Mendoza

(I changed the title of this post because I didnt want to freak out my grandparents :) I didnt really drink THAT much wine. I just thought the title was sort of funny. But I think my English word-play has suffered during these past six months of Spanish. Not that it was ever that successful. As I said to my friend Lily, I basically just say whatever pops into my head and about 50% is really hysterical and the other 50% is absolute crap)

Hello Hello!!!!

I seem to be writing these posts always one province behind. Right now I am in Neuquen in a gorgeous town called San Martin de los Andes, but I got here on Tuesday from Mendoza. In Mendoza I was in three places. Mendoza capital, San Rafael, and Malargue. I hearted the capital big time, it is filled with gorgeous plazas and parks and the hostel was my favorite so far because they made us eggs in the morning!!!! I met a lot of really cool people from all over the world there and enjoyed exploring the city and one day biking from vineyard to vineyard wine tasting! We also got complementary wine from the hostel every night. I totally agree now with the peope who say legal drinking promotes responsable drinking. And then everyone i met was going to Chile and the crossover to Chile is supposed to be the most beautiful thing ever so I took a bus part of the way to Chile, up through the mountains to Uspallata. It was amazing, I am totally in love with the Andes.

Then from Mendoza I went to San Rafael to a gorgeous hostel outside the central area. San Rafael is in a little dip in the land so it was SUPER hot and the hostel had a pool and it was the best thing ever. I went one day to Valle Grande and saw some crazy moutain landscapes and (although I usually dont go for the "excursions" they are so fond of here) went rafting down a river lined by incredible orange and purple and black mountains.

Then I went to Malargue, which wasnt my favorite place ever, but I had several amazing food experiences. I ate an insane trout meal at a trout hatchery where you could watch them kill the fish out the window. Then one night at the hostel we all made Pollo a la Disco which is chicken cooked in a big pot over a wood fire together with veggies and wine. Another time we made homemade chorripan with guacamole and ensalada criollo and chimichurri. I also went to La Caverna de las Brujas where we went deep into this laberynth of caverns and saw stalagmites and cystals. And wore headlamps... And there was also a cool planatarium there and a famous observitory where they do work on cosmic rays. All good spanish practice!!!

Now, as I said, I am in San Martin de los Andes which is cold and beautiful and really relaxing. Google image it. I have been hiking, walking around the downtown, and I found a fair on accident where people took their used clothes to the park and did like a huge garage sale. As I said to my friend, I am a thrift store magnet. There I found a patagonian handknit wool sweater for 5 dollars instead of 100-200 like they all cost in town. Also when I went hiking I saw sheep and goats and chickens and what I think were the famous guanacos but could have been llamas. (This is later-Esther writing with the exciting news that they were indeed guanacos!!!) It surpised me how excited about everything farm related I still was after three months of that being my life. Then again, sheep are never going to un-cute themselves, its just not possible.

Also, PS I am fed up with the difficulty of picture posting on these crappy hostel computers with bad internet connections so if you can be patient and wait TWO WEEKS I will put absolutely EVERYTHING worth seeing (mrawr) on the blog.