Study Abroad in Santiago, Chile and Travels in South America 2013: Mendoza, Argentina

Hola todos,

This previous weekend, I went to Mendoza, Argentina with 6 other people. I took a bus to get there at 10PM on Thursday. Apparently the ride is 6 hours, so I figured I'd sleep the entire way, get to the hostel, and go back to sleep. Well, the trip was 9 hours instead and we arrived at 7:30. We ended up spending about 2 hours at customs. Oh well.
My friends woke me up the next day at 11 to go zip-lining and rafting! I was tired, but I can always sleep another time. We got suited up and took a bus to about a half hour away. (I slept the entire time.) When we arrived, we put on our harnesses and went zip-lining. It was so much fun! There were 4 zip-lines, and the last two were quite long. We zip-lined over an absolutely beautiful blue lake with mountains surrounding it. There's nothing compared to seeing a place on a zip-line.
Afterwards, we got dressed into our wetsuits. It took like 10 minutes to actually get it on! It was so tight. But, once the 7 of us had them all, I realized that we looked like a crew from Star Trek, so I have a picture (I'll post it below) of all of holding up the star trek sign. A classic. We then took a bus up stream. This was my first time rafting, and it was very nerve-racking at times and I feared for my life at some points, but all in all it was a great rush. We were on the water for about 45 minutes, and we bumped around, hitting rocks, and huge waves hitting us. There was this one wave, I was so scared I was gonna fall off, I just sunk to the bottom of the raft. Screw that, I'm not falling into freezing cold water!! Luckily, no one actually fell overboard. The only boy with us, Josu, who is from Spain, almost fell into the water, and I caught him in mid-air. Those are my lifeguard reflexes. What can I say? We made it to the end of the river where it becomes the lake all in one piece, and exhausted. The guide was with us the entire time and he was instructing us when to paddle, so the entire ride all I heard was, Adelante!(forward) Adelante! Alto!(stop).... Adelante! Adelante! I swear those words were running through my dreams that night.
Afterwards, we returned back to the city, got changed, and then went out for a wonderful Argentine dinner. We ordered wine and got lots of meat. (Argentina is known for its spectacular meat.) People are right, the meat there is wonderful, as well as the wine!! At that point, I had decided that I had picked the wrong country. Why would I choose Chile, when Argentina is right next to it?!
Following the nice dinner, we went to a little bar and had a drink. Half of us went back to the hostel after, me included, and the others went to another club. Although I was sleeping on springs with a hint of mattress on them, it was a wonderful sleep.
The next morning, we woke at 9 to go on a city tour. We saw Mendoza more in detail, learned about the history, and took pictures. We also went up to the top of Cerro de la Gloria, which is a very well known, hill, in lack of a better word, in Argentina. It was beautiful because we were able to see the entire city and mountains around us. After this tour, we returned to the city and got a quick lunch before we went on our wine/olive oil tour.
At 2:30, we took a trip to two vineyards and one olive oil seller. We went on a tour of the first vineyard, drank wine, then went to the olive oil sellers and ate a variety of olive oils with different breads, and then finished the tour with more wine. It was a nice mix between food and wine. In Mendoza, there is also a wine tour on bike, in which you spend an entire day going to different vineyards via bike. I wanted to do it, but some other didn't, but there are wine tours on bike in Santiago, so no problem.
After the wine tour, we went out for dinner at an Argentine buffet. Oh my goodness. I have not eaten so much/ such wonderful meat before. I had steak, chicken, sausage, and tried some part of some animal that I cannot recall. But it was good. However, as I have said that I pride myself on my eagerness to try new things, I tried something called morcipán, I believe, which looks like a sausage but, is actually filled with congealed sheep blood! Normally, I have enough manners that if I eat something I don't like, I'll deal with it and finish the bite, but I actually could not do it. I had to spit it out. It was awful! But, how many people do you know who can say that they have tried sheep blood? Besides this, everything else was wonderful. Afterwards, we all just returned to the hostel to go to sleep. Half of us were going back to Santiago the next morning.
At 10 the next morning, 3 of the others and I took a bus back. The landscape of the bus trip was breath-taking because of all the gigantic mountains, the sky, and little villages we passed.
The trip to Mendoza was absolutely fabulous and I had a great time. I'm very happy that we were able to go, before it becomes too cold. The weather was very nice and we were able to be outside the entire trip. The food was wonderful, the city and area surrounding were gorgeous, and I am very excited to return to Argentina sometime soon!
Below are some pictures: