Mendoza, Canopy, Rafting

Next morning we were up bright and early to catch a bus up through the Andes and over into Argentina. Winding our way up along the mountain passes the scenery was truely amazing, as were the busses - a far cry from National Express! The worst part of the entire journey by far was the wait at the border crossing. Totalling over 2 hours we everyone in the queue of busses got plenty of time to give themselves an unhealthy amount of sunburn and windburn if we so wanted, or just sit in a stationary bus. Oh the choices.

Finally we were allowed into Argentina...though not before the immigration officer seemed took a keen interest in all the visas I had in my passport and noted their numbers on his computer. Very strange!

After running around trying to sort out a few essentials like some new clothes (Aus & NZ had been way too expensive for many!), we headed out with a bunch of people in the hostel to Mendoza´s bar street. On a Tuesday night though everything seemed a little on the quiet side. Even so though we met up with some locals who spoke as little English as we did Spanish, so all-in-all great practice! More to the point though it was an opportunity to teach them the infamous game: "Esta es la brucha. La que? La brucha!" - yes we now know This is the Witch, and can teach it, in 3 languages...no excuses will be accepted anymore!



Next day it was time to go a bit crazy...first of all whilst dangling a good 30m above a river on nothing more than a wheel running along a steel chord! Awesome fast fun, especially when you take it on upside-down, albeit in a slightly dodgy position with the instructors! The final two lines were by far the best...being 400 metres long you got up a whole load of speed by the end...and that was the one I went upside-down on! I don't think we screamed like girls too much...well hopefully!



Following our high-speed fun it was time for a huge piece of steak (as is the unforunate custom in Argentina)! Yum yum yum.

Task two was to hop in a boat with an Argentino locissimo, kiss goodbye to fear and zip off down some class three and four rapids! Awesome. Well all apart from the whole seating arrangements. Martin and I were in the front, which involved sitting cross-legged with one foot inside a sock sewn into the floor and the other jammed between the floor and the tubing wall. Unsurprisingly this wasn't exactly the most comfortable sitting position ever so I made a bit of a trade-off with what I'd been told to do and first-class comfort levels! It was definitely a trade much in their favour as all I did was only put my foot half-in the sock and rest my foot under the wall instead of jamming it there, oh and sit possibly a bit more atop the tubing. Hardly a first-class ticket. The system worked really well. And then we plugned into a deep trough, the tubing acted like a trampoline, bouncing me upwards and backwards out of the boat. Onboard it had actually been getting pretty hot so it was quite a refreshing dip, well bar impending death. Captain wasn't quite so relaxed though and ordered me to swim my arse of back to the raft where I could be hauled back on! Unfortunately the photo is just a re-enactment.

A hard day of work requires a well-earned beer and that's exactly what we headed out for after. Walking to the bar I asked for "tres Quilmes grandes", the effort of which is usually rewarded with three one-litre bottles of Quilmes (Argentina's national beer). Today however it somehow translated to three huge-ass pitchers. These necessitated a slightly more lengthy stay than we'd expected at our pavement bar...another good opportunity to get to know the locals introduce them to a few games! Early that morning it was back to the hostel to continue our night of guitar playing, bad singing and just general banter about, well, anything.

Morning after it was a quick look around the town square and a scramble around the hiking shops in search of equipment for later in the trip. No such luck though so off on the bus to Cordoba...an overnight Andesmarr Full Cama bus - its like flying business class on a bus!