Mendoza and the last few days of Santiago

Well it has been a while since I posted something, and I’ve done quite a bit since then. Therefore, this will probably be quite a long post. Luckily for you, it should have a decent amount of pictures as well. I’ll start with the oldest news and work my way to what’s going on right now.

Last Thursday night, a couple of co-workers invited me to go out to dinner/a couple bars with them. We went to this little café place for dinner, and I discovered a new favorite food. Chorrillana. For those of you who don’t know what chorrillana is, there is a picture below. Basically, the plate has French fries with beef, chicken, and onions on top of them and then some fried eggs to top it all off. Those brilliant Chileans combined all of my favorites into one plate, and it was delicious. Now, it’s going to be quite difficult to live without this dish.

Basically one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten.

Saturday morning, I embarked on a journey to Mendoza, Argentina. This journey started with my bus being delayed by about 2 and a half hours because the pass through the Andes between Chile and Argentina was closed.

This was the bus I travelled in. I sat on the top level in the very front on the drivers side. It was a very interesting experience. Minus the fact that we didn't get to fly, I would say it was better than a plane. My seat reclined to the point that it was pretty much horizontal.

 Finally, the bus left and we were on our way. It was slow going all the way through the Andes though, because there was lots of ice on the road. At about 10:20 or so, I finally arrived at the bus terminal in Mendoza. I didn’t know the people I was meeting in the terminal, so I wandered around aimlessly for a while trying to find them. When I couldn’t find them, I decided to call the contact number that I had. Unfortunately, I only had that number in my email and I couldn’t find any free wifi zones in the terminal. I finally texted my parents and had them get the number from my email and send it to me. I called and shortly thereafter Natalia and her mom (Isabel) came and found me. We went outside where Valentin (Natalia’s dad) was waiting with the car. I got in and we drove to their house where I met Mauro (Natalia’s brother who is the same age as me) and Valentina (their sister). I also met Luca (their cousin from Buenos Aires) and Mica (his girlfriend). I got all settled, and we slept in lots the next day. One of the coolest parts about this night (aside from meeting the family) is that it was snowing in Mendoza when I arrived and continued to snow all night. Overall, they got about 2-3 inches of snow. The cool part is that snow is very rare in Mendoza. It has been about 5 years since it last snowed there.

When we finally did start the day, we started by going to this place that overlooked the whole town of Mendoza.

It was also kind of funny, because a lot of people built little snowmen on the hood of their car and were driving around with them on their cars like this one. It was definitely not something you would see in the U.S., so I thought it was picture worthy. Next, we went to a monument called Cerdo de la Gloria. This is a monument to San Martin, the liberator of Argentina, Chile, and Peru from Spanish rule. The monument was incredibly interesting and held quite a bit of history and story to it.

Here is the monument and below is the path that we had to take to get to the monument.

And here is me walking up the path. Quite a nice view of the mountains and the area we were in.

And finally here's the whole group I was with. From left to right you have me, Valentina, Mauro is above everyone, Mica is below him, then Luca and Natalia. After our visit to the monument, we stopped by a park near their house and then went back to the house. We ate some food there and then everyone but the parents piled into the car and we went to get some churros from Rey del Churro. Rey del Churro was basically an old bus on the side of the road that sold churros. I have had churros in the U.S., but nothing that even comes close to comparing to these churros. They were warm and fresh and filled with dulce de leche. Enough said. We waited in line for about half an hour for the churros, but it was well worth the wait.

Here's the place that we got the churros and the line that we had to wait in. We had dinner shortly thereafter and the churros for dessert. On Monday, we slept in again (although not as much this time) and then in the early afternoon went to Bodegas Lopez. The tour and tasting were free here, so it was the best value for all of us! It was super cool to see the winery and do the tour (it’s the first one I’ve ever been to!). As such, I took lots of pictures, and we had a really great time. So here’s all those pictures :)

And to give you an idea how just how big those barrels actually are....

Kind of a fun fact, when they clean these barrels, somebody climbs through that little door to the right of me in order to clean out the inside of the barrel. Most of their wine isn't produced in these barrels though (mostly because it is very costly to do so), so they use big stainless steel tanks like these.

This next machine was really cool. It put corks in the bottles and then labels on them. There were two women who checked the bottles to ensure that everything had been done properly, and then the bottles were picked up by a machine and put into boxes. The apparatus had an output of 180 bottles per minute! The pictures aren't great, because it was moving pretty quick, but I did the best I could.

I also took a peek and a picture inside their laboratory where they make new wines and new grape combinations. This picture was mostly for my grandpa since he is into making wine.

They also had a really cool museum with lots of old winemaking equipment as well as some old cars.

Finally when we went to the wine tasting and tried a couple of the of the Bodegas Lopez wines.

Then we had a little bit of fun :)

After going to Bodegas Lopez, we walked through downtown Mendoza for a little while and saw some of the cool shops and areas. Then we went back to the house, and had dinner. After dinner, I taught the family how to play Five Crowns (for those who don’t know, Five Crowns is a card game that my family loves to play. I brought it with me hoping I would find some people who like to play cards as much as I do and would want to learn to play). It wasn’t very difficult to explain and they picked it up pretty quickly, but we didn’t get very far with the game because Luca and Mica had to catch a bus back to Buenos Aires. When we came back from dropping them off at the bus terminal, I learned a new card game called Truco. It is kind of complicated because there are quite a few things to remember (plus it’s played with Spanish cards which are very different from the cards that I’m used to). Regardless, I picked it up pretty quickly (being the astute card player that I am). Now I love the game (which is good, because it is a very popular game in Argentina), and have even bought a deck of Spanish cards to play with! On Tuesday, we slept in again but a little less this time. Mauro (who is a chef at a pizzeria in Mendoza and is studying gastrology because he wants to own his own restaurant someday) cooked a dish called Pollo al Disco. Basically it was chicken with vegetables in a sauce, and it was phenomenal. This was probably the best chicken dish I have ever had. He also had a pretty unique way of cooking it!

After we ate, we went back downtown and walked around some more and went to a plaza with lots of cool handmade stuff. I bought some fun little gifts for family, friends, and myself. That night, Mauro handmade pizza for dinner. After dinner, we went to a bar that had a bunch of table games that they brought to you. We didn’t use any of their games, because we just played Five Crowns, but it was still pretty fun.

The next day, a co-worker came to pick me up at around 1:00pm. I went with him and met all of the people who work in the Grupo Tonelero office in Mendoza. We had lunch together, and then my co-worker and I started the journey back to Santiago. While on the way, we made a pit stop at a place called Puente del Inca (Bridge of the Inca). Basically this is a bridge that was formed naturally and has a beautiful color to the stone. There are hot springs nearby, and the mixture of hot with ice is supposedly what caused the natural formation of this bridge.

Friday was my last day in Santiago, and towards the end of the day, my co-workers threw me a little going away party. Reflecting on my experience working at Grupo Tonelero Andino, it was a great place to be. The people I worked with were so friendly and so willing to help me. It was a valuable opportunity to work with great people and analyze some interesting data. I made sure to get a picture with all of my co-workers on my last day so that you can see them. :) (sorry it’s a little blurry)

Yesterday morning, I woke up at about 3:15. At 4:00am a taxi came to the apartment to pick me up and take me to the airport. My experience with LAN airlines on the flight to Buenos Aires was such that I will never fly with that airline again. The lack of customer service and respect that I received on the flight was unbelievable. However, I arrived safely in Buenos Aires this morning at around 9:30am. I got all unpacked and settled into my room. My host, Victoria, is a very sweet lady. My housemate David is a little quiet, but I think he is just a little overwhelmed right now. He seems like a good guy, and I think we are going to get along great. Fortunately, both of them like playing cards, so I’m definitely in luck there! :) I don’t have many pictures yet, but here is one from the balcony of the apartment.

Thanks for reading everyone. Look for a new post sometime soon with pictures of my roommate and host as well as some details about my first week in Buenos Aires! As always, feel free to comment below or send me an email regarding anything in this post. Lots has been going on, and I’ve got lots to come, so thank you to everyone for the continued prayers, good thoughts, and support. Love to you all!

-Ryan