Montevideo to Mendoza and the Madness in between

Hello again.

It's been a while, no?  I apologize to all of my loyal fans who have been crying themselves to sleep at night over the lack of modern rainbows in their lives.  Luckily, the rainbows are back.

There are honestly too many stories, people, places that I have experienced to share all or even most.  So, I'll do my best to summarize the past month and a half of solitude from you all...

The last story was written in the Panama City Airport, this one comes from the Monkey Hostel in Mendoza, Argentina.  After 8 long hours sitting in that airport I found myself in Montevideo, Uruguay and at the beginning of the low in my trip.  Montevideo is great, don't get me wrong.  However, leaving friends in Ecuador, missing my good pals from home and a few shady experiences in rapid sequence left me pretty damn bummed.  In an effort to solve the puzzle of how to snap my mood and turn things around I did what I thought best... went to the beach.

Punta Del Diablo, Uruguay will always be a special place for me.  I can remember the feel of the warm rocks, after a day of taking in the sun's rays, under my bare feet as I inhaled the salty air.  Makes me think of a Modest Mouse song right now.  It still took a while to get all of the wires in my brian working right again, but the ocean air was indeed a good antidote.  I was staying at a small hostel with a tree house, a few hammocks and, as I would soon find out, a lot of really good people.  I paid for the first 3 days, but informed the guy at the front desk that I was not sure how long I would actually be staying.  On the third day, he offered me a deal where I would work at the hostel and stay for free.  Having no real plans, being on a tight budget and Uruguay being very expensive, I agreed.  The only catch to this incredible deal was that I would have to work the shift from 1am - 8am.  The work was minimal to none, but I would have to remain awake and functioning for those 7 hours.  This turned out to be completely and utterly wonderful.

In Uruguay (along with Argentina, as I would discover) people don't go out until VERY late.  I'm talking 4 or 5 in the morning.  This worked out brilliently.  I would "work" from 1 until 4 with lots of company- drinking, laughing, playing guitar.  By the time my shift was over at 8, the gang was just stumbling back.  In the heat of the day, which often approached 100, we all slept or went to the beach for a few hours.  I became a great fan of the late afternoon nap, cooked meals for myself all the time and read a few books.  My favorite time of day quickly became sunrise.  Usually I was still alone at this time.  Most people were still at the bars or had gone to bed long ago.  Each morning I would sit in the tree house with atun, the hostel puppy, and watch the sky catch fire.  Each time was better than the last.  

I could go on and on about the quality of the people I met at the hostel.  The girls from Chile and Argentina... the guys from Cordoba... or my favorite roommate of the whole trip, Enzo, one of the few Uruguayan natives, just at the beach to escape life for a week.  They were all fantastic.  I was the last one to leave the hostel and parting with each was sad, but the experiences we shared were fastastic.  A great thing to come from this was the improvement in my Spanish.  With the exception of a few, no one spoke English.  It was wonderful.  At no point of my trip have I felt as confident in my Spanish as I did during my 2 weeks in Punta Del Diablo.  

I went back to Montevideo, hoping to keep the good vibes going and conquer the city in which I had felt the worst.  I did.  Montevideo turned out to be a wonderful city.  Beautiful buildings, parks every few blocks and my favorite place of all, Marcado Del Puerto.  It is an old train station (I think) that was turned into a meat market.  Not only could you purchase meats, the Marcado was lined with restaurants, throwing free wine at you just so that you'd look at their menu for two minutes.  That steak is one of the best I have had in my life... 

A few days later I met a really cool guy named Mike and it turned out that we were both headed to the same place, Colonia Del Sacramento.  If you ever find yourself in Argentina or Uruguay, make sure this is a stop on your list.  We camped, cooked food on the grill, drank whiskey, you know, real manly stuff (although I know some great Yellowstone ladies who could out camp, out grill and out whiskey drink me any day).  It was a nice change a pace and I always sleep great in my tent and sleeping bag. On my last night, Mike had left for Buenos Aires to meet up with his sister and I went to a hostel, just for the free breakfast in the morning.  The breakfast was great.  So great that I actually got two!  I sat and read my book in the morning's early sunlight, between pages debating where I should go next on my trip.   I had a boat booked to bring me to Buenos Aires that evening, but was still torn about where to go once I got there.  As I sat and debated, sipping on my coffee, I was joined by a girl from Germany and a guy from England.  They were each leaving that day as well, but like me, had a few hours to kill first.  We got to talking, then we got to eating lunch and venturing to a near by beach before departing.  It was not until talking with them on the beach that I decided I would head to Iguazu National Park next.  Nothing like a nice little 22 hour bus ride...

It's funny to think about the decisions that have shaped the course of my trip.  Something like that... Iguazu, Patagonia, Mendoza... It was a very last minute decision, but a decision made, friends met, experiences had, lives changed.  Ever seen the movie Sliding Doors?  You should.  So, dreading that 22 hour bus ride, I took my seat, pulled out my head phones and a pen and paper.  I had not even written a thing down or switched on my iPod by the time my decision to head to Iguazu had already changed the course for the rest of my trip.  Two girls sat across from me and.... they spoke English.  Naturally, I sparked a conversation and over the course of those 22 hours, 3 Angelina Jolee Films, 2 ham and cheese sandwiches and countless cd's listened to, we had become friends.  

Sam and Lauren are from England and have lovely English accents.  I love doing a terrible English accent and being in their company made it impossible to resist.  We spent the next 2 weeks together.  We played over 200 games of cards and kept a tally of who won each game (amazingly, when we finished the spread from 1st place to 3rd place was only 5 games).  We cooked, or really, they cooked, delicious dinner every night.  We laughed, explored and lived, together.  

Iguazu was the first place we shared.  Unfortunately, no words I can say would even do the slightest bit of justice to how awesome (old school definition of the word- awe inspiring) that place really is.  Hands down, one of the most incredible things I have ever seen.  Go and see for yourself.

After Iguazu, we went to Rosario.  Again, wonderful people were waiting.  Rosario was home to probably my favorite hostel of the trip.  The rooms were ok, typical 8 to a room, hospital style sheets, communal bathroom, ect, but the people and the overall feeling shared by everyone was amazing.  I celebrated my birthday after the 3rd day in Rosario.  Happy Birthday was sung to me in 8 different languages and I did not buy a single drink (remember, some of these people had only known me hours and they were still buying me a drink).  It was a fantastic birthday.  Cordoba followed and for 5 days we explored surrounding towns, napped in parks, played cards and drank wine... lots of wine.  One night in Cordoba we ended up spending about 5 hours with one of the most... bizarre, would be a kind word, people I have ever met.  I will never forget him.  It's certainly worth the story, so ask me about him some time.  There is just too much to say, it would make this blog triple in length.  

Eventually the day came when I had to part ways. However, by this point the two ladies who were sitting next to me on a bus had become two wonderful friends.  It wasn't all sad either.  I will get to spend two more weeks with them while they finish their trip in New York City in July.  Side note- they are doing an 11 month trip of Asia, New Zealand, South America and New York City.  Some bad ass girls.  They headed up to Salta while I went back South to Buenos Aires to meet my family who would  be arriving in 48 hours.

Now... my life traveling around has been great.  Part of the whole experience is the grimy, dirty, shitty part.  For quite a while I had been sharing a bed room with anywhere between 1 and 14 other people.  At times some of those people (myself included) have smelled pretty terrible.  I have shared bathrooms, showers, kitchens, computers, everything.  The hostel life is a fantastic thing and something everyone should experience (this is possible in America as well!!!) at some point in life.  However... I will never forget the feeling of getting off of yet another night bus, carrying my heavy bag from the bus station to the hotel my parents had booked in Buenos Aires and walking into that room for the first time.  I had not really slept, I smelled, I was terribly exhausted, I was... well... me, the traveling me anyway.  I had my head phones on as I went up in the elevator.  LCD Soundsystem's All My Friends was playing loud into my ears.  As I walked into the room there were probably tears of joy in my eyes.    I dropped my bags (leaving the headphones in) and danced around the room, literally jumping from bed to bed and stripping off my dirty clothes.  My good friends can probably picture this and it would not surprise them in the least.  Although I'm sure it would have been a sight to see, it was a moment meant just for me.  

I stopped dancing and caught my breath when the song ended.  Before anything else, I put on shorts and the tee shirt that smelled the cleanest, well, the tee shirt that smelled the least dirty, and went downstairs to the buffet breakfast that was included with the room.  Part of my saving money means eating less frequently and spending little money when I did eat.  Walking into that restaurant I felt like a king.  As the hostess was seating me, she offered a newspaper for me to read while I ate.  Before I could even sit, my cup was filled with hot coffee and another one on the way with fresh OJ.  I very well could have died on that bus and this was actually heaven.  But I didn't!  This was real life.  Eggs to order, meat spread, a ridiculous amount of danishes, FRESH FRUIT, cooked veggies... honestly, my life was at an incredible high at this moment.  At the end of the meal, all I had to do was scribble my name and the bill was settled.  I finished 5 plates of food sitting there that morning and did not eat again for 13 hours.  The rest of that day consisted of showering, sleeping, showering again (it was a really nice shower), walking around town, taking a bath in a clean tub with a bottle of wine and watching a little tv with something small to eat before once again sleeping.  It sounds like a day of nothing, but it was so perfect.  

My parents, brother and Ivy arrived the next day.  Having them here felt like fiction at first.  This was my strange life in these strange lands... having them here was wonderful, but took a second to adjust to.  Not too long however, with more good food and a second night in a row with a comfy bed, I was already starting to get used to this new life.  We ate GREAT every day.  Not even good food, f*@#ing GREAT food.  I had to consume 15 pounds of steak.  We traveled around Buenos Aires and together discovered how large the city really is.  We drank wine until late in the evening and shared hot subway rides during the day.  The greatest part was just being together.  It was different, knowing that when I woke up I would spend a day with my family.  I had not experienced that in a long time.  I think that week was the longest the 4 of us had been together since... I'm not even sure.  It had been at least a year.  It was wonderful.  I spent a lot of time with my brother and Ivy.  Makes me excited about the next stage of life, but we'll get to that soon.

So... the family left and once again I was on my own and on a night bus.  This time when I woke I was in wine country.  Over the years I have come to love wines from Mendoza Argentina.  A few regions in Spain and California might put up a fight, but Mendoza just may produce my favorite wine in the world.  Since getting here I have relaxed.  I spent two days walking around town, reading and surprisingly, not drinking any wine.  I had a good fill of vino with the family and I'm trying to battle a cough that just won't leave, but don't worry too much... Tomorrow I am renting a bicycle and riding around vineyards and getting a taste for the region.  I plan on going to at least 3 wineries and an olive oil producer with possible stops at a beer factory or chocolate factory.  See, I told you not to worry.  I'm leaving at 8 in the morning and coming back around 8 at night, so I should get a pretty solid day of true wine country in. 

Well... That brings you up to date.  I'm sitting at a table in shorts, t-shirt and flip flops gulping own water by the liter (up to 8 so far today, this damn cough).  I am gonna finish up The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which I have really enjoyed and get to bed so that I'm all set for tomorrow's great wine adventure.  I am guessing that tomorrow will be an early night after a day of wine and sunshine.  That's not a bad thing tho.  The 1st I get on a bus and head into Chile!

As I stated at the beginning of this, sorry for the huge gap between this blog and the last, but there will be more soon, so keep an eye out for more this week!  Cheers.