I arrived in Mendoza in the morning by bus, it was about a 10 hour ride. Mendoza is a small town in the western part of Argentina and a main hub to getting into Santiago. It’s known for rafting, skiing, and wine.
My original plan was to only stay there for maybe 2 nights tops. I also decided that I wanted to go sky diving, which was about $175ish, or ~800 pesos. With a wad of pesos in my pocket I went to the travel desk only to find that the plane was broken (and that they were the only sky divers in town). This was far too much money, annoying.
So I decided to go horseback riding instead to waste some pesos. I hung out the first day, walked around town. It’s definitely bigger than the listed 100k people or whatever it is.
Horseback riding was canceled the next day…I woke up early (9 a.m., haha) and drove up with the guides, only to find the weather in the mountains was impossible for riding. It was raining and very overcast, which sucked. I went on the wine tour instead.
I’m not a fan of wine…I’m not even sure why I went. The tour we went on involved renting some bikes and going along the road (maybe 6kms down) and back, seeing the various wineries and olive oil places around. We ate lunch at one of the wineries and the food was quite good-
(That was my tirimasu cake (sp?))
Anyways, yeah. I went horseback riding the day after, as the weather was a bit better. And by ‘riding’ I really mean just sitting on the back of a horse and not going fast at all. That said, it was a fun experience and enjoyable.
insane dog -
so in the area we were at there were alot of wild dogs…My guides also had two dogs of his own that followed us with the horses. There were packs of dogs roaming around, looking to fight. I felt like I was in a western or something when it was our side (3 horses and 2 dogs) vs. 4-5 random wild dogs (the two white ones were ours and were pretty weak compared to the others)-
So yeah, that was that.
I tried going to Chile that night but the roads were blocked off. They also don’t really do night buses in the winter, so I was totally ignorant on all fronts. The day after the roads were blocked off due to snow, so I was stuck in Mendoza. (For all of those ever planning on traveling from U.S. to Argentina or Chile, know that if you fly by air into the country, you’ll have to pay $130 visa tax…if you go by bus into said countries, you can avoid it).
I went the next day and arrived here in Santiago last night. The road to Santiago by Mendoza is very pretty and well worth the trip. It did last about 10 hours but 2.5 of those were spent at customs at the border.
These were all taken inside the bus, so poor quality…but yeah, well worth the trip.
I’m in Santiago right now, though, I plan on traveling to Pucon tonight. It’s a small town south of here (10 hours, more or less). I’m hoping that I’ll be able to hike up to this massive volcano there…so yeah. My trip is really winding down here…I fly out on the 29th of this month (9 days to go). Ideally, I’d like to book my trip to Lima on the 27th to avoid any complications that might arise. After that it’s Vegas for a few weeks to hopefully hike Zion and then back home in Omaha.