Alex and I had 4 flights to get down to Mendoza, our first one leaving on March 31st at 12am midnight. We had a huge bon voyage party. It was awesome having everyone there yet at the same time pretty difficult knowing that we wouldn't see our closest friends for nearly 3 months. We flew to Ft. Lauderdale and had about 8 hours to kill so we decided to head to the beach.
This was the first little bit of down time to really take a breath and figure out a few things that we needed for our trip. These included renters insurance for all of our gear if it got stolen, coordinating hostels in the cities coming up, seeing when friends would be able to meet up, activities to do in Mendoza, etc. On our way back to the airport by bus, we ran into a girl and her mom traveling from the UK. They said that they were getting on a cruise for a week where there are nothing but classic and hard rock concerts every night!!! They had heavy british accents too which was HILARIOUS! They were super friendly and definitely sold us on heading to Malta for a couple days when we're in Europe; we'll see if we can make it happen. Watch out for the portaloos! haha
After making it back to the airport, we had a 6 hour flight to Lima. Here's where our first scare happened. So we were flying Jet Blue and then transferring to LAN from Lima to Mendoza. Our bags needed to be transferred and we needed to check in and get our new boarding passes. Unfortunately, they told us that since we had a connecting flight we need to go through security, not customs, and head back up to the terminal... our bags still waiting for us at the baggage claim passed customs!
We ended up trying to explain ourselves in spanish that we still had our bags to check to Mendoza. It got to within an hour of Alex's flight till LAN told us they were going to search for our bags, tag them, and then re-check them through Santiago to Mendoza. This would TOTALLY not happen in the US. As you can guess, we were super thankful. We arrived in Santiago, Chile and only had 1 more flight to go. I was super excited for this part because we were soon to fly over the Andes. MONTANAS!
You always here about these majestic mountains and I was finally seeing them with my own eyes! The shot above is looking south towards Patagonia. If you were to look north, you would have seen a giant mountain, Aconcagua. I wanted to climb some giant mountains for sure even though I was super tired. I couldn't wait to get out of that plane.
We got a hostel for $10 a night per person. It definitely has everything that we need for the next 4 nights; shower, closet to lock our stuff in, and a bunk bed. That night, we met up with my friend Diana who I met working in Tahoe almost 4 years ago! It was so great to see a familiar face. She showed up with 2 of her friends she new from choir; we had a fun time catching up and learning new words in Spanish, new things to go see, etc.
Today, we rented bicicletas and went for a ride into Parque General San Martin, a large park with lots of sports clubs, tennis, golf, theatres, etc. We rode to the top of the hill and got a great view of the surrounding area. Many thanks to Diana for showing us around.
Tomorrow, Franco and Mailen show up to Mendoza, more good friends from the Lake Tahoe work days. Franco, Mailen, Diana and friends, and Alex and I are planning on finding some fun places to go dancing! Hopefully our hips are loose because we'll need as much help as we can get. Mailen has a car, so we'll be able to head towards the mountains, go wine tasting, and check out some of the countryside!!! Hopefully Tamara and Sofia can come out with us as well.
We are planning on heading to Arenales on Sunday or Monday. Arenales is one of the best places to climb in Argentina; lots of high quality granite walls and boulders. Can't wait!!! Sounds like it will be quite the adventure to get out to this remote area... tune in next time to see how we end up getting there. :)
Scotty "Top-Rope Scooter" Mathewson
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