Mendoza

We´ve made it into Argentina!! our passports our now stamped with a Chile departure and an Argentinian arival. The bus ride over was good, the pass has a ton of switchbacks which were numbered with signs, I lost count after I saw the sign for turn 30. It was beautiful in the mountains and I was just glad to see some snow. Portillo looked interesting as we passed it by, ski lifts right across some of the road even. We got here in Mendoza late, finally got our bags and loaded down like mules we hustled along these dangerous looking streets at 11 at night, towing our ski bag hoping we are going in the right direction to find our hostel. We made it to hostel Casa Puebla which is painted in these great bright colors. Settled in and went straight to bed. After our morning breakfast were we got to talk about skiing with this nice couple from France, we went out to try to do a bike wine tour. Our first stop was to get some money since all we had on us was Chilean pesos. The first atm we went to we waited in line for 20 minutes and then try to use it and it tells us that it has no money!! so we have no change for a bus ride to the tour area or for the tour anyways and have to start wandering around looking for downtown and another atm or bank. we go the wrong direction at first, me trailing behind Jen who is in super speed walk mode wherever we go. We finally work our way into the downtown area and go to the bank, exchange our money, get some from an atm, but by then it´s to late to do a tour since I have to make sure to get to the airport by 6 to find our last bag. We find a cute little cafe, have a good lunch, I have a pisco sour, very nice. Then a little more walking to explore a park and back to the hostel.


Hi, It's Jenny. We are here in Mendoza at the moment and leaving at 2:30 in the morning for Los Lenas. Mendoza is a much nicer city, maybe more European. The people are also a bit more active-we saw many people biking and running. We had hoped for a wine/bike tour as this is a huge grape region and the wineries are known for their beautiful landscapes and good food, but we ran into trouble at the local ATM (out of money) and headed for downtown to find a bank. We ended up at their huge city park-very pretty. The weather is pretty warm for us, maybe around 50 or 60 F and it is strange to see the locals with coats on. The snow forcast is favorable for the mountains and if Angie's bag arrives tonight we might go skiing in the morning. Let's hope there is a bag storage at the resort.