In Mendoza, Argentina 1/15/08

Hola.....

It is almost 11 at night, after traveling by bus from Santiago to Mendoza for the entire day today. Pooped again. But we had a safe trip and got here without incident although the gendarme boarded our bus just over the Argentina border and had a look around. They seemed amiable enough, but one never knows.

The bus system here is pretty extensive. Hoards of people at the bus sttion in Santiago, but we found our waiting spot and waited. Lots of people travel this way, and it is pretty easy to go. We were just tired already from the bed and breakfast in Santiago. We were on a busy street, and since they did not have air conditioning, we wanted to open our windows, but the street noise was so loud, we couldn.t sleep very well. We´re hoping to do better here in Mendoza. It´s plenty hot ( probably about 85 at 11 tonight) as we walked back to our hotel from dinner. (nothing opens until 8:30) But here we have air conditioning. Thankfully.

Tomorrow we will probably just hang around town and rest up. Then the following day we´ll see how we can get out to the wineries. The day before we left Santiago, we took the metro out to Concho y Toro and Cousiña Macul winery. It took us about 2 hours to figure out how to do it, but it turned out fine. Interesting experience, for sure. The grounds of the wineries were really beautiful and the wine itself was delicious. The architecture was beautiful, too. We haven´t figured out how to download photos yet, but we took lots of them and will do our best to get them on.

Tonight we ate in a little Spanish tapas restaurant and had some very tasty fare. I asked about the recipe and the waiter told me how to do it. Yum. I´m bringing the recipe home.

We got here and our hotel room had already been rented, but we leaned on them a little bit, and they found us another one. Our regular place at the Plaza Italia is available tomorrow, but we walked by it today, and it´s a very old home. Looks really cool. So, we´ll move over there tomorrow. For now, to bed and hopefully be able to get to sleep!!!