Mendoza
We arrived in Mendoza this morning at about 7.00am after a 16 hour bus journey and I was surprised that the sun did not rise until 8.00am. I don´t remember it rising that late at home even in the winter.
We called a couple of hostels but they did not have any rooms so we went with this guy who said he had a hostel but he took us to an apartment that we are sharing with 2 Israeli guys at the moment. They speak in a way that sounds like they are spitting but they don´t actually spit thank god. Kelly was accidentally spat on the other day by a lady who was eating bread while trying to give us directions. How I laughed !!!
Anyway. Mendoza is a nice town that sits below the Andes mountain range. We are booking a trip to see them properly in the next couple of days so I will definately take some photos and put them on here. We are hiring mountain bikes for the day tomorrow which should be cool. Mendoza is quite a lively place and it seems a bit warmer than it was in Buenos Aires.
Mendoza Continued….
We hired the bikes and went to San Martin Park in Mendoza which was cool. Here is a picture of us in the park. I had my hair cut about a week ago (the only helpful haircutting phrase in the book for me was “Shave it all off”).
While we were in the park we decided to walk up to the top of this hill to see a monument but we didn´t realise it was a 5km hike. We left our bikes at the bottom of the hill (about 3km away from the park entrance). We managed to get a lift back down the hill but due to language difficulties we ended up getting dropped all the way back to the park entrance and we had to get a cab back to the bikes again. I have got to get better at Spanish !!!.
I took a picture of these plants when we got to the top of the hill as they looked quite phallic to me (I hope someone agrees with me)
We also stopped for something to eat in the park. I didn´t order “Speed” though.
Yesterday we took a bus trip to the Argentina / Chile border to get a better look at the mountains. It was a really beautiful road going right through this huge canyon. We stopped along the way and took this photo of us with the Aconcagua mountain (6962 Metres high) in the background.
When we got to the end of the road main road we took a thin snaky road up to 3800 meters above sea level. Kelly is afraid of heights so she did not enjoy the views from the bus very much. When we got to the top we took this picture.
The size and scale of the mountains and canyons is unbeliveable.
On the way back to Mendoza city we stopped and Kelly took this photos of my with a nice blue lake in the background.
It was a really cool day.
When we got back we popped out for a bite to eat and on the way back two cars ploughed into one another about 2 metres away from us just before we were about to cross the road. One of the cars wheels came right off at the axle and it smashed into a concrete barrier. Luckliy no one was injured but Kelly was a bit shaken up about it.
It was not an ideal end to the day. I think Argentina has one of the worse road accident records in the world.
I forgot to mention that we did a wine tasting tour and here is a picture of Kelly with her nightly supply of wine.
Thats it for now.
James
Tags: Argentina, Mendoza, South America, Travel
jamespuckey
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