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2003-07-17 - 11:08 p.m. Down Argentine Way, Part IV
We waited for over an hour in the hot sun at the crossroads near Puerto Esperanza for a bus to pick us up. We stood on the bus for an hour before two seats opened up, the bus getting hotter and hotter as more people piled on, our bodies sticking to the hot vinyl seats. When we got to Posadas, we were tired and disgruntled and hungry, and perhaps a little disoriented as well, because when we found out that we could take a bus straight to Mendoza in one hour (bypassing the original plan of two days in Cordoba altogether), we both became a little giddy, and made our decision in haste (repenting in leisure, of course - 31 hours worth of leisure). But when we finally made it to Mendoza, we were happy to be there, not least because it was gray and cloudy and not hot. It wasn't hot at all. We ate good meals every day and shopped and on May Day, when everything was closed, we did just what the locals did: drank beer in the park and played cards. We also saw movies at the local arthouse theater - Belle du Jour and Auberge Espagnole, both in French with Spanish subtitles (fine for my multilingual traveling partner, but a little more difficult for me). When the life of leisure became too much for us, and we needed a challenge, we took a day trip outside of town to a vineyard, for a tour and wine tasting, getting lost along the way and drunk over lunch. Some pictures from the tour:    And then we went rafting, because I had never been, and because we both thought it might be fun, which it was. It was fun to get out of town and it was fun to see the mountains and it was fun to try to follow the commands given in Spanish for how to steer the raft (okay, that part was a little stressful). But mostly, it was fun. 
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