Mendoza, Argentina

There's something about the South American's, they are so laid back that for a North American it can be a little frustrating at times. Today was a good example, but I will start with the trip here which our tickets said would be a 6 hour bus ride, it turned out to be a 9 hour trip- and what makes one wonder is that unless one was in a car, there is no way you could get from Valparaiso to Mendoza in 6 hours. This is because, 1 you're in a bus, and they generally don't drive faster than the speed limit, and 2 because you have to go through customs with your bus, and you're never the only bus. Customs took about 3 hours.

Today we had planned to go on the bike and wine tour/ride they told us to be ready at 9:30 but that we may not get picked up until 10:30. We were also changing hostels because the one we were at couldn't accommodate us for our last night. So we waited by the pool and at 10:30 we were picked up in a 1979 Fiat with a racing engine and no front passenger seat. We looked at each other and thought this is going to be an adventure. 15 minutes later when the Fiat ran out of gas we thought, yup, adventure time. So the guy who picked us up and Sylvain pushed the car down the street to a gas station that ended up being closed, then we headed to another that was only ten minutes away but our driver ended up convincing someone to drive him to get some gas- which ended up not being gas, but instead anti-freeze. I didn't ask. So we were pretty late to our first appointment at the vineyard, and he had to have his employee bring us our bikes at our first vineyard. We had a quick tour, some tasting and then we got our bikes. Our bikes were of the same vintage as our parents, and riding them felt like a death trap. The next vineyard was just down the road and the old man who ran it only spoke Spanish, which was fine for Sylvain and I, but for the rest of the bikers who didn't speak any, a bit stupid. Our third vineyard we had lunch- pizza seems to be a staple here and that's what they had, but it was very good and we had wine as well. Afterwards there didn't seem to be any point in having a tasting since we tasted 3 wines at lunch, the same three we had at the tasting, and by this point we were feeling it. It was well in the 90's and the combination of the heat and the wine was enough for us, we decided to bring our bikes back to the bikes and wine shop and head home to sit at the pool. Only when we finally found the bikes and wine shop we found that it was locked up and no one was there to tend it. This was extremely frustrating because we had been riding for 20 extra minutes having not been able to find the shop due to the fact that the maps they gave us were completely useless as none of the streets were marked, add the 95 degree heat on bikes that were about to collapse beneath us and the fact that I had bought two bottles of wine that we were meant to collect at the end of the bike tour. We decided to just cut our loses and go back home, we could be sitting their for hours and frankly on our last day in Mendoza we didn't want to spend it in the middle of nowhere waiting for someone to show up with my wine.

We headed back to our original hostel to pick up our bags and paid our bill, our new hostel wasn't far but we couldn't find it and even though it was essentially on the highway next to the bus station when we asked people they either told us they didn't know, or pointed us in what we knew to be the wrong direction. Finally we found it, only after I nearly had a hissy fit with the 95 degree 4pm sun burning down on me and my backpack digging into my shoulders while I felt my dress soak with perspiration against my back. I don't mind if people don't know directions, but if you don't know, don't give me wrong directions. What added insult to injury was the state of our new hostel. It's gross, gross on it's own, but in comparison to where we had stayed the last two nights, a real downer. I don't think our original hostel, Hostel Lao did much out of the ordinary to be both comfortable and a nice place to stay, the hammocks in the back were a nice touch but you realize how inviting comfortable and nice are when the alternative is depressing and dreary.