Monday, January 12, 2009

Wine wine everywhere, and every drop to drink

Alright, its been a while since ive posted. since i left buenos aires i headed up to iguazu and stayed at an overpriced hostel that wasnt that nice. i arrived in the morning and thought i would explore a little bit. so i hoped a bus to brazil and walked around Foz do IguaƧu for a bit, then walked across the bridge to paraguay for a cheap lunch. the paraguayan border town is known for its contraband, mostly knock off electronics like camcorders and stereos and people walk around with flyers for their store that sells all this cheap knock off stuff. but there is good local food right by the border. as i was walking on the bridge between paraguay and brazil i saw some guys with ropes sitting by a hole in the wire fence. a few seconds later, 3 guys come running down the bridge from paraguay, each carrying a massive brown box full of something. incredibly quickly they lowered all three boxes down from the bridge to their friends on the brazil side. nobody seemed to be stopping them, but im pretty sure i witnessed some serious smuggling. back on the brazilian side i got a bit lost (of course) and asked directions in spanish, and got an answer in spanish. i found the massive super market i was looking for, found my peanut butter (which doesnt exist in argentina, as far as i can tell), and as i tried to pay for it the woman just rattled off fast portugese. i didnt understand a word, its such a ridiculous langauge. anyway, as i walked away with my purchase, instead of saying, "have a nice day" or "thanks for coming" she just said "be careful." that much i did understand, we were in brazil.

the first night i was there i met a tiny french candadian girl who was headed to the Iguazu falls the next day with an aussie guy, so i thought id go along with them. we had and early start and were on the bus to iguazu by a little after 8. we got off the bus and it felt like we were going into an amusment park. they had a big entrance like you find at disneyworld or something like that, with various maps of the park inside, and people speaking all different languages taking pictures everywhere. we got in and took the mini train to the head of the first trail. the falls we saw there were pretty cool. they werent that high, but there were so many of them it was crazy. we continued along the various paths and saw amazing views of massive waterfalls, took a small boat to an island in the river, got more great views, then headed by train towards the "devil´s throat". its insane, i dont even know how to describe it, but a few women (not men, dont ask me why) kill themselves here every year. ill try to get pictures up soon. this whole area was far more amazing than even niagra i think.

i met some americans and candadians that night, and we all took a bus to cordoba the next day. cordoba wasnt impressive. its just another city if all you do is stay in the city, and thats all we did. had some decent food, then had some aweful food at an all you can eat place, and ended with a pretty big night out. cordoba is a college town, and has some of the best clubs in the country, but its january, and every college student is on vacation or home or not in cordoba, so we ended up at a club surrounded by 15 to 17 year old girls, who had not intention of dancing with us old north americans. the guys im with are 25 and 27 and the canadian girls were 24. we were also with a crazy but cool dutch guy and some german girl who came too. next day was stictly recovery, and that night we parted ways, the candadians going to BA, the two americans and i headed to mendoza.

mendoza is cool. the first day we trekked through this massive park just outside the city, summited "mt. pablo" (a term we coined, dont ask me why) and had some good steak. yesterday we took a bus out to a random lake because the hot springs were closed (damn sundays) and ended up at a place with no beach, no shade, and a whole lot of locals that didnt know what some crazy gringos were doing there. we tried hitchhiking back, but not many people pick up 5 white guys in the middle of nowhere, and if they do, we probably dont want to go with them. today was the best day. we rented some bikes and cruised the wineries. i think we tried 5 different wineries´ wines, and took tours of 3. we also saw an olive oil plant, and had delicous liquour and chocolate before getting the bus back. there is supposedly the 7th best restuarant in the world here in mendoza, and thats were my rich investment banking friends want to go, so i think ill eat beforehand, and just go for an appetizer or a beer or something. i cant afford to pay $40 for one meal, even if it is that good. ok, that was kind of the quick and dirty unfortunatly, but know that all is well. i think on wednesday ill try hitchhiking down to bariloche, let me know i if you think that will pan out, nobody here does.

No comments: