I put the ME in MENDOZA

This week's weather: Saturday, Sunday highs in the low 60s during the say and chilly 40s at night; Monday-Wednesday low to mid 70s.
This week's read: Numbers.

On Friday I left Cordoba on a bus to Mendoza. What was supposed to be a 9 hours bus ride somehow took 14. Fortunately, I again slept most of the way, waking up once to find that:
1) A middle aged Argentinian man had plopped down next to me and
2) I had been snoozing on his shoulder for who knows how long.
I promptly apologized and then scooted over to my window nook to catch a bit of the landscape flying by. Part of the trek involved ascending and descending a mountain with some breathtaking and steep cliffs along the way. Needless to say, there were no shoulders (except for the Argentinian one I was sleeping on) or guard rails here.

I arrived in Mendoza around 11pm where I checked in to my hostel and quickly jutted across the street to fill my growling tummy. I ordered a calzone the size of my head and ate most of it. No regrets from this girl.

The next couple of days I spent a fair amount of time walking around town seeing even more plazas, fountains and the like, all with the same names as any other plaza in any other Argentinian town.

Some plaza

And another plaza...

Plaza Espana was a highlight with some amazing story-telling tile work on the ground, seating, and monument.

  

I celebrated Palm Sunday with an evening mass at a local iglesia that I ran across the first day I arrived. I was unexpectedly splashed with gobs of holy water by a priest with a palm branch. This was after I accidentally sat down in the confessional line.

On Tuesday I survived a biking and wine tour! The province of Mendoza is known for its wines, specifically their Malbecs but I need further research to draw my own conclusions. Meanwhile, I've previously had some bad experiences with bikes but since my bike city tour in Buenos Aires went so well, I thought I'd give this one try.

First we visited Cecchin Winery, a small organic farm started and still run by an Italian family that immigranted from Northern Italy.

Ready to ship!

Hanging out with the grapes

Next, we went to Vistandes, an industrial winery, gaining world-wide recognition. http://www.vistandes.com/home.htm

Not a bad view of the Andes.

I blurred out the photo to protect the anonymity of all my friends.

Temperature controlled windows

Wine is serious stuff. And so are selfies.

We visited one more boutique winery but I don't remember its name. And it's not because it was the third wine tasting.

Lastly, we spent some time at a beer garden. I was surprisingly content with my craft beer!

Overall, I've loved Mendoza! It's a city with everything one could ask for from hiking mountains to rafting rivers to wine tasting to shopping at quaint boutiques. I longed to go paragliding here in Mendoza but decided against it for now due to the cost and am pretty bummed about it. Hopefully I'll get to do it in another country along the way for less.

A little graffitiart

Low point: I ate at McDonalds. Before you judge, you don't know how badly I had to use the restroom before I saw those golden arches. I used the bathroom there and then a white chocolate toblerone with dulce de leche McFlurry for 15 pesos was calling my name! Call it a moment of weakness but that McFlurry was darn good.

Wednesday I head out, about 4 hours southeast to San Rafael where I need to take some local buses to get to the farm I'll working on. It's a literal wild goose chase with directions (in Spanish) like  "ask the driver for four corners" and then "turn right at the president's hair" and "head in a westerly direction for 700 meters." We'll see how well this works out.