A visit with our neighbors to the East...

ARGENTINA!MENDOZA!

Riding in the Chi-Ar minivan from Chile, we approach customs and immigration near the moutain pass into Argentina. Customs always makes me nervous. Maybe it’s the drug dogs, or the lines of policemen, or all the paperwork, or the questions in another language, or learning too much about Latin American history to not feel threatened. The bus driver pulls the van to a stop and says, “You have 10 minutes to go to the bathroom, after that come back to the van.”
Not listening and not understanding because of my customs fear, I get out and hop into the long line of people waiting to be approved to enter Argentina. After about 10 minutes, my friend Brad comes out of the bathroom, walks up to me and says, “What are you doing? This is the line for customs.”
I say, “Yeah, I know, isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing?”
He shakes his head, “No, we only got out to go to the bathroom if you need to.”
“Oh, right,” I reply. “I knew that.” I lie so convincingly.

After passing the border, we roll down the mountain pass and see beautiful formations of rock carved by ancient glaciers on each side. The landscape has very little vegetation apart from small bushes, and the mountains differ in color from the dusty clay-pot red of the southwestern U.S., to swirls of green, blue, black and grey. Next to us in the distance looms Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in South America. It is so huge that even though we have a pretty decent view, the top is still hidden somewhere in the clouds.

With us in the van are six various people of Chilean and Argentinean descent. Brad and the others slept through most of the ride, lucky for them. Across the way, I am clenching the seat arm with a grip such that can only be loosened by death, or possibly with the smell of my true love, Lou Malnati's pizza. While sitting in the front of this death van, I get a front-row view of our crazy Argentinean driver at work. He speeds up and down the slopes and around curves like he works for NASCAR. Following the lane markings is for the weak. Luckily, we don’t cliff-jump in the van, and we arrive in Mendoza at about 4 in the afternoon. We walk from one end of the city to the center, backpacks and luggage in hand, and arrive at the Zamora Hostel that friends who came before us stayed at. There are rooms available, and we check in and dump our stuff in the rooms before heading out to find some M.E.A.T. (I’m sure you’ve heard about the deliciousness of Argentine steak. If not, now you have.)

By deciphering the pictures outside restaurants, (like true foreigners everywhere) we decide on a place that looks good. At first, all the prices look extremely high, ($16 for a meal. yikes!) but after converting the price into Argentine pesos, (3 pesos = 1 dollar) we realize we actually can eat at all while we are in Argentina. We end up in a café that serves Italian food, and the special of the day, steak a lo pobre (steak with a fried egg on top.) A little dry, but on the top end of the steak chart, (sadly, better that anything in the name of steak Chile has to offer.)

The next morning, we started our bike wine tour.

Each vineyard is owned by a different family, and they are small productions and only sell in specific locations around the world, (if you’re ever in St. Louis, Missouri, ask for an Argentine selection!) We visit all four that are on the bicycle tour and by the end, we are crashing into trees, (just kidding.) We tour the vineyards, the warehouses that store huge round cement and metal cylinders where the wine ferments, cellars where the wine is aged, and sample a few sips at each vineyard. Brad, Colleen, Erin and I learn how to tell the age of the wine from the deepness of the red, how to swish it around inside the glass to form the "tears," and how to taste the wine properly. The last one was the most interesting because it is owned by an eccentric French couple. They were, in short, absolutely ridiculous. They are proud of their wine, have vats of endless knowledge about harvesting and growing grapes, and are absolute know-it-alls, but with good reason. They know how to create the classics, and they know how to experiment with mixing different grapes to create new types of wines, (one type we tried is an aged mixture of Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, and Syrah, and another looked like a sweet red, but really tasted like a Cab or Malbec.)

After ending the tour, we ate dinner at another Italian restaurant. We puzzle over the differences between Chile and Argentina. Mendoza itselfs looks like a cute little town you'd find in the suburbs of Illinois. The people are a lot more open then Chileans, supposedly because while a bunch of German immigrants emigrated to Chile, Italian immigrants came to Argentina. There is also a distinct European feel, with the clothes and the suprisingly high number of blondes. After another bottle of wine split between four, we hang out in the hostel watching T.V. and talking, and go to sleep.

The next day, we shop around the city and around artesan stands in the plaza. We found the rumor that Argentine products are cheap to be false, but it was probably because most of the stores were closed due to the day being Sunday. In Latin America, Sundays are ghosttowns. Around 2 p.m., we begin our journey back home into Chile and were greeted with Transantiago, long lines and crowds, but we were also able to find an open Internet cafe to say Happy Mother's Day to our mothers. So ended the trip to Mendoza.

Pictures on the drive to Mendoza.

Inside our hostel.

Brad and the argentino who lends bikes out to people for the day.

The side of one of the wineries (bodegas in Argentine Spanish.)

The main road.

Our bikes had special treatment for sure.

Where the Cabernet Sauvignon resides.

Wine is...
The most noble of drinks. Converts the Masses. Exhaults the table. Celebrates the Masses (in church). Seduces young People. Inspires the Muses.

An old wagon used in the 19th century to carry barrels of wine to town, and to bring grapes in from the fields.

Inside one of the cellars.

A view of the vineyard, (the sign is a play on the Spansh word for welcome, "Bienvenidos." Bienbebidos means good drinks.)

Welcome to the Jungle

...... or rather ¡Olé Olé, Olé Olá, el Colo-Colo va a ganar! (Translation: the Colo-Colo´s are going to win. And they did against the Mexican Team of Americas, 2 - 1!)


That is only one of the many chants that the fans sing throughout a soccer game. There is never a time when they are not singing, unless you count the 5 - 10 seconds when the Colo´s do something that makes them angry. Everyone in the stands has their hands on their head, cursing, spitting, and kicking the ground.

And when the Colo´s score, you can feel happiness in the air. All you can see is confetti, and all you can hear is "GOOOLLLLL!!!!!!!"

Some other interesting things that I´ve noticed in Chile is that people really do not pay attention to rules. The sign above clearly states to the public: Danger! Do not climb! Also, the chicken wire on top of the fence may be another clue as to what not to do. However, if you look closely in the top picture, people have definitely climbed the fence.

This was during half time when about 50 policemen came onto the field after escorting the refs to safety. I don´t know if the crowd is wild in general, or gets wild because the sight of the police provokes them but they were certainly against their presence on the field. They spit at them, threw beverages and food, and in general caused a rukus. It was quite a sight.

The passion that Chileans have for their teams is as strong as blood. Each person has an alliance to his or her team, usually decided early on by their parents, and everyone lives and dies by them. Currently the Colo-Colo´s are the best team in Chile, but one of the worst in South America. That doesn´t mean, however, that people do not love them.

Around Santiago po...

Sidenote: the word ¨po¨ is used at the end of sentences in Chilean Spanish. It was weird at first because I was so not used to it, and it completely stuck out, but I am actually starting to use it oo!

The last few weeks, I have hung around the homestead, taking in the sights and getting to know Santiago, po. I´ve found that Santiago is literally a city of extremes: on the streets, people sleep with stray dogs for warmth and get fed by church groups while other people enjoy wine tastings and ballets without the same worries, po. I went with my two friends Ali and Michelle, and Michelle´s family´s church group to help feed the homeless in five different destinations in Santiago, po. The group meets every Friday night and hits the same exact spots, where sure enough there are plenty of people to feed, po (you get the idea). I was freezing by the end of the night, and welcomed the fact that I got to go home to a warm bed in a nice apartment where I wouldn´t have to return to those places if I didn´t want to. It´s horrible that people are stuck there.


I also went to the Chilean national ballet, a collage of dances featuring one or two characters in each one, and a wine festival in the Plaza Ñuñoa close to where I live. The ballet was a little too modern for my tastes, but we also saw a group of dancers outside the theater doing capoeira, a Brazilian martial arts dance. It looked exactly like that, with a little African thrown in there. The festival was fun, a little classier than the one I went to in Curicò because you went into a restaurant, sat down and tried a glass at each place. All the wines were from the same type of grape called Carmenere, and there were 14 brands in all. The above picture is Ali and I sampling from the brand Cremaschi Furlotti.



One of the restaurants on in the wine festival. El amor nunca muere = Love never dies. A little bit of typical Latin romance there.



Ali, Michelle and I also explored some of the more touristy destinations, like the Plaza de Armas, Mercado Central, and Museo de Bellas Artes. We came upon cueca dancers from Chile dancing with Native Americans from Ecuador near the Plaza de Armas while be were shopping in the marketplace. Chileans are intensely proud of being Chilean, but many people claim that Chileans lost sight of their identity during the dictatorship. They say this about Santiago especially because being here is not the same as being in Buenos Aires, Argentina or Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was nice to see this and say that there is still culture here.



Yes, that is Mary in a wedding gown. We stumbled into a beautiful gothic style church that had unbelievably glamorous decor, a bunch of paintings of saints surrounded by flowers, and an entire separate chapel dedicated to Mary.

At Mercado Central we experienced what I guess is aggressive marketing. We couldn´t go 5 steps without someone asking where we were from and trying to get us to eat at their restaurant. Grrr. We ended up leaving rather quickly and ate ice cream at Bravissimo, a local chain. The ice cream here is colorful, healthy, and tastes unhealthy all at the same time, so you can´t go wrong. We settled on pistacchio, mousse manjar (manjar is like carmel), piña (pineapple), lùcuma (a fruit that only grows in the Chilean desert) and mora crema (blackberry).


That day I also bought another Chilean food creation: the chorrillana. This is a heap of layers of cholestral-induced heaven; a layer of beef cutlets, followed by fried onions, then a layer of fries, topped off with a fried egg. It sounds disgusting, but it was really too good for words.




I went back to Valparaìso on a paseo with the program this past Saturday. I liked it because instead of walking around the city, we took a boat ride around the port. That was Hanna and I cruising aboard the I Love Jennifer.




Sea lions on the dock. They perched themselves on small boats and buoyes as well.

Deja vu! More colored houses in Valparaìso and a sign for a silver smith!

Some of the more creative graffiti. It´s mixed with glass. Yo volarè hacia ti = I will fly towards you.

The guy that owns this weird looking puppet must run a show in the exact same park all the time, because it was the seond time I´ve seen him there. All of the puppets are made from recycled garbage.

All of these things make both Valparaìso and Santiago what they are, and it was good to get out and explore them a little more. I do think each city has its own culture and something that makes it a little different from anything other one. Sometimes they do all seem the same, but I think you can always find something that makes it unique.