I couldn’t say I awoke Friday morning because the reality was that I hardly got any shut-eye the entire night from coughing really bad. My alarm went off and I got Alex up who did the same with the girls. I told him I was out for the day as I was feeling pretty bad and went back to the couch. I finally got some sleep then, for whatever reason because, before I knew it, I was up and never heard them leave. I got up a total of three times and hardly ate anything throughout the day. I caught a bit of Chilean TV but for the most part I slept.
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It was Thursday, a full week after landing in Buenos Aires but it actually felt like it’d been a month. One thing was for sure: I needed to desperately do some laundry. I was checking out of the hostel today and moving to the apartment that Alex & co. had rented but I wasn’t sure what the laundry situation was there so I decided to gather the dirties and have them done at the hostel. Once downstairs I connected with Kat, Alice, Lynda, John, Jenny and Rob who were all planning the day’s activities. Kat and Alice had made plans to meet up with a friend for lunch but were also interested in checking out a museum and perhaps doing some shopping. I had also arranged for lunch with an old friend from Caracas who now lived in Santiago with his wife and kids and we were set for 1:15 so I had a good couple of hours to spare as well. With that, Kat, Alice and I decided to check out the Pre-Columbian museum since it had been highly recommended by various people.
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At 7:00, Wednesday, I woke up one last time at the Mendoza Inn, got ready and went downstairs for a cup of coffee before heading out. Surprisingly, I found the Danish pair waiting to be picked up for the Alta Montaña tour (hiking / climbing + hot springs) but they looked hardly awake and, worse yet, the coffee was cold and there was no breakfast. Apparently, it was a little early so I just went and grabbed my stuff, called a cab and headed to the bus station where I picked up a couple of empanadas and waited for my 8:30 departure. It wasn’t until almost 9 that my bus showed up but shortly thereafter off we went. However, we then ended up stopped on the side of the road for what seemed like an unusually long time. Our attendant started serving us coffee and a cookie and I overheard him mention some issue they were trying to solve. The night before, I had been talking with Kat and Alice about probably running into each other at the border crossing but, at this rate, I thought they’d surely get to Santiago before we would.
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Paragliding wasn’t happening until the afternoon so I actually had the luxury of sleeping in today. After checking out of their posada, Marie, Rafael and Audrey stopped by the hostel around 11 to put their stuff in their storage closet and we then headed out to grab a bite. It was an absolutely gorgeous day - a bit warm for middle of winter but gorgeous nonetheless, probably in the high 60’s. We found a cute resto and grabbed our share of croissants (turns out, the French really like the Argentine-style croissants which has some sort of light and sweet caramel on top… not burnt at all), coffee, OJ, toast and, in Rafael’s case, a ham & cheese sandwich and a slice of chocolate cake. One thing’s for sure: the boy can eat!
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Sunday night proved to be a little rough thanks to my top-bunk dorm-mate, a guy from Buenos Aires who gave the guy from Babylon a snoring run for his money. Once I finally got to sleep I awoke when each of my other dorm-mates made it in throughout the night. First it was Alice who, after a fair amount of wine, a couple of daiquiris, and two tequila shots decided it was a good idea to fold all her clothes. I actually had completely forgotten about this until we were talking about this night a few days later but as I recall I didn’t realize who it was until I glanced up and saw her folding all her clothes. I crashed again and looked up what felt like an hour later only to find her once again folding her clothes. An hour or so later I heard Fiona come in and then her girlfriend (never got her name) another hour or so after that. At 7 or 7:30, the snorer woke up and by 9 my alarm went off.
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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.
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My original plan of being up and out by 10 turned out a little ambitious. My roommates were all up and gone by 9:45 but I couldn’t muster the willpower until almost 11. Once up, I arranged so I could leave my stuff and take a shower when I came back and then headed out.
The bike rental place was downtown so I rode the D line, changing to the C until the Independencia station. I wasn’t ready for what happened next but, let’s just say, I had been given ample warning. I got out and made what probably turned out to be my first mistake: I was in a semi-desolated street holding a big-ass camera bag and an unfolded map. I didn’t even make it halfway down the block I had already been marked. A woman behind me mentioned my coat and pants were all dirty, like I had something spilled all over me. I looked the the back of my leg and had some sort of white lotion-looking stuff dripping down off me. I stopped and another lady offered a napkin to clean myself up and then committed my second mistake: I was out on the street and stupidly started to take my coat off to check the back when out of nowhere comes this guy in his teens pointing up and back to the direction I came from as if the source of whatever was on me was some bird up on the building somewhere. The whole thing seemed odd and just as I looked to my right another kid was about to get a hold of my camera bag. When he saw me looking, he pretended to grab a box off the floor, turned around and walked away. I quickly jumped inside a store where I ran into the original lady who started saying “ask for ‘agua’… Say ‘agua’”. You know you look like a freaking tourist when you speak the language and the locals still try to communicate with you in broken English.
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Catching some sleep was not only tough because of my roommate but also because I was worried about finding a place for the night. At 9:30 I started to get ready and hopped online only to find all hostels full. Sara had mentioned a short list of other non-HI hostels so I decided to grab breakfast, check in for day activities with HI and check how much space was left at our hostel as a fallback all before waking Sara up to give her the news. We found space on the last one on her list but I decided to stay at the same place since Javi (the guy who manages Casa Babylon) mentioned I’d be moving rooms to one with only 4 beds.
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