Argentina, Mendoza

This entry covers 1 to 4 December

1 December

Our bus weaved its way up and over the Andes and into a new world reminiscent of our very own Stellenbosch vineyards. Mendoza is a fair sized town (about the size of my birth town, Pietermaritzburg) situated in the heart of Argentina amidst towering mountains. I can’t quite put my finger on it but the place just has a lekker feel to it. A couple main streets lined with trees, cafes and green grocers made survival a breeze and a good lifestyle even easier. Theresa, Jonas and I celebrated our arrival with an honest game of shithead which made our scrambled egg dinner a rather messy affair. Pretty shattered from an overnight and half a day bus ride, we called it quites in our new home, XXX Hostel.

2 December

A fresh start, focussed and fitter than ever the trio were ready for the much anticipated Tour de Mendoza. We hacked hard to find out the usual where and when's however the sight of old school bicycles with curved handle bars and peddle brakes made it all worthwhile. The task at hand was to sample 11 watering holes...pretty straight forward seeing as we were given everything from maps to waterbottles. Not so much...we only managed to tick off 5 wine farms before taking a slight detour up a long driveway opening up to a restaurant under the trees and overlooked by a towering mansion. This page was most certainly torn out of The Great Gatsby. It seemed like the right thing to do and order steaks and numerous bottles of their finest wine in preparation for the epic game of croquet that was to follow. The Canadian host joined the retired pommy team and ourselves for an afternoon from another era (tah, tah).

Sadly the story of the famous 3 had to come to an end and with many incredible moments etched into our memories I waved Theresa and Jonas off. Phase 3 of the journey was upon me...time for the big handshake vibe again. It wasn't long before I found entertainment in not 1 but 5 Ricky Gervais impressionists...young guns blazing and firing from more hips than they knew they had, this was going to be interesting! A game of fives ensued with the loser having to perform a pre-fives chant task...mine: dive into the swimming pool in full gear. A session at a nearby pub covering all the important topics like rugby and general touring was the kindling to what was to develop into a blur of jolling over the next couple days.

3 December

I chatted to Sol this morning to start making plans for Buenos Aires and beyond...to buy or not to buy. One thing I have learnt is that what makes sense isn't necessarily the path most travelled and logic tends to fall by the wayside in chasing the dream! Turns out that renting / buying / stealing a car is not the simplest task especially when you're planning to cross 3 borders. Once I'd finished my lobsided pro's and con's list I whipped on my skats for a sweep of the town of Mendoza. These South Americans are big into their city parks...Mendoza went so far as to have one with impressive statues and water features surrounded by 4 smaller squares not more than 1km from each other. I smashed the most incredible strawberry and litchie ice cream and was generally oober satisfied to be doing my own thing.

All this goodness couldn't last..on my return to the hostel that evening I was left scratching my head as my bed had been allocated to another (clearly more needy) backpacker. I had only told them 2 nights upfront and so that was that...I had to mozie on down the street to see what else was available. Thankfully there was space at a place not too far from my previous abode so a packed up my loot, made a plan to meet the English young guns around 11pm and joined a frat of Hollanders in the new hostel for table tennis. Close on 15 mates from varsity days make an annual backpacking trip and once I passed their language and competency test they were more than happy to open their tournament to a distant relative of Van Riebeek.

11pm rolled on and so we stacked as many dudes and dudettes into 2 taxis and made tracks for a night club called Shine. I shouldn't have raised an eyebrow when a diversion for some stash came to an abrupt standstill in the middle of a dodgy looking suburb. From absolutely nowhere, our cab was surrounded by 4 other taxis and a heated argument that would've broken the Guiness Book of Records for 6471 words crammed into 30 seconds. I could've sworn I heard our young cab driver's sphincter contract as these clearly more established drivers crapped all over him. It was all over in a flash and try and we might, we never really got to the bottom of the cause of the incident given our very basic Spanglish. One can only assume our man was driving in a restricted area of some kind and had to be put back in his place...

Shine was packed to the rafters with teenagers on summer break...this feeling of weird was compounded by the overly flamboyent dancers on stage who didn't quite fit in. Anyhow, this anxiety didn't stop the young guns from getting stuck in.

4 December

Time slowed to a snail's pace as 6 super hung hackers chilled around the pool shooting the breeze. The random course of conversation reached a pinnacle when the game of Lottery Lines was invented. A simple source of amuzement requiring each partipant snorting a line of unknown content ranging from laxatives to sleeping pills to viagra to cocaine...heeeeeectic. Don't worry Ma, your son had bigger and better aspirations than sniffing powerful chemicals and waiting to see what happens to who. I was heading south in search of beautiful Bariloche...a gem hidden in the majectic glaciers of Patagonia. I left the setting sun of Mendoza around 8pm smiling, excited and ready for a solid 16 hour overnight bus ride.