pulling the reins to the left or right means they turn, and pulling the reins back means they stop immediately. I also discovered how cliquey horses are in their social tendencies. Our guide explained to us how horses spend all their times in small groups, and feel uncomfortable with other horses. Among the five horses with us, three of them were very friendly to each other, and clearly antagonistic to the other two, who seemed intimidated by them, and didn’t like to get too close. After three hours of riding though, my body was aching a bit. Trotting was more uncomfortable than galloping, as my body was made to jump up and down while trotting. In the afternoon, we set off for a bike tour of various wineries on the outskirts of the city, and visited a chocolate factory as well. We found out that we had been charged much much more than some of our friends who did the same tour, so at the end we returned to the bikeandwine office defiantly, hoping to get our money back. We were unable to, because of the complex web of responsibilities between the hostels who promote the tours, and the company which actually organizes the tour. Nonetheless, we argued for a good amount of time, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly, being sufficiently sarcastic and rude. It isn’t very often that you can feel entitled to be that rude and not feel bad about it.

The following morning Isaac and I parted ways, as he set off to Chile by bus. I on the other hand, set off for a ski trip to Los Penitentes with Bruno, Colton and Emanual, a friend of Bruno’s. We rented all our ski equipment for about $12 per person, and somehow fit all of it in Bruno’s tiny car. I had never ski’d before, and the four hours that we had on the slopes before it got dark weren’t enough for me to come even near to mastering the art. I fell about a hundred times. Nonetheless, it was fun going whizzing down the slopes with no control whatsoever over myself, and falling and skidding in the soft snow.

After staying a third night in Mendoza, I head off for the last leg of my journey to Cordoba by myself. I was there two nights and one full day, and found out that I didn’t really enjoy traveling by myself all that much. One of the main differences was that I had a tough time making any decision, as I was always second guessing my self. For some reason I have much more confidence in general when I’m with other people. I spent the day roaming around the city center of Cordoba, which was quite beautiful. It was full of churches and grand buildings from colonial times. Unfortunately, I was there on a Monday, so all of the museums were closed. The hostel I was staying at was particularly crazy, or atleast all the other people staying at the hostel were pretty crazy. There were some people who had been traveling for the last two years, going all over the world, and others who were students like my self. I went to a play in the evening which I had found out about during the day with some Americans, and later went to a club with pretty much most of the people staying in the hostel, French, American, Canadian, German, Irish and British (it was notable that in all the hostels I stayed at, I didn’t meet even one other traveler from a developing country), as well as the owners. It was friendship day, and so entry to the club was free, which was very welcome, being at the end of my travels.

Before I left Buenos Aires on the evening of the 22^nd, I had a final day in the city. Lucas’ lovely family very kindly allowed me to stay with them, and had a wonderful dinner, and even drove me to the airport the next day. I used my last day to run some errands, returning DVDs to the embassy, meeting with my host parents one last time, and getting back a book which I had lent to Pablo, the professor who helped me out with my article research. By the end of my almost two months in Argentina though, I felt I was ready to go home and relax for a bit, having constantly been on the move for a while. I reached Palo Alto, California, where my parents are spending 6 months at Stanford, on the morning of my 20^th birthday, and have been enjoying the laziness in the 4 days since, procrastinating writing this entry, and working on my article.