Yay for happy exhaustion! Last week was a little stressful, just because travel planning happened, in which there was much drama with the internet and maps. But all is well now and I don’t have to think about scheduling again, until sometime next week. There was also a trip to Museo de Bellas Artes, which made me sad about the state of Chilean Museums and feel like a major Art History nerd at the same time, especially because there was a painting by this guy Holguin, who I already wrote a paper about. I felt especially smart that day. Also, I got my interview with the community service peeps, who work down by the bus station and are ¡superbien! So, hopefully, that will come through.
But the main event of the week was Mendoza. Four of us: Wendi, Sabrina, Kara and I, left Thursday night and head through the Andes to the Argentinean border. I have trouble sleeping on buses, especially when I have to wake up halfway through to go through customs, anyways. Luckily, this was also two nights before the full moon. The mountains loomed up like giant stegosauruses and the reflection of the moon on patches of snow were as bright as spotlights. It seemed like the whole world had stopped as we slowly wove our way through the mountains to customs, which was freezing. Customs didn’t take that long, so we reached Mendoza at 5:40 in the morning, caught a cab and end up at our hostel door. We knocked for a couple of minutes, while all wondering (without saying) what we would do if nobody opened the door. Luckily, a really attractive Argentinean did open the door and let us crash on the lobby couches for the next three hours. (While not the most comfortable arrangement, it was free. Yay!) The next morning (or that same morning, depending on your perspective) we ate breakfast and planned the next day and a half in Mendoza. First on the list was the tenedor libre, or the fantastically cheap all-you-can-eat restaurant. The prepared food in Mendoza is amazing. In fact, it was so good, we couldn’t move; they had to kick us out of the restaurant. So we wandered to the park and looked at crafts stuff that was for sale.
Then, it started to rain. Well, not really clouds were piling and there was some thunder. We headed back to the hostel to see if our calbagatos plans for the evening were canceled or still on.
Luckily for us, the horseback riding was a go. Normally, I don’t really like doing the horseback riding thing because the horses normally look sickly. But these were healthy horses. And since we were the only four people leaving from the hostel, there were two guides for the four of us. The guides took us up past the giant statue of Christ that they seem to have in every South American city and up into the mountains. As the moon rose, we could see the entire city of Mendoza lit up, with a layer of clouds hovering over the city. Lightning was shooting back and forth across the clouds, lighting up the sky. And as we watched, the moon rose up through the clouds and hovered over the lightning storm and Mendoza. Happy, content and tired, we rode back to the ranch (literally) and the guides made us a barbeque (so much food). And we returned to the hostel and crashed.
The next morning we woke up and caught a bus out to the mountains, where we went hiking through New Mexico looking mountains and shrubbery to waterfalls (which I don’t think we’ve found hiking in New Mexico). Later that afternoon, we went rafting with Mario and a Brazilian dude and had tons of fun. They had to end the rafting a little earlier because another lightning storm moved in, but we were all okay with that. That night we head out to Alquimia (The Alchemist, my Australian roommate proudly informed me.) Which was awesome, if only in size. It was huge and fun. The music was actually okay, the sketchiness of most of the guys there was not (when people all around you start yelling “Hey, California, over here!” it is time to leave). So Wendi and I hailed a cab and talked politics back to the hostel where we crashed. Next morning, took a bus back down through the mountains into the Santiago smog valley. And my host family stared at me as I struggled to make conversation while eating and trying not to pass out over my sandia. Oh, to be home!