Day 1...MENDOZA!

I am currently typing in a cyber cafe in Mendoza, Argentina and the keyboard is completely different then what I am used to, so forgive any typos. On the plus side, the computer mouse I´m using has a picture of Bart Simpson sticking his tongue out at me. Have I ever mentioned how obsessed South America is with the Simpsons?

Anyways, we started off our adventure last night at 8 pm. We got to sit in the very front of the bus, which is basically like a rollercoaster ride. The driver never stays on his side of the road and it definitely felt like we were in the death seats. Once we sat down and got comfortable, we eagerly awaited the beginning of whatever ridiculous movie the bus driver was going to pick. As we saw the play symbol appear on the tvs, we laid back and got ready. Little did we realize it was a 2 hour long dvd of the most random music videos ever. Some of my favorites include ¨2 Hearts¨ by Phil Collins, ¨Chiquadita¨ by ABBA, and ¨Always¨ by Bon Jovi. Definitely the best was when Air Supply´s music video came on for ¨All Out of Love¨ and it was a kareoke version. Leah and I sang along quite loudly, along with the crazy wine guides who were sitting behind us. We began talking to them and they offered to give us a wine tour, but we preferred to do our own thing and left them at the bus station.

We got into Mendoza around 8 30 am and it none of the tourist places opened until 9 so we had breakfast at a nice cafe and planned our day. We got some tourist information and we told to go rent bikes at a shop called ¨Mr. Hugo´s.¨ It was this awesome little shop with tons of bikes, 2 dogs and a parrot that would scream hola at you. We grabbed a map, hopped on our bikes, and rode off wearing about 18 coats of sun block.

Our first stop was about 4 km away. There were no real bike trails so Leah and I just rode along the side of the road. Luckily the drivers were all used to bikers so we never came close to getting hit. Our only issue was getting absurd pick up lines thrown at us as cars whizzed by. Don´t worry parents, neither of us were tempted.

We went to a wine museum and got to see how wine was made, sampled several different types of wine at several wineries and had a great lunch at one of them. Our favorite spot was definitely ¨Histores and Sabores¨ which was a chocolate and liquor shop that had over 30 different flavors of liquor. We each got to sample one. I chose pomelo while Leah went for the banana with dulce de leche, shocking I know.

We finally returned to Mr. Hugo´s and I´m not gonna lie, I really can´t feel my butt right now. We biked over 30 km and the last 5 were incredibly painful. Fortunately, good old Mr. Hugo welcomed us big with a big glass of wine and a hammock to rest our weary bodies in.

So that was our first day, no one got too sunburnt, and we are catching a bus tonight at 10 pm that will get us into Santiago around 6 am. No idea what is in store for us, but I´m pretty excited.