There's a tradition among many ex-pats who are allowed to stay here in Chile on a tourist visa for three months, and want to stay longer. It's called the border run. The usual destination is Mendoza, Argentina and it's just CLP$26,000 -- (USD$53) -- round trip by bus.Well, one of my friends, Kayla, had to make said border run about a month ago, and you know, a border run just isn't as fun solo, so who was I to say no to Argentina, especially if a couple of my closest friends here were going?
So we packed our bags, bought our tickets, booked a hostel and took the long weekend to basically eat our way through Argentina.
Yes, you read that right. We made a list before we left of what we wanted to do over the weekend. There was the usual girl stuff: shopping, sightseeing, dancing, and flirting with cute Argentinian boys, but a large part of our trip was food-centered.
We were told that the beef is amazing, the pasta is delicious (because said Argentinian boys have Italian ancestors), the wine is the best, cute cafes are everywhere, and the chocolate was to die for.
Any girl who can think of a better girls weekend than that, I will give you $20.
So that was the plan. We had only three days and we were going to make the most of them.
Getting there
The bus ride was a new experience for me. there was lots of room to stretch out. The service was quite good. But the couple practically having sex with each other in the seat diagonally across the aisle from me was a bit disturbing. I can only imagine how Barbara felt sitting directly across from them.
Around 1 a.m. we arrived at immigration. The place is outside, it's up in the Andes and it's a bus terminal without doors. My teeth were literally chattering in my head, and this is coming from a Minnesota chick. That's when you know it's cold. To add to that they had only two people working and stamping passports, one from Chile the other from Argentina, and we showed up with about five other buses. Ugh. But hey at least we could have tea when we got back on the bus.
That was fun.
He was really nice, he worked the hostel night-shift, and he filled us in about all the things we should do while we were there.
After he made some toast for breakfast for us in this little kitchen.
So we ate, talked, and then went to our room and crashed for the next five hours. We slept like logs, because you don't get much sleep on those buses.
Mendoza day 1: Biking
After waking up around noon we rented bikes from this place called Bike Cool Tours and were surprised to find that our friends from Bicicleta Verde had "gone international" since some of their brochures were in this guy's office.
The rental was relatively cheap, USD$45, for the whole day which was great because we rented from noon until 7 p.m. The city is very bicycle-friendly and it's such a chill place that we never wanted to leave.
We biked around town for a couple hours and then decided that it was time to stop for lunch. What did we want? Pasta of course. Unfortunately the first plate of past we had wasn't all that delicious but the staff were nice, and the place was very pretty. It seemed like more a local place than a touristy one since a large majority of people were all speaking Spanish well.
What I discovered while I was here was that I could actually understand what people were saying which is something I've struggled with while I've been in Chile. Being used to hearing Spain style Spanish did not prepare me for Chilean Spanish. I felt that Argentinian Spanish was a lot closer to Spain Spanish. It was kind of a relief.
After Lunch we rode around the city a little more and found our way to the local park which is huge. The park is called Parque General San Martin. It reminded me of Parque Retiro in Madrid. It's big and beautiful with surprises lurking around every corner. We especially liked the river area of the park, because it was just so peaceful and pretty.
We loved it and we went back there a couple more times during the weekend.
The place has it all. There's a soccer stadium, a shuttle that will take to you Cerro Concepcion that you can climb up if you're feeling adventurous, a zoo, an open air theater, a mini-history museum, an art gallery and lots of paths and gardens to take in.
Admission's free people, you don't have to pay a cent. Put it on your to do list.
We kept biking around for a bit longer and stopped at some shops along the way. Then we went to the candy shop, Fabrica de Alfajores Chocolezza. Of course we had to buy chocolate there. We found Plaza de Chile, decided to let our inner-child out then we decided the spinning disk was not a good escape. How kids can still do that amazes me.
After returning our bikes and getting some more shut-eye we headed out to find dinner. If you go to Mendoza don't go out for dinner at 10 p.m. on a Saturday you will not find a place to eat. It's better to go an hour before or an hour after as we discovered as we walked around for an hour looking for a seat in a restaurant that wouldn't make us wait for a half-hour.We did eventually find a place to eat. The beef and the wine were really good too, they measured up to all expectations.
Though we had tried to get some sleep so that we could go out after dinner we were so dead tired that we ended up paying our check, heading back to the hostel at 1 a.m. and crashing hardcore.
But overall it was a sucessful day. We had a good time, saw a lot of the city and managed to do almost everything that was on our list. The only thing left was dancing and shopping. And that's what day two was dedicated too.
Mendoza day 2
I went solo shopping on this day because the girls weren't feeling all that great the next morning. We think it may have been the pasta at lunch. Thankfully they felt a lot better during the afternoon so we were able to do some things together.
Shopping on a Sunday is rather difficult in Mendoza, like it is almost everywhere else in Latin America. There are some touristy shops open around 10 a.m. but the rest of the shops don't open until noon or 1 so plan accordingly. I did find some very cool shops where I bought some gifts for my family when I get home but I can't tell you what since they read this too.
There are feria's--artisan shops like you'd find at art and culture celebrations in the U.S.-- there. Go to them if you can. We didn't know they existed so we missed out on the Argentinian feria experience but you can usually find handmade items here for pretty cheap. Buying beautiful things without breaking your bank account is always great.
After that we walked back to the hostel to see if Barbara was feeling better. She was so we went for coffee, to the park again, and then walked around the city for a little bit longer.
We were starting to get hungry when we came across this cute little cafe with a wonderful patio out back...I figured the name was appropriate, Kato Cafe.We had our once, which is the meal between 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. that people have in Chile. It was delicious. You can't go wrong with a Baguette and some tea. Then we went back to the hostel to get some shut eye before going dancing.
And...the Tango
The Tango is originally from Argentina so I wanted to learn. We found a place that gave lessons for free in a plaza just outside of the main part of town. We later found out that these lessons happen every Saturday night during the summer at 10 p.m.It's softly-lit, surrounded by trees, the place couldn't have better ambiance. We were late, and there wasn't any room on the stage for us, but a very nice man named Don Pedro, who was former Tango teacher, helped us learn.
It was fun, he taught me the basic step, and then we were passed around to various other people in the plaza throughout the night.
It was a great experience. It was a great trip.
We got up the next morning at 10:30 a.m. so we could check out and catch our bus back to Santiago at noon.
