Once we arrived in Argentina we booked it to our hostel, which again was kind of a hot mess. Jamie and I decided that our phrase for the weekend was "tenemos una problema..." which means "we have a problem". The lady at the hostel must've just put away her crack pipe when we walked in because she was like, "this is a bad weekend to be here...there won't be anything open...it's a holiday weekend...we ran out of wine in the whole country..." Ok jk to the last thing but she did say everything before that. She said we wouldn't be able to go to any artisan shops because everything was closed because it was a holiday weekend and basically we needed to go back to Chile. So after freaking out for .6 seconds, Jamie and I walked to a little square, where lo and behold, everything was open! Restaurants! Artisan shops! People everywhere! The lady didn't know what she was talking about. We bought a ton of little gifts for friends and a huge bottle of wine and headed back to the hostel for BBQ and a little hostel party.
The next morning, bright and early and regretting the night before, we got up and headed to Mapiu to rent bikes and take a tour of all of the vineyards in the area. Maipu is like a suburb of Mendoza, so we had to take a bus to get there. Long story short we walked around for like 20 minutes trying to figure out how to put money on our card to ride the bus and we ended up getting dropped off even farther from where we were supposed to go-- tenemos una problema!! Finally we stumbled upon the bike shop and were off on a wine-seeking adventure.
A little disclaimer: Mendoza doesn't look anything like what you expect wine country to look like. To be honest, it's kind of ghetto. A lot of trashy people live there. There's a vineyard next to a shack with a broken down camino in front and you're just kinda like what?? So, forgive the pictures. But the excellent wine made up for the disgusting-ness.
Wine museum
The hardest vineyard to find in the whole world
The vineyard we biked through for 20 minutes....
After all the intense biking we were really thirsty so naturally we stopped in a beer garden
A winery that was the worst tour of my life
After a while all wineries look alike. I can tell you anything you want to know about making wine. I could probably make some right now I'm such an expert.
Tourin'
Oh, I didn't see you there
More tourin'
...
And then we got on the barrels. And that's about the time the owner stopped letting American's into the winery
We made it back to Maipu in one piece and fell into a deep long wine induced slumber. Sunday we woke up a little late and had a nice little breakfast then Jamie had the best idea ever- we should go to the zoo! And that we did! The last time I went to the zoo I was wearing diapers so I was excited to go again. And this was a bomb zoo. It was in the middle of a beautiful park so it was fun to walk there and get to see all the pretty trees changing colors (even though we ended up walking like 6 miles and I now have huge blisters on my toes)
Ayye reppin' my country
Blending in
A map of the zoo- it was carved into the hill!
So we go into the zoo expecting something subpar, a good cheap way to spend the day, etc. Boy oh boy were we mistaken. We ended up spending all day there! They had a really good selection of animals to look at and the best part was...THEY HAD WILD MONKEYS JUST WALKING AROUND THE ENTIRE ZOO!! Wild monkeys, people! We bought some monkey cookies and it was game over because we got to feed them. The monkeys took the cookies from us with their little monkey hands!!! At one point I realized Jamie and I were yelling and laughing more than the children were.
So close, no?
Then I threw monkey cookies literally into this bear's mouth and he loved it, maybe more than I did
Leetle zeebs
Rosie the elephant!!
She was so cute- she'd put her trunk up here and let people feed her (who knew monkey cookies were a zoo favorite?!)
After a long day of monkey holding and cookie throwing we were exhausted and starving. This is what we ate. I know, are we boys or girls??
Then, after walking a million miles Vanessa Carlton style my feet hurt so dang bad! I'm not embarrassed to say that yes, I took my shoes off and walked home barefoot.
But not before buying the best churros known to man.
Mendoza was so so SO fun. Monday morning we woke up and headed for the bus station. All was fine until we got to the Argentina/Chile border. No lie, we sat there for FIVE HOURS because traffic was so backed up and there's only one scanner that checks all of the luggage that comes through the dang border. Literally one scanner. They take off all the luggage and scan it, then put it back in. OMG I legit thought I was going to die. The only bonus was that we were standing in the middle of the Andes, so it was pretty to look at. But then I'd remember that we were waiting for so long so I'd get mad again. Also there was the trashiest family on our bus. One kid yelled the entire time and his brother picked his nose and coughed on me. I was so over the bus by the time we got back to Chile.
We don't look to bad either, do we?
Welcome to Chile: land of only one luggage scanner
Good thing I didn't get tired of this view
The cookies that ended up saving our lives because they were the only things we had to eat!!!
So all in all, a successful weekend in deed. I'm looking forward to just relaxing and chilling and HANGING OUT WITH MY FAMILY THIS WEEKEND!! That's right, the TankerToes are coming to Chile!! I don't know if the country is ready for the sass those 3 are bringing me. I'll try to have a good time with them while they're here ;)
Chao,
Aves
Hi Avrey,
ReplyDeleteMy name is KC Owens, I’m a college student and I love to travel! While cruising the Internet, I found your site and really enjoyed reading your posts. I have been to countries all over Europe with just my backpack and a camera. Since I am a college student and I have significant bills, it can be difficult to find ways to travel the world. However, I have done this several times, with less than ten pounds of luggage and while on a college dime!
I was hoping that you would allow me to write a post for your site to share my tips and tricks with your readers. I put a lot of time into my traveling, it is my biggest passion and I would love to inspire others by sharing my stories, mistakes and triumphs. I look forward to hearing from you!
Best,
KC Owens