Mendoza: sunny with lots of wine!

Mendoza. Wine country. Yum. haha, well I wasn't a wino, and I don't think Mendoza has made me into one, but it was an awesome place to visit since it only rains 12 times a year there and I was tired of the patagonian wind.

Travelled up to Mendoza and spent my first day walking around the city and taking a nap in the biggest park in argentina. It wasn't spectacular--looks like they haven't mowed the lawn in ages--but it was nice to get some sun and relax. I even attempted a modern art museum--not a huge fan of the art, but we took some fun pictures and made the most out of the 12 piece collection. Unfortunately, I got sick sometime during the day and ended up spending the rest of the evening sleeping in bed. Nothing major..just a nausea wave that wouldn't pass. Popped some pepto and was ready to roll the next day!

My friends from Patagonia--Candace, Mike, Chris, and now Scotty (candace's friend from NZ)--and I spent the afternoon lounging in the main plaza and eating some avocado, salami, and tomatoe sandwiches. Something I have grown quite accostumed to eating in Argentina. I'm pretty sure I'm getting sick of it. haha. The next day, we rented a car, and drove to Aconcagua, the second highest peak after the Himalayas. Who knew that it was in South America?? I never expected to rent any sort of car in South America, but it was awesome! Some near death experiences due to the crazy Argentine driving, which is pretty similar to India, but we got there fine after about 4 hours of driving. The altitude we were at was past 4000m and the mountain peak itself is close to 7000m.  Pretty tiring to walk around at such a high altitude, but there wasn't much to do but walk around a 2km circiut explaining the park.  After about an hour and a half, we got back into the car and drove back another 4 hours. Dinner that night was supposed to be an exposure to steak for me, but unfortunately, the cut of meat that was purchased by the boys was absolutely horrendous, and 4 people who are steak experts basically said that the meat was the worst piece of meat they had ever had in their entire lives. So I had one bite, couldn't quite chew it all the way, and spit it out into my napkin and just ate the vegetables. Yum.

Next day, we headed over to do a bike tour of the vineyards in Mendoza. You basically rent a bike and ride around to as many vineyards as you can (there are 1500 in Mendoza) and do wine tastings and winery tours.  Lots of fun and lots of wine.  The main wine produced in Mendoza is a red called Malbec.  I am not usually a red fan, but I might be converted after having had so many glasses. A great day even though I basically dehydrated myself like crazy. I spent the evening video chatting away with my family, which was amazing, and such an amazing pick me up since it had been so long since we had talked outside of gchat. After that, I just packed up and got my stuff ready because our next stop was going to be Salta. My last stop in Argentina before heading into Bolivia!