Mendoza

hello all!

I don´t have a terrible amount to account for at the moment. Anna and I reached Mendoza a couple of days ago. It is a much bigger town then I expected, but it is not really touristy at all which I really appreciate especially after being in Bariloche which it all tourist all the time. It is an interesting place though. Throughout the entire city there are streams flowing down between the road and the sidewalk. I am not exactly sure whether it is a form of open storm sewer or if there was a huge river that has been diverted everywhere but it is pretty cool. Not all of the stream beds are full though, and I was running the other day and wasn´t looking where I was going and I almost jumped right into one (I probably would have broken my leg) because I am used to being able to jump from curb to the road anywhere, here you can only do it where there are these tiny bridges from road to sidewalk or else you have to jump the stream as well. There is also this huge park here, about the same size as the larger downtown core. It is really beautiful full of palm trees, little lakes, streams and statues! Anna and I have been going for runs in it, although it has been insanely hot here for the last little while and I think I have shin splints which is making running painful. This is actually the only city so far we have seen Argentinians running in, most everywhere else we just get looked at and whistled at when we run. But here there are tons of people working out the park.

Ummm lets see what else. I want to reinstate how crazy different peoples perception of time is here. No one eats dinner until after 10pm and most eat around 12am, Anna and I got told we were crazy for eating at 9pm. Also no one goes out until 2am it is hard for us to get in the swing of. And this isn´t just adults, Anna and I were walking to the bar the other day at 1am and the local ice cream shop was open and there were tons of 2 - 10 year old kids there with their parents getting ice cream. There were even some still there at 3am when we passed by again. I didn´t even know that 3am existed when I was a kid! Anna and I also started taking a couple of two hour Spanish courses which have been pretty helpful. My Spanish still stinks but at least I am improving a bit. Although I went in to a used book store yesterday and thought I was asking the man if he had any English books but instead I was telling him that I had a bunch of English books and he just kinda stared at me and I didn´t realize my mistake until I left.

Mostly Anna and I are filling our days currently with alot of reading, alot of wandering around town, alot of eating, and a little bit of exercise to try and compensate for all of the eating. We are staying at this really nice hostel right now, it is a big old house and has a huge courtyard. Anna and I were in a dorm room for the first night we were here and then due to a mix up we were moved into the rec room which has turned out to be great because it is huge and we have it all to ourselves and no one ever goes in there so it is way better than a dorm any day! This is the second hostel we have stayed at here, the first two days we were at this other hostel that was recommended by a friend of Anna´s and it was terrible and I mean terrible. It was old and falling apart and dirty. The washrooms were disgusting, and the showers barely worked and one night we had ants climbing all over us! We are happy to be where we are now.

Our other traveling companion, Lorena, was away doing a biking trip but she should be joining us today or tomorrow, and then we will be off again to this place called the Valley of the moon and then up to a town called Salta. From there we are planing to rent a car for a couple of days to see the area and then Anna and I are off to Chile and up to Bolivia! I am very excited. As for now we have no plans for today and tomorrow we are renting bikes and doing a wine tasting tour. I am stoked! Well hope you are all well and happy, send emails when you have time!