It was a riot. An actual riot. Danger and violence included. I won´t lie and say I´m not one to be dramatic, but some pretty interesting things went down. I´ll try to keep it chronological.
First of all, there was the 13-hour bus ride. We came prepared with snacks and whisky. Our meek but friendly bus attendant, Enrique, led us in a bus-wide bingo game. Between the four of us, we knew someone would win. Well, I WON!!!! Sorry to brag, but I´m awful excited that I won a bottle of Santa Julia sauvignon blanc in a game of bus bingo. I didn´t even feel that bad when I ran up to claim my prize, past the little old man clutching his losing bingo paper. I totally stole his game. Anyway, it helped make the bus ride go faster since we all knocked out on our pathetic "semi-camas".
Day one in Mendoza, we were pretty wrecked from the ride but decided to find an activity that involved wine and bicycles. Success! We got dropped off at BikesAndWines somewhat near this long stretch of bodegas, or vineyards. We were greeted by huge, sloshing cups of wine and invited to choose our bikes. No helmets, no waivers, nothing. Being me, I was wearing a silky mini dress and sandals. No pants, no problem! They let us loose on the local highway with an oversimplified map of the surrounding terrain and a vigorous promise of lots of great wine up ahead. Well, we barely survived the ride to the first bodega. At one point, we were pedaling furiously on a one-lane-dirt highway, competing with two lanes of traffic, mostly buses and trucks. At one point, a bus flew by and actually skimmed my hair. Yaaahhooo! By the time we got to a vineyard and parked our decrepit bikes, we were shaken and knew we wouldn´t make it to any others before they closed. So we bought several bottles of absolutely phenomenal wine, enjoyed them on a lovely terrace, and just chilled out. Maybe a little too much. Let´s just say that the bike ride back was more dangerous, but so much more fun. We passed out hard that night after some delicious steak and, of course, more wine.
Day two, we happened upon some other pals from our program in Buenos Aires who were staying at another hostel. They were walking by our hostel and saw us through the window! Luckily, they had planned a cool trip out to the Andes to go horseback riding for the afternoon. We hustled over to their hostel, booked it, and then played ping pong and drank beer while waiting to get picked up. I can´t even describe how cool it was to see the Andes from a distance -- and then drive into them. Once we got to the horse "facility", which was a very, very rural barn with an equally rural set of horses and a low-slung stone hut, we were paired up with our animals by a smiley gaucho named Diego. Being of unimpressive stature, I was given a saggy little grey and white steed named Domino (who turned out to be a totally decent ride in the end). They led us across streams, up some pretty gnarly hills, down some slippery rock faces -- the hairiest part of the ride -- and through beautiful, high-altitude fields nestled in the valleys between some of the lower peaks. Whenever Diego felt that one of the horses was lagging, he´d snap off a branch and hand it to the rider, then yell AAIIYEEE until the horse got terrified and sprinted off. Very funny, until you were the one bouncing along like a rag doll. He gave me my own nature-made whip because Domino chose eating over walking, and at first I felt pretty dumb spanking my fat old horse with a bunch of twiggy flowers. It worked though, and I felt really comfortable riding after a little while.
When we got back, we were greeted with a huge asado -- cooked on a small fire next to the hut, but sooo delicious. They also gave us unlimited wine. I mean truly without limits. We all ate our dinner in a bite, sip, bite, sip manner, and I don´t know at which point everyone besides myself and the other five girls I was with left, but soon we were alone with the gaucho and his friend Santiago. We played guitar by the fire, kept guzzling that free wine, I had a nap on a log next to the fire, our friend Lillian melted her boot in the fire, etc. My friend Caroline got a little silly -- though no sillier than the rest of us -- and broke a glass, then fell off her chair into the shards. None of us realized that she had hurt herself until five minutes later, when she was walking around with blood streaming down her arm, looking confused. We got her to the sink in the hut, and while Morgan held Caroline´s hand under cold water, I helped the gaucho make tourniquets with a dishtowel and a knife. He tied it on with his teeth! We all sobered up as much as possible, piled into the mini bus that had been waiting for us, and booked it to the nearest clinic. All they did was clean up the cut a little bit, so we went into Mendoza to another hospital, where they stitched her up. Mind you -- it´s 2AM and we are all covered in dirt, horse hair, and wine stains.
I am leaving out some details, but I´m sure I´ve included plenty and this post is hugely long. After all that jazz, we got back to the hostel safely, Caroline was all nicely bandaged up thanks to Morgan (who waited with her for hours), and woke up only slightly worse for the wear on Sunday. We spent the day trolling for ice cream and laying in the sun, fainting from dehydration, re-hydrating, finding more ice cream, then piling onto that damn bus again. I´m pretty sure the bus broke down in the middle of the night, but in true Argentine fashion, the bus just limped along slowly until we finally got home.
Mendoza, you were good to us. Sorry for partying. Pictures to come!
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