MENDOZA - ARGENTINA

Filled with expectations of another amazing trip, terrific people and experiences so different from anything I could imagine in Australia, I left all that was familiar on the 27th of December and after an overnight stop in Sydney and a few hours in Auckland I arrived into Santiago de Chile and made the all too familiar bus ride into the city as soon as possible, attempting to minimise the amount of time I had to spend in the more expensive and for me, less exciting neighbour to Argentina. Luckily I was easily able to take an afternoon bus from Santiago to Mendoza and with the help of a friendly local managed to get a good price also.

The bus ride over the Andes was wonderful, despite it being my third time. Instead of the white snow capped mountains and frozen rivers that I had seen during my two previous trips, this time I was greeted by amazing amounts of green and brown, earthly colours which I can imagine must only exist for a small number of months prior to the onset of winter. Despite being couped up in the bus I still managed to capture a number of good photos of the scenery.

I arrived weary into Mendoza and checked into my hostel. The city was just as I remembered, with the main street busy as ever at night, filled with revelers enjoying the pleasant weather and great food Argentina has to offer. I even by chance bumped into a friend of mine from my previous visit, a nice surprise !

Unfortunately I had not managed to stay awake for all of my bus ride from Santiago and hence was hit with jet-lag pretty hard, meaning I was forced to just make conversation with whoever wanted to listen until about 4am at which point I gave up and tried to go to sleep, a partially successful campaign.

My stay in Mendoza was rather chilled out, my time spent just talking with other travellers and easing my way back into travelling, the Argentine culture and so on. I did manage to catch up with a few friends during my time there and enjoyed a number of ´long lunches´. The hostel I stayed at was extremely fun and filled with a good crowd. A number of us ventured out on the Friday night before New years and were not dissapointed with one of the newer clubs in Mendoza, Carilo . Another amazing clubbing experience, with the setting providing much of the enjoyment from the whole night... The sheer number of people at the club meant that I quickly became separated from the rest of the group, which wasn´t too much of a drama as I seemed to make friends with almost everyone. Offering ´snus´ to anyone who was willing to try it I was amazed once again by just how friendly the Argentines were and found it difficult to understand how people from other regions of Argentina could think that Mendoza was a rather closed community, difficult to break into.

I had a great time just talking with loads of people and dancing the night away until the orange sun rose above the horizon, giving rise to amazing vistas with the sprawling metropolis of Mendoza in the valley below. This is life !!!

The following evening, New Years eve was an absolute hoot ! After purchasing $400 pesos worth of fireworks (about 10% of an average monthly wage in Argentina) a group of us engaged in some urban warfare with the younger Mendozan community, each group attemtping to outdo the other in terms of just how loud they could be. It´s fair to say we won hands down and with the help of the friendly fireworks shop owner put on a great display for everyone. The hostel did a great job of organising a feast and later on a DJ for us all to enjoy and so we tucked into the $50 pesos worth of food and alcohol like it was the last day of the year !!!

There were so many funny moments from the night it is difficult for me to recount them all. Some of the highlights included the new spanish phrase of ´F#cking Bueno !´, people nuding up in the pool, misplaced fireworks (i.e. bombs) destroying some of the deckchairs around the pool and some of the dance moves being busted out. We all partied well into the night although not all of us made it out to the club later on, myself included. From all accounts it was another great clubbing experience and I was dissapointed not to have been involved. Still, around 7am, after only a few hours sleep a number of us decided to wake up the few people which had not ventured out so as to continue drinking, whether it be around the pool, down the street (where we were hassled by some of Mendoza´s ´finest´ citizens such as sleezy 70 year old man and people just starting to fights) or wherever we could.

This nonsense continued until well into the afternoon until I almost collapsed from exhaustion. This wasn´t of course until after we had pushed every single person with dry clothes into the pool (in the process causing some people to become rather upset - only because they hadn´t slept and also a number of injuries including a sprained ankle and cut foot) and ´acquired´ as many free beers as we could before the hostel staff caught onto our plans. Needless to say my remaining day in Mendoza was one of rest and relaxation as I tried to say a few goodbyes before taking an overnight bus to Cordoba.

I cannot remember having enjoyed a New Years celebrations so much in recent memory and my experiences only strengthened my opinions of just what a wonderful city Mendoza is...

Photos 1-3: Andes pass between Santiago and Mendoza.
Photo 4: Cerro de La Gloria - Mendoza
Photos 5&6: Hostel travellers and locals at Carilo.
Photos 7- 11: New Years celebrations at the hostel.