In Mendoza

Pedro and I took a night bus on thursday to Mendoza, wine country.  The bus trip was more like a cruise, and what it lacked in quality was made up for by unexpectedness.  We knew that "executive suite" buses had seats that recline 180 degrees.  They look like someone looted first class on United Airlines under cover of darkness and installed them in a double-decker bus.  We alse knew that they would give us airplane style meals during our 12 hour trip.  What was unexpected was the appetizers and sherry before dinner, unlimited wine with dinner, and whiskey nightcap afterwards.  Also unexpected was our breakfast of crackers, granola bars and dulce de leche =P  Not bad for 60 bucks.

We´re staying at a hostel in the city of Mendoza near the micro-center.  It´s a pretty great deal; $20 for our room, a glass of wine in the evening, breakfast in the morning and free use of their jurassic computers.  Hence the lack of photos with this post.

Mendoza oddly enough reminds me a bit of LA, or rather, maybe Mendoza is LA´s alternate reality where the US lost the Mexican-American war and LA remained sleeping little metropolis.  The city is a sleepy green oasis amidst desert plains, and behind it rise the steep gravelly ridges of the Precordillera.  The Precordillera are an intermediate mountain range that are the foothills of the andes.  At this time of year (late spring) they are barren of snow and vegetation...not very inviting, especially because the frigid winds of the andes tend to barrel down the slopes of the precordillera and onto the city of Mendoza.

Tomorrow Pedro and I are planning on continuing westwards into the Andes to a tiny town called Potrerillos where we´ll try out our backpacking equipment at a campground and if all goes well, ie we don´t freeze to death, we´ll take our maiden backpacking voyage.