Mendoza minus the men

COUNTRY: Argentina
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Care Work
WRITTEN BY: Annabel Cook

Before I delve into the details of the girls' weekend away to Mendoza that has been aptly described by Anna as 'WITHOUTMen(in)doza', I just thought I'd update everyone on a few other things happening amongst the Antips gang.

Whilst the majority of the gang put Spanish lessons on hold the last few weeks, Cuz (Antonia Curry), Amy and Cailey continued their lessons with the delightful Yahaira while Ciara, Fliss (Felicity), GG (Giulian) and I continued with The oh-so-cute, pocket-sized, Peruvian Yanina who never fails to make us giggle or sigh with delayed understanding as she imitates bears that sound like dragons and dogs that, well also replicate dragons.

Thankfully we have been able to dismiss the dragon banter and we all feel as though our Spanish has really progressed in the last week. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that learning Spanish has really enriched our experience of BA and Argentina.

Whilst we love our calle Anchorena and the surrounding streets of our neighbourhood Recoleta, Amy, Cuz and I have enjoyed several Saturdays in sunny Palermo - our favourite barrio that matches or even surpasses Sydney and Melbourne's cafe culture. Having ticked off brunches at over half of BA's top 10 cafes including the quaint French Oui Oui, the industrial loft like Bar 6 and the Bills-like Mark's Deli, I have been narrowing down which Palermo destination I would like to spend my birthday at this coming Friday.

However, it is very hard to stray from Reecoleta when our favourite steakhouse La Cholita offers a huge steak, purée pumpkin, grilled onions and capsicums, garlic rice, papas fritas con Huevo and chimi churri all for about $20aus dollars, not to mention their paper 'tablecloths' and baskets of crayons! Now enough about food (even though that is quite a challenge), and on to Mendoza - where I will no doubt mention food along the way..even if it is regarding a fateful night at Subway....but more about that later.

Within 45mins of arriving at our hostel after a luxurious (no sarcasm! I'm talking complementary lollies, bus bingo and fully reclineable seats!) 15hour bus ride, we were already contemplating staying an extra night.We had been explained all the activities by our lovely receptionist who the boys also got to know the weekend prior, and we were in a stalemate over How we would spend our free day - would it be spent riding horses into the sunset with the argentine gaucho cowboys followed by a huge argentine grill and campfire or would it be spent hiking throug the Andes followed by a much deserved lunch and much needed dip in the hot springs that we had heard so much about?

An extra day was going to allow us to do both these activities but this would mean missing our american friend Sarzy's 21st bday back in BA - Sarzy being one of the 3 imports who we've adopted into our Aussie pack (the other two being fellow new yorker Lil J and British Simple Jack - the nephew of a certain Antips staff member).But after a long discussion which somehow ended up in a discussion of whether we'd rather be blind or deaf after cuz suggest this was like a parent choosing their favourite child, we decided to spend another night as we thought that the boys could do with another boys long weekend and we could do with an extra long girls weekend.

Later that afternoon, we headed out to visit some of the wineries of the region- the first being the Lopez winery which we couldn't help but liken to Willy Wnka's Chocolate Factory with many magical machines bottling 8000 bottles every hour. After visiting a family based winery and an olive oil factory, we returned to the hostel and enjoyed a dinner at a recommended nearby restaurant where almost all of us chowed down on a schnitzel meal deal and where we all toasted to Courtney who unfortunately couldn't make it to Mendoza as she sadly had to return home to Australia for a few days.

Day 2 saw us rise at 7am to make the most of the hostel's free breakfast before departing on a three hour bus ride into the Andes. Before reaching our final destination we stopped roadside to fill our water bottles with ice cold glacial water trickling down from the towering mountains surrounding that only tasted as sweet as the beautiful view. Our second pit stop was a little 'town' of only 15families. Here we marvelled at a bridge made entirely from sulphur,minerals and sand and wandered through a small selection of market stalls where almost all of us bought llama wool jumpers or in Alice's case a poncho - following in the footsteps of Tim and Henry
from the weekend prior.

We then endured a short hike, the altitude affecting some of us more than others, but this was quickly forgotten as we were ultimately distracted by the Lord of the Rings/Sound of Music/King Kong-esque scenery surrounding.

Whilst none of the girls can deny that the boys' photos in the snow were very very cool, we were pretty/extremely glad that the snow had passed for us, especially when considering that except for her newly purchased llama beanie, Freya was wearing an outfit almost appropriate for a summer's day.

More jumping, cartwheeling, dancing and singing photos followed, and I think it's more than fair to say that mine, Amy and cuz's 'spooning by the lake' or Cailey and Freya's ''mooning the mountain' photo won't be forgotten any time soon. After a delicious lunch and our three hour return journey, the ten of us returned to our hostel and quickly opted for a cheap and easy dinner at Subway. About an hour later I was regretting this decision greatly as I being the blonde, llama jumper wearing tourist that I am had my purse and wallet stolen from practically under me by two sneaking argentines who no doubt had planned the theft from the moment they saw us girls walk in
(potentially singing in glistening Aussie accents an Argentine rendition of a classic Christmas carol). Returning to the hostel, we took advantage of our 4pm start the following day by accepting the free Cuba libres and fernet y colas from the hostel bar, softening the blow of losing my wallet and softening the pillows for everyone else.

The following afternoon we met some gauchos, rode some horses, ate some meat and sang some songs..... But it was so much more than that. After a ritual mate session at the gaucho farm we were introduced to our horses with names like mya and pippirouchi and after ever so gracefully mounting the beautiful beasts we enjoyed a three hour trail ride. Walking and trotting along in single file, we each stared out across the flat, almost barren landscape, feeling like we were in an old western movie half expecting Clint Eastwood to jump out from behind a cactus to save a damsel in distress tied to the railway tracks.

At the end of the ride we had fallen in love with our horses, the farm and ofcourse the gauchos. We were then presented with a huge Parilla dinner with cuts of steak, sausages and salads reminiscent of the size of Marshall's mum's salad in How I Met Your Mother. Red wine was in abundance and was poured from giant glass bottles- the gauchos generously offering 'mas, mas, mas!' It wasn't before long that the oldest of the gauchos pulled out his guitar and sung us some classic argentine ballads,

This being followed by a true example of peer pressure as we urged both Toni and Freya to have a dabble on the guitar, letting us talented vocalists indulge in hallelujah and an array of Jack Johnson songs. As the power went off, dancing soon entailed and our spirits were certainly flying high only to be brought down by the arrival of our bus back to our hostel. The afternoon and night had been perfect, and as we tried to store every memory into the back of our minds, we collapsed into bed and looked forward to the next day.

What we were expecting to be a casual hike followed by an extensive dip in the hot springs turned into quite an intense hike under the burning sun followed by (as planned) an extensive dip in the hot springs. Led by the kooky Adrian, Rafael Nadal look alike and roger - the David Guetta look alike, we hiked for about an hour an a half, urged on by Adrian sporadically turning around to shout 'yeah Australia!' We were very pleased to see the summit, not only because it marked the time to start the downhill climb but because of the insanely beautiful view - red, arid looking cliffs and rocks in the foreground and snow capped mountains in the background.

After dodging five or so man eating comedors that had been circling above us the entire duration of the hike, we reached our first repel of 11m- with harnesses tightened in the most unflattering of places, and helmets buckled around our chins we took it turn by turn to repel the cliff that to many was very daunting. A definite shout out to Toni and Cailey who were admittedly very afraid of heights and repelling in general - not helped when Cailey's helmet fell off mid repel.... Two further repels saw us swing down cliffs of 7 and then a whopping 40metres which left us greatly looking forward to lunch which included perhaps the best chicken we had ever tasted.

We then made our way to the hot springs that we soon realised were more of a mini water theme park tucked away in Arizona-look alike mountains and rocks. The fake cacti with drawn on teeth bearing smiles welcomed us to the baths and after shedding our clothes and discovery some truly hideous sunburn on mine, Toni, Anna and Ciara's part, we made our way to the bottom of the springs only to discover this was where the cold pools were which didn't quite match our desire to warm up in the freezing windy conditions. I womaned up and plunged into the water but quickly regretted my decision,
quickly leaping into the luke warm water which to me felt boiling. The views
from each of the pools were truly incredible and were a perfect ending to our weekend of adventure in Mendoza to a close.

On our bus home to BA, we were thrilled to be welcomed on board with a complimentary glass of champagne which ''somehow'' looked a little out of place against our jeans & joggers, trackies & thongs outfits. Feeling as classy as we didn't look, we were told soon after tht our bus was undergoing problems and that we would have to change buses - such news was followed by Fliss dropping the f bomb -making it far too easy for other bus patrons to play 'spot the Australian' and Cailey announcing on Facebook via the bus' wifi to Anna at the other end of the bus that the bus was broken down
because if I remember correctly there was ' #hamandcheeseintheengine? Such nuances aside, we made it back to BA safely and our weekend in Mendoza was the most fun had so far collectively by the gals and was followed aptly by our week in iguazu volunteering but I'll hand the blog reins back over to Toni for that one!

Thanks for reading!
Annabel