It seems like we've been traveling for days...although it's really just 24 hours but we finally made it. We're finally in Mendoza at the foot of the Andes. And this is wine country...yayyyy!!!!
After traveling to Buenos Aires and sitting in the airport for 8 hours we thought we would finally be on our plane and off to Mendoza. They called for us to board our plane and I thought we´d be walking down the steps to board the plane just in front of the window but oops was I wrong. We were put on a shuttle bus along with the rest of the passengers who were traveling on our plane. Then we were driven out somewhere onto the tarmac near planes that were taxiing for takeoff and brought to our plane, where we boarded and then sat....for almost 45 minutes before finally getting going. So our day became an extra bit longer but no problem. We got going and the crew were really nice and except for the turbulence...yes more turbulence, we had a pretty good flight.
It´s summer, yes that´s right SUMMER...! (if you're sitting in Europe or North America, remember we´re at the opposite end of the globe) so the sun doesn´t set until at least 8:30 p.m. as opposed to Miami where a day before sunrise for us was at 7:30 or so and sunset about 6:00 pm. blech! Talk about making for some strange jet lag!
Because it was still light during our flight, we could see the countryside passing below. In the beginning it was a lot of farmland. Argentina is a huge exporter of soybeans and grass fed beef. Once we got into the region of Mendoza we began to see a lot more small hills and very arid landscapes. Finally, the Andes mountain range rolled into view...high, very dry looking, not very green with trees, but incredibly breathtaking to look at.
The Mendoza airport is small and charming and everyone here is sooooo nice, which is a breath of fresh air after Buenos Aires, even though we love Buenos Aires it's still a big city and the people's attitudes reflect that. The taxi people were also very nice and it cost us only $12 pesos (the equivalent of $4 u.s.) for the two of us to go the apartment (in spanish 'departamento'), which is a good 20 minutes from the airport...in Miami we would have been charged at least $40 u.s. Once we reached our destination, the taxi driver even got out to check the addresses to see which building was ours...that would never happen in Miami!
Our apartment is very charming, a studio walkup, with kitchen, living area, bathroom and separate sleeping area. The kitchen isn´t like my kitchen back at home but hey, with the exchange rate of approximately 3 pesos to 1 dollar, who´s eating at home!!! We also have a beautiful little terrace and Direct TV satellite. All of this for 5 nights for the grand total of...ready for this?...$130.00 u.s. and the owner didn´t even charge us a deposit!
So, we checked out the apartment, unpacked a bit of our luggage and even though we had said we would fall into bed and rest our elephant sized swollen feet...we decided to walk around a little and grab something to eat.
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