After two weeks tearing around seeing the sights with Gordon and Katherine my friends from home, I slowed things down and decided to stay a while back in Mendoza to learn some Spanish before continuing on my way.

The best way to get around Argentina!

It had been really nice travelling as part of a trio, so I’d been sad to see them off from Buenos Aires before getting the overnight bus up to Mendoza myself. The coaches in South America, as I may have mentioned before, are fantastic! Feeling a little decadent, I had booked myself a fully flat reclining seat for the 16 hour journey, meaning that I had a really good nights sleep on the way. The evening meal wasn’t quite up to airline standards, although the seats are better than you’d find in anything less than business class if you were on a plane, and all for under 35 quid. The steward then gave out number cards for a spot of Bingo over the tannoy! A lot of fun, getting the whole bus involved and turned out to be a good way to practice my Spanish numbers! The long distance coach network in Argentina really is good, I’m not sure that bus-bingo is a feature of all of the coachlines – and the prospect of winning a bottle of Andesmar red if you win isn’t really that great a draw, but the reliability and comfort of the service beats Aerolineas Argentinas with a big stick, even if it may take a little longer.

A full night’s sleep, and I was ready to hit Mendoza running! I had planned to study Spanish at a school I’d spotted a couple of weeks before, for a week or possibly two, and visit bodegas in the afternoons after class, so after dropping my bags at the hostel, I got myself signed up to start on the Monday, only a couple of days away, which gave me the weekend to get in touch with Aaron again and get myself a bit better oriented.

Being Saturday, Aaron had been out late the night before, and by this I mean Argentine late. As I came to discover, staying in Mendoza for a while – dinner usually starts between 10 and 11pm, and might go on until 12 or 1, then by the time you have had a drink or two it’s 2 or 3 and time either to meander home (an early night) or time to start thinking about which club or late bar to head to… where you’ll stay until the sun is well and truly up – which would be a late one!

So I met the bleary eyed Aaron for a coffee late in the afternoon, he had been amazingly kind in taking us out to one of his favourite eateries when I’d been in town with Gordon and Katherine a week or two before, and before I’d hardly had a chance to thank him for that, he’d invited me to a 70’s party that night to meet some of his friends.

Just out of interest for you people reading this from the warmth of the summer, it’s the middle of winter here, and Mendoza is up pretty near the Andes, so it was bloody freezing that day. Having done a pretty good job of following the summer around the globe for a year, I hadn’t really packed for these conditions, I had left the hostel mid afternoon wearing just about all the warm clothes I had, the sunshine had made it just about warm enough to bear, it had become evening by the time we’d finished our coffees though, so I had to buy a woolly jumper on the way just to make it home!

The party was great fun, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to meet so many great people on my first night back in town, and by the end of the night there were already plans afoot for a visit to Don Marios in the week to drink and talk wine, and of course for their ‘bife de lomo’ (jugoso), the beginning of many nights out with these guys – meeting up with them most nights.

back to school!

With my busy social life, along with my new found love of Spanish, I decided that one week wouldn’t be enough, so signed up for a second week, which along with the extra tutoring I was doing with Aaron’s friend Maru, meant that I wasn’t leaving myself any time in the day to visit any bodegas. I contacted a few bodega for visits that had been recommended by Joe Fattorini, and before I knew it, one week in Mendoza became four!!

By the time I left, I had fallen in love with the area and made some really good friends, so I was very sad to go… As Joe put it “Best place on the planet.”