July 28, 2008: Mendoza
It was still dark when I woke up as people were given trays for breakfast. Given the past night’s cuisine experience I decided to pass on it and catch a little more sleep. We arrived at the station, I got directions to the hostel and set off for the thirty minute walk that seemed like a better option than waiting for a taxi in a ridiculously long line.
The Mendoza Inn is by far much livelier than Babylon, with a large hall and dining room with tables and couches, a small pool out the back, surrounded by individual rooms and dorms upstairs by the front. As I checked in I noticed the day’s activity was horseback riding and BBQ and was told they’d be over to pick us up in twenty minutes. I skipped a shower and quickly washed my face and changed and then ran two blocks down to the cash machine and to grab a croissant for breakfast. When I came back I met the other people joining the excursion from our hostel: a woman from Buenos Aires vacationing with her teen daughter (never got their names, unfortunately); Gonzalo, a guy from Chicago working in Lima; and Sam and Leon, twins from Berlin. Gonzalo was one interesting cat. His Spanish was pretty good, a fact I noticed because he was always talking about how he’s been working for an oil company and always traveling for work to many countries in Latin America. Even more interesting was that he was dressed in slacks, button down dress shirt and business-casual coat and shoes which the hostel keeper suggested he should change (twice). We were going on a horseback ride, after all.
The excursions are organized across various hostels so when the van showed up it was packed with just enough room for us. There was a couple from the UK making their way to London from New Zealand via South America; three girls from France, Canada and the UK that had met each other while traveling; two other girls from Houston and LA; and a few others from places I never exactly determined. We chatted about all kinds of random things with the most unexpected topic being favorite kids’ cereals.
We arrived at the farm where various horses were being set up for us and one by one we were each shown how to mount and how to tell it what we wanted to do. My horse was named Langado and appeared a little unsettled, which actually turned out to be hunger as I’d find out along the ride. We set off and made our way up and down various hills staring over at the Andes’, making for a gorgeous view. It was sunny but cool enough to make it really comfortable even in a sweater and coat. Two guides helped showing us how to adjust our posture depending on if we were climbing or descending and to encourage horses to keep moving such as mine which kept stopping to eat. I started joking around that he was electric and needed frequent recharges. The ride went on for a good hour and I started to wish I was wearing sunscreen or a hat as I was wondering whether I was getting majorly sunburned. As the ride went on, from somewhere near the lead if the pack I ended up almost last since other people would pass me while at a recharge station.
After our ride we were treated to more grilled beef than I have had in the past year, accompanied by salad, bread and what seemed like bottomless vino tinto. Sam and Leon stuck with coke because apparently they had a bit much to drink the night before. By the third glass of wine we were quite the lively group having a grand time.
Back at the hostel I showered and napped until Alice, a dorm-mate from Australia came in around 9. I joined Sam and Leon who were playing a card game named “spoons” with Marina, who seemed to have come up with it and was hoping we’d help spread it worldwide. Marina had been traveling with her boyfriend Pierre, Alice, another girl named Kat and a couple other friends. The are all essentially French (or speak it fluently) but live in London.
Kat came up and said they were going to eat at an Itaian place across the street along with a bunch of Australian girls from another hostel and, being that it was close to 10, I decided to play it safe. Gonzalo also tagged along and, being such the gentleman, bought a bottle of wine to share with a couple of the girls while telling them all kinds of stories about his travels. They started talking about going out for drinks which I thought to be a bad option for myself since I signed up for the day-long winery tour. I joined Marina’s card crew, now playing the classic BS and we called it a night about 12:40.