Mendoza

For the first holiday weekend I went to Mendoza with Annie and Katelyn. We bought a package trip with Hostelling International. We stayed in an awesome hostel called Campo Base. It included the bus roundtrip, lodginf in the hostel for 3 nights, a tour of wineries, a high mountain tour where we got pretty close to Cerro Anconcagua, the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere, a hot springs trip, repelling down a mountain, and an asado dinner (typical Argentinean beef fest barbaque). Mendoza was is beautiful. It was a great escape from the busy city, but it was very nice to return to Buenos Aires after 4 days. It already feels like home.

Pictures:

The have great shopping in the parks there. They are called "ferias" which translates to fairs I think. This guy had some great handmade instruments.

We went horseback riding our first day in the foothills of the Andes.

The wine tasting was awesome. I walked out with four bottles.

This is what the asado looks like. My meat-o-meter was off the charts.

We met this awesome chick from Israel named Hadas. She was travelling central and south america for 5 weeks. (Left to right: Hadas, Annie, Katelyn.) This was during our high mountain tour, this lake was the beginning of it, I can't remember the name.

This is when we got further into the Andes. The summit of Aconcagua is to the left of me in the picture (my right).

Repelling down the rock. Thats the tour guide Maxi laughing at me because I probably repelled funny.

From the top.

View of the mountains. We were lucky that even in the mountains the weather was great.

It turned out small, but this is Los Penitentes, the ski mountain in the area. The snow was powder perfect. If we had more time we would have gone skiing.

This picture was in the hostel with Pepe, the guy who drove the van for us to most of the tours. He was awesome. Also in the picture is Mie, the girl who stayed in our hostel room with us. Shes from Denmark and was travelling for a while central and south america. She was on her last week after about 2 or 3 months. (From the front left: Katelyn, Pepe, Annie, Me, Mie.)

Until later, chau.