Mendona, Argentina

We have been in Mendoza for five days now and I´ve enjoyed every minute of it. It´s a small town with more trees than people and surrounded by 1200 vineyards!!! It is also one of the wealthier regions in Argentina so a lot of people speak English. That couldn´t have come at a better time because after spending the past month in Peru, Bolivia and Chile the women here are beautiful. We went out for beers on Friday night and couldn't help staring at all the stunning women. It is also going to take some time to get used to the schedule. Most people don't eat dinner until after 11 and the clubs are empty until 2. How these people are able to get anything done during the day is a mystery to me. I have been living on a steady diet of red meat and red wine. The meat has a higher fat concentration due to the type of cows they have in Argentina and they are not shy about the portions. I have no idea how the people aren´t all obese.

So what have we been up to...

Yesterday we rented bikes and spent the day touring different vineyards. We stuck to smaller, boutique vineyards and tasted some excellent wine. The bottles are relatively inexpensive so we bought a couple of our favorites for $10-15 US each. We weren´t able to get to happy on the ride because the vineyards are pretty spaced out and the bikes were pretty old. I went for an old school cruiser and my ass is still sore from all the bumps. All in all a great way to spend a day in wine country.

After all this red meat we have been trying to get in some exercize to avoid packing on the lbs. Robin and I were running through a local park the other day as one of the local professional soccer matches was getting out and we witnessed our first soccer related violence. A couple of guys wearing jerseys from the opposing side were cornered by gang of locals 15 years olds. One guy had his shirt ripped off and a glass thrown at him resulting in his back bleeding. It´s crazy how fast the whole thing went down and as we walked into town we could see police hoping into cars with shotguns. We also heard about an older man being beaten by a group of local kids for wearing the wrong jersey. And they say people in Buenos Aires are even crazier about their soccer!

The club scene in Mendoza is a lot of fun. All of the big clubs are 20 minutes outside of town but they are huge. We went out two nights and met a ton of locals. We have to be careful ordering drinks because they do things a little different than we´re used to. A round of drinks equals everyone getting a cup full of alcohol with another empty glass and a chaser. Harmless rounds of drinks turn into double fisting 50/50 time bombs. One of our friends was dancing with a girl who had a few too many and she threw up red bull vodka all over his shirt! Other than that we´ve had some great times dancing the night away with some fun Argentineans. If only we could get some sleep...

From here we head to Buenos Aires where I´m meeting up with one of my buddies from college, hoping up to Iguazu falls for a couple of days and finishing out the last bit of my travels.