Mendoza, Argentina

So this past weekend I took a trip to Mendoza with two friends from my program and it was great. We stayed in a nice hostel for two nights. Below you can see the pictures of Hostel Damajuana that I took. Not the best quality, but hey I'm not a photographer. We arrived around noon in Mendoza after a 15+ hour bus ride....Yeah. Super long, but worth it.

A really shotty picture to give you an idea of what my bus looked like. We were leaving the station.

I slept on the bottom bunk. You can see my bookbag there right before our first excursion. We got our own private bath and the accomodations were pretty decent.

 This hostel had a pool, wifi, and the first night we got a really good "as ado" which is kind of like a barbaque. Argentina's known for their quality beef, so the meat was juicy and DELICIOUS.

Another view from outside. In the corner are some Argentine girls I met talking.

So after a couple hours, we decided to take a bodega tour in Mendoza to see the wine process and of course drink wine all day.

The tour van. Couldn't fit the whole vehicle in the shot but you get the idea.

We did the tour in Spanish, so there was the three Americans (us) and everyone else was from Brasil, Venezuela or Argentina. And weird tidbit, this little nine year old Argentine girl kept staring at me the whole tour. She had the greenest eyes and was pretty cute. Guessing she hadn't seen many black Americans speaking Spanish.

I tried to make this look artistic.

Look at all the bottles of wine next to my dumb expression. The room was kept dark.

 I don't particularly like wine that much, but it was a new experience. After a while I started liking the taste.

These pictures are in no particular order. This is me in front of the first bodega and behind me are the fields in which the whole wine process begins. Huge land I should say.

And inside this shop were cremes, lotions, and soaps promising younger looking skin and other health benefits. Pretty but expensive.

Look at all the wine! This was towards the end of the tour when you could buy wine, but alas I had little money to spend.

Emily and Victoria! We had just drunk our wine and were feeling good.

Really cool setup and look at how the glasses sparkle. People take their wine seriously here.

Third stop was an olive factory. Not a fan of olives, but these people put it on everything. But it was cool to see these barrels. And later they gave us free samples to taste.

 The last place we visited was this liquor shop were they also made chocolates and jams of different flavors. So above and below you can see the selection of chocolate bars made by the owner in her own home! My favorite was the oreo one, of course. The spreads were also really good. My favorite was this homemade raspberry jam and with the bread they gave us, it was so good.

I took this shot before anyone could get their hands on the spreads.

The next day:

We took a breather before heading off to go horseback riding!

On the car ride to the horses. You can see the Andes right there. They were awesome. Of course, I'd like to see them further south where they're covered in snow, but I'm not complaining.

My horse was among them! Say hello to Euserio. He looks kind of fat or disproportionate but it was just the angle Alejandro took it (the tour guide).

You could see Mendoza all the way out in the distance from the mountains. I didn't have my digital camera while we we're riding the horses because I was afraid it would fall and break. But pretty nice for my iPhone.

Nice view.

They have a Walmart all the way in western Argentina. Oh Walmart, spreading its goods all over the world.

These are all the pictures I took while in the Andes. The sun was setting.

Proof that I actually did this. I'm holding the reigns. I'll probably never do something like this again for a long time. And side note, horses have huge nostrils. Like you could probably fit your fist in there if the horse didn't have a fit.

The sun is shining on Emily. She was a bit scared at first but she did it and loved it. But everytime we'd stop, they'd keep trying to eat the shrubs.

This was all taken while I was on horseback. The weather was perfect, not too cold or hot.

Emily posing! See how close my horse was to hers? Little control of Euserio. The horses pretty much were up each others butts.

The group. We had two blonde girls on the right from the Netherlands and the girl with the blue shoes was from Brazil. There were four different languages happening at the same time at one point. We're all drinking wine after the long journey. My butt really hurt. I have no idea how people can ride horses all the time and still walk.

The last thing we did was sit around the fire place and get what? That's right. Another asado. The meat was super juicy I can't stress enough and the Argentine tour guide sang us songs while strumming his guitar. I know Victoria enjoyed him very much, but alas the dude was too short for any of us.

And the night ended under the stars. I tried taking pictures of the stars from the mountain top, but they just came out black and there was no way to capture them. It was quiet and away from the city lights. Probably the best weekend ever.