The Adventure of a Sensible Quixotic Girl in Chile: Updates (2)

More to tell! ^_^

There are so many things to say! I have been mostly going to school, studying/homework, hanging out with friends and eating. But we kinda had some time off for a sort of spring break thing and checked with the other teachers to see if it was okay to leave and Leah, Chaz, Jacob, Eric and I went to MENDOZA, ARGENTINA!!!! ^_^ It was such a blast!

We left after classes on the Thursday before Easter at around 10 at night. The bus ride was supposed to get us to Mendoza at a little before 8 the next morning but customs are a horrible ordeal and had us stuck in stop and go traffic in the Andes for about 4 hours. It was kinda chilly and we all were in glasses and either sitting on the bus or waiting in line. It also took longer because a few of us... (not me) forgot to go to the second line. There were two, one for exiting Chile and one for entering Argentina... haha silly gringos. It didn't really matter but we finally made it into Argentina with the rising sun! We arrived in Mendoza at about 11 and found our way to our first hostel (I ended up staying at 3 over the course of 5 nights). It was super cute with a large boys and large girls room. I forgot to take photos of the rooms, which is sad as it was my first hostel experience! We were all rather tired but decided to wander around Mendoza. This ended up being a grand adventure that last the rest of the day. We visited many plazas which were each super different and fun! Complete with playgrounds!!! ^_^ Jacob declared himself tour guide and using the map we got at the bus station led us to multiple plazas! For dinner we went to a tenedor libre (buffet but quite literally "free fork") which was gigantic! There was about every style of food there and it was just huge in general! ^_^ We all split a bottle of wine and stuffed ourselves silly!

The next day I moved hostels and we made plans to go paragliding but for some reason or another our guide didn't show up.. not sure if it was the weather or something else at the time. This left us with not much of an afternoon but we made the best of it and went to a Serpent Garden and Aquarium and walked around another park. After all this we decided to go to a mini carnival/fairground area... after walking quite a while to get there I decided that it didn't look like enough fun to pay and go into but some people stayed and had a blast. I went back to the 2nd hostel for a rest until dinner. Dinner we went out with a couple of people from Germany and Denmark!

The next morning was a bit of torture... I had to get up at 5:30am, having gone to bed near 3am! After packing up my stuff to move to a third hostel later I got ready to go to hike around Aconcagua, which the highest peak in South America. Now we didn't actually get up there but the glacier was sweet to look at! ^_^ Eric had to go home cause he had to be at school on Monday but we added Jocelyn to our group of Chaz, Jacob, Leah and I and made it to the bus at 7 to take the long ride (about 4 hours) to Aconcagua. Most of us slept part of the ride but when we got there it was beautiful. Oh and btw it was Easter Sunday!!!! A wonderful way to spend the day. I'll put some pictures up but they won't do justice to its beauty. We spent the day hiking/walking around taking pictures and snacking before walking back to town to get a real meal and our bus tickets home. We went to the market and bought some alpaca-wear, socks, scarves, sweaters which we later modeled and took pictures of while waiting for the bus. Oh! and we also saw the Puente del Inca (Inca Bridge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puente_del_Inca ) a natural formation that very pretty! The bus left at 8 that night so it was around midnight by the time we got back to Mendoza, then we had to get our gear and move to the next hostel. In the next hostel we had booked a family room with a double bed and a bunk bed. It was simply adorable and we became a family! We all tied our shoes outside the window as they all smelled horrible from walking all day! It was a funny sight! ^_^ Hilarity also ensued when Jacob and Chaz broke the bathroom door handle from the inside and got stuck which led to them pounding and yelling before Leah went and told them to be quiet and freed them. :D

Monday we got up fairly early to go on a wine and bike tour! That also involved a bus ride, about 30 minutes where we then got off got to Mr. Hugo's bike place, rented some bikes and got a map and large glass of free wine and set off to try some stuff! The first place we stopped at was called Trapiche, which was a super classy wine place! We took a tour, got taught how to taste wines and tasted a few! Next we went to a chocolate and liquor place where we got to sample chocolate, a shot of liquor (I tried and irish cream) and two types of jams! After that we it was getting late but we stopped at one more chocolate and liquors place where I tried Absinthe! That was an experience!!! ^_^ After, we returned our bikes and caught a bus back to our hostel.

The next day we decided to go parapente (paragliding)! In the morning we went over to San Martin park, a giant park in Mendoza and walked around a little before going back to the hostel to wait for our parapente guide. Driving up the hill getting to the top to go was super bumpy and I got really nauseous but it was a blast! Though not the adrenaline rush I wanted it to be, it was just like sitting in the air, super relaxed! Though I felt gross after landing and most of the rest of the day. We ended up going to another tenedor libre where thanks to my friends, I only had to pay half cause I wasn't going to be able to eat much. We returned back to the hostel and called it a night.

The next morning we got up and got to the bus station and by 9:30am we were on our bus back to Viña. Also customs went much smoother and quicker and we got to make use of the fall back daylight savings time so we were back earlyish and got to quickly unpack and repack for our group trip to La Serena the next day! haha what a whirlwind of an adventure!

<3Annie