Winter Wonderland & Wine

So after finding out we were not able to raft or hike the volcano again the following day, we decide it is time to move on to Argentina. We first head to San Martin de los Andes and then to San Carlos de Bariloche, a popular ski town on the border of Argentina and Chile.

We are on the bus for less than an hour and as I am taking time to look through pictures on my camera I suddenly look up and it is snowing!! At first there were just a few flurries, then it was coming down hard! Sitting in the bus actually made me feel like I was in the middle of a snow globe, it was like a winter wonderland! The bus driver stops at a little cabin-reststop and tells us we can get off and get hot chocolate, use the bathroom, etc. Laura and I immediately jump off the bus and start taking pictures of the snow. Nobody would ever guess we were from MN, as we were acting as if we had never seen snow before! It is July and I am playing in snow in South America as people back home are complaining about the heat! Who would of thought? The snow was so heavy and BEAUTIFUL! The way it stuck to the trees that surrounded us was amazing! I felt like a little kid again, running around in the snow. All the old Argentina women were watching us through the bus windows and laughing!

Despite the beauty of the snow, it actually caused us some problems..... our bus had a very hard time making it up the road. We actually got stuck 5 different times, blocking the road to other vehicles as it was a one lane road. Men from other vehicles tried pushing us the first couple times. One time the driver was able to shovel us out, one time we had to be pulled by a snowplow, and our last ¨stuck time¨was solved by having everyone on the bus crowd in the back seats to shift the weight. Our 5 hour ride took over 7 due to the snow, but it was so pretty that I didn´t care! We finally made it up the mountain to customs, which were a breeze! A much easier process than in other countries! We were served cookies and hot chocolate once back on the bus, and then got to relax as the snowy roads were over and the ground changed from snowy white to green grass and coffee colored mountains.

After thinking we were never going to make it we arrived in the gorgeous town of San Martin de los Andes. We had only planned on using this town as a passing through point to get to Bariloche, but after pulling up to it we realized it was adorable and we decided to spend a night. We met a guy in the bus terminal who had a spare bedroom at his house, or Bed and Breakfast, so we hopped in his car and headed there. The place was cute, we had our own room with a t.v and comfty beds. We dropped off our stuff and headed into town to book some type of excursion for the following day! After a little debate we decided on a snowshoeing tour! We went to a rental place in town to rent boots to use with our snowshoes, then headed back to our B&B, ate a late dinner, and packed our day pack for tomorrow before finally falling asleep.

Friday July 30th- We woke up early, planning on walking down to the lake for sunrise and seeing some of the town before our snowshoe tour but were quickly dissappointed as we walked outside to rain (after being locked-IN our house, long story). We went back inside, used some internet and made breakfast before being picked up by our guide. Our guide was named Victor and he took us up to Cerro Chapelco, where there is a beautiful ski resort, as well as open land for cross country skiing and trekking/snowshoeing. The drive up the mountain was rough with Victor's little car. It had rained that morning, as well as the previous day so the roads were solid ice. We, along with hundreds of other cars had to pull over and put chains on the tires in order to make it up the mountain. There were officials at one point that would not even let anyone up unless they had chains on. This helped drastically and we made it to the top! Yay! The ski resort area looked beautiful and we were a little envious we hadn't chose to do that but we had decided we were going to save that for our next city, Bariloche. We got out of the car and with the help of Victor, put on our snowshoes! (They weren't nearly as cool as Jason and Cree's!)

Laura had never used snowshoes before so she was amused by the whole concept, laughing for the first 10 minutes or so. It was cute! The weather at Cerro Chapelco was amazing! Not too cold and snowing, beautiful heavy flakes, that stuck to the trees around us. Victor, Laura and I hiked on our snowshoes for a couple hours before stopping for a treat. He pulled out a thermos of hot chocolate and alfajores, which are triple decker cookies found ALL over Argentina! We had one called el grandote and it was phenomenal! These were definitely a treat we would be eating more of in this country! We continued walking for a couple hours more, taking in the beauty of the landscape and stopping to take pictures and make snow angels, which was actually Victor's idea, haha! He became our personal photographer, as well as guide and was a great sport about it! Our last stop was at a home owned by an Indigenous man in the area. He had a fire going and it was here we got to experience yerba mate for the first time. Mate is a drink, like a hot tea, made by steeping herbal mate tea leaves. It is infused, usually in a hollow gourd of some sort, and is shared amongst friends with a metal straw. It is very popular in Argentina, as well as Uruguay, Paraguay and parts of Brazil. Victor and Luis prepared some for us and taught us the Rules of Mate drinking. Yes, there are rules to it! It was rather bitter at first but they added a little sugar to it for us, which made it better! (I did buy some to bring home and plan on partaking in it at a bonfire at Farmfest! Just an FYI Jason and Cree!) After a great cultural experience with mate we head back to the car, take off our snowshoes and head back to town. Thanks Victor for a great snowshoeing adventure!!

Once back in town we walk around the lake, have our first taste of Argentina wine with lunch, and walk around the many cute shops in town. We try to return our boots but unfortunately the store is closed and does not open again until 4, which is fine excpet that we are suppose to catch a bus at 4:30. We return to our B&B, say bye and decide to bring all of our stuff to the terminal, where I sit while Laura runs to return the stuff. That way if it took her awhile and the bus tried to leave I could stop it! Turns out she made it on time and of course everything is late in South America, so she actually had time to kill, realizing she had ran for nothing. We finally board the bus after waiting forever outside in the cold and are headed to Bariloche!!

Bariloche is the largest city in the Argentine Lake District, located on Lake Nahuel Huapi with mountain peaks visible from every angle. It is also home to one of South America's biggest ski resorts, Cerro Catedral, which hosts dozens of runs, a cable car, gondola and an abundance of rental places and bars & restaurants. We planned on heading there the following day.

The bus ride was not bad, only about 5 hours, with us having to switch busses once and take an alternative route because of a road closure due to snow. We arrive in Bariloche and try to get a bed at Hostel 41 Below which we had heard about from some guys at our hostel in Pucon, but it was full. The guy at reception was very nice and called around to other hostels in the area seeing that we didnt want to be walking around at night aimlessly with all our bags! It is high season in Bariloche as it is prime winter months so a lot of places were booked. He finally found us a place at La Moira. He told us it was an all girl dorm and they had 2 beds available, perfect. We walk there, as it is only a couple blocks away. We walk into the hostel, which is about 100 degrees and are greeted by a nice lady who works there. She checks us in and keeps telling us how nice the `guys´ are that we will be rooming with. We enter the room and the all girl dorm we were told about was filled with 25 year old Argentina guys! Perfect!! Pretty sure the guy at 41 Below got good laughs out of this one, and we benefitted as well, so it was a win-win situation!

The guys were super nice, especially Enrique, who quickly cleaned off 2 beds for us, as they had tons of stuff all over every bed in the 10 bed dorm! Laura and I have had a long day and are hot from carrying all of our stuff, so we decide we want to go have a beer. We invite the guys out with us but they suggest staying in instead, so Laura, Nicolas and myself walk to a little corner store to buy beers and alfajores cookies, while the other guys stay back to shower and clean up the room. We end up playing drinking games and hanging out until about 5:00 am, getting asked politely by staff to quiet down and turn down the music quite a few times! The guys were great! They taught us fun games, as well as slang and cultural things about Argentina! We finally get to sleep around 5, intended on waking up at 7 or so to hit the slopes at Cerro Catedral!

The 7 am alarm came way too early for us and we decided to sleep a couple more hours. We finally got up, showered after sleeping in what felt like a sauna, ate breakfast and headed to catch the bus to the ski resort! The ride up was pretty and approaching Cerro Catedral was unbelievable! I could not believe we were really going to try to snowboard in the Andes Mountains! Laura has never snowboarded in her life and I am clearly a rookie, only having gone about 5 times my whole life! We arrive and immediately get terrified! The runs are huge and we are super intimidated! I quickly remind myself that I am in a foreign country, trying to do a dangerous sport I am not experienced in, and have no health insurance! All this in mind, we decide to go for it, after chatting with a young guy that works there. We rent some pants, mittens, boots and a board, sharing with everyone that helps us how scared we are and that we hope we make it out of there alive! Of course they are all young guys working everywhere so they think we are hilarious, telling us just to take it slow and we will be fine! So, we get everything on and head to our first chairlift!

We decide to skip the little bunny hill (thinking of Ryan and Dan's advice that learning on larger, longer runs is better) and we immediately head to the an intermediate run where halfway down there is a 'plaza' area that is great for beginners. The chair lift itself seems never ending, as it is a lot higher than I expected, but nonetheless, the sights were amazing, giving us views of the resort and the lake below us. We get off the lift, where we both stumpled a bit and stand at the top of the run! I try to give Laura a mini-lesson as she has literally never been on a snowboard before, but coming from me, I'm not sure I gave her the best advice! She takes some time just getting use to her board and trying to snowplow, but I get antsy and want to get going, so I go for it! I take a couple pictures, while I'm still alive and smiling, and head down! I thought I would be a little reluctant at first but for some reason I got a huge burst of confidence and just went for it, full out! I did great! I have no idea how but I made it all the way down, even carving a little bit (Dan, you would've been proud) and never fell! It was awesome! That confidence stuck with me the whole day, as I was able to do intermediate runs and make it all the way down with some technique! I don't know what it was but there must have been something in the air that just inspired me! Or maybe the fact I was snowboarding in the Andes Mountains, in one of the coolest places in in SA!!! Not to brag, but it was pretty sweet, AMAZING in fact! I would hope that everyone who skis or snowboards could make a trip out here someday in their lives! I plan on practicing more back home this winter, then shooting for Colorado or Lake Tahoe, then heading back here when I'm good! So start saving your pennies whoever wants to come along!

Before I get too ahead of myself I should share how embarrassing my experience was with the tow-rope. Well, I don't know that it's called a towrope. It's a metal pole with a disc at the end that is suppose to sit between your legs and pull you up. I failed my first 3 attempts at this, completely falling on my face, in front of 100's of Spanish speakers..... pretty embarrassing as I was clearly holding up the line. All I could do was turn around to everyone waiting in line and laugh with them,laughing at me, as I apologized in Spanish. I finally figured it out by my 3rd try, and at this point had a fan club cheering for me! I don't get embarrassed very easily but this is definitely up there on the chart of my embarrassing moments! Once Laura finally made it down the hill, after falling multiple times, she struggled with the 'metal monster ' as well! I was, at this point, back at the top of the run, watching her and laughing histerically, as I was just in same boat 10 minutes ago! It was so funny watching her, knowing that I looked just like her, if not worse! If there were one time I wish I would have made a video on this trip, this is it! I still laugh about this once a day, usually randomly on bus rides or laying in bed! I always share it with Laura and remind her how ridiculous we looked. It makes us laugh!

We rode for a couple hours, with me loving how well I was doing and Laura finally getting a hang of it at the end! We would have loved to stay longer but had to get on a bus up to our next destination, Mendoza. We wrapped things up on the hill, got a beer and jumped on a bus to take us back to our hostel in town to gather our things. After awhile on the bus I felt lost, as nothing around us looked familiar and I think we should have hit our stop already. Sure enough we end up at the last stop, which happens to be the bus terminal, but is quite far from where we were suppose to exit. We actually need to buy a bus ticket so being at the terminal is not the worst thing that can happen, but the problem is we find out our bus is leaving in 20 minutes and we still need to go to the hostel and grab our things. We decide that Laura will take a cab and quickly grab our things and I will purchase the tickets, and again, like in San Martin, stop the bus from leaving if need be! She leaves, and I stand in line to buy our tickets. I get to the front of the line and get denied, as I don't have Laura's passport! We should have known by now that a passport is required to buy tickets! I explain my situation and he tells me just to wait for her, but also expresses that the bus is almost full. As I am waiting more and more people come and buy tickets! I am so nervous she is not going to make it in time! Then I see her run in the terminal with 2 large backpacks, one on the front and one on the back, and 2 large purses, one on her right and one on her left! I quickly tell her to get out her passport and we purchase our tickets! Another close call for us, but we make it! Mendoza here we come!

The bus to Mendoza was an overnighter, but was really fun! We played BINGO, in which Laura won bottle of wine, watched movies (in English) and had a good dinner with free wine, all while taking in the beautiful scenery outside the bus, filled with lakes and mountains! I don't think a bus could get much better than this!

We arrived to Mendoza around 10:30 am and again, like in San Martin happen to meet a guy, Raul, in the terminal who owns a hostel and offers us a room. We agree to staying there and walk with him and his son to Hostel del Sol. Turns out Raul is a paragliding instructor so after having a late breakfast we load up in a old jeep-like vehicle and head up a mountain with Raul and the driver, to go paragliding! The drive up the mountain is super bumpy and uncomfortable as Laura and I are pretty much sitting in the back of a pickup truck. We arrive at the top and Laura gets ready to go first. Raul will be taking us down one at a time, while the other rides back down in the truck-jeep with the driver. So, Laura and Raul jump off the mountain and after watching them for a few minutes the driver and I start our descent down to get them. We pick them up from where they landed at the bottom and start to head back up, as it is now my turn. One small problem..... As we are driving back up the mountain the axel of our vehicle breaks and the tire falls off, oops! Not sure what to do, as nobody gets cellphone service this high up, Raul starts walking down the mountain, intending on getting help and our driver starts to take apart his vehicle. Laura and I are standing out in the cold wind for what seems like hours. I decide at this point that I don't even care if I go paragliding. I am cold and just want to get back down the mountain. I went paragliding when I lived in Venezulea and was totally okay with skipping it. I explained this to the driver, but an hour later, once he did get the axel fixed and we drove back down the mountain to pick up Raul, they were determined to give me my turn. So, we drove back up to the top, I slipped on my gear and off the mountain I jumped! It was such a smooth ride and beautiful scenery. When it was all said and done I was very glad I did it! Raul and I landed and bought some pastelitos from street vendors while waiting to be picked up at the bottom. We head back to the hostel, warm up and then Laura and I head out to make a phone call home and get some food. We walk around a sketchy part of town before realizing we are headed nowhere and have no money, so we grab a taxi and ask him to take us to an ATM, and then direct us towards a phone place and restaurant. We take out money, call our Moms, and then get McDonalds, as it's the closest food place insight! We then head back & go to sleep!

We wake up the next day and it is time for our wine tour. Mendoza is known for it's wineries and vineyards so we decide what better to do here than take a tour! We decide to do it the Argentina way which is by bike. We get a ride to a bike rental place in the town of Maipu and with our guides Johnny and Luis, we start our tour. Our first stop is to a place where they make flavored liquor, as well as jams, cheeses, chocolates and different spreads. We sample an assortment of things and hop back on our bikes. The second stop was called La Bodega La Rural. The ride there was quite challenging, as the boys rode super fast and we were going against the wind. Not to disregard the fact that we had drank a little alcohol! At this bodega we tried a famous Malbec, which is one of their specialties and got a tour of the wine museum and vineyard. Riding from here to our 3rd and final stop was a bit challenging, as I was a little tipsy at this point after all the wine. As much fun as it was I don't know that bike and wine tours are the safest idea, haha! We arrive at La Bodega Lopez, and this place is very classy. We get our tour and sample both red and white wines. Normally I prefer white over red, but here they do not specialize in 'sweet' white wines and so I think the red is WAY better!

After our tour we make it back safely to return our bikes and then head back to Mendoza. We do some sightseeing around the city before saying bye to Raul and hopping on our next bus, this time to the capital, Buenos Aires!