Una nueva carrera

Wassup, Que tal amigos

I was going to put this at the end, but it just seems to make more sense up here.

If you'd like to see some pics from our time go here

- Wowzers, I've had quite the busy couple of weeks. Apart from Megan Rumpza, Elizabeth, Jim, and Therese Cloyd coming to visit me, I mean Buenos Aires, I have finished my internship at DDB, met with 3 potential intercambios, housed two champions of the Netherlands and tried to look good the whole time. It's been awesome but I'm definitely happy to have all my space back to just being mine. I kept saying that once everyone's stuff was out of my room I would finally have the time to organize it (classic maneuver of successful procrastinators, blaming others for your lack of motivation..) I actually kind of did that today but was limited from the first actual cold I think I have had since high school. Which is Ironic because I am living in by far the warmest climate I've experienced and I was a constant snowboarder in not only the chilly mountains of the Rockies but the downright absurdly dangerous temperatures of Buck Hill and Highlands. Fortunately being the child of a Pharmacist and Nurse the phrase "Drugs are our friends" has been tattooed on the back of my eyelids since my first toothache. Unfortunately as some of you may know today marks the 2nd most holy day of Semana Santa - Viernes Santo - Good Friday - which means in the heavily Catholisized country of Argentina only but the most desperate of tourist stores would remain open. And Burger King of course, thank Je...or let's just say thank goodness. But I did manage to find one of the more corporate Farmacias open, but quickly after glancing at the price for what must have been a sinus/cold medicine (I guess the picture of the side view silhouetted man with his lungs orange and arrow moving up his throat is international) I was only pained more. Because I believe that medicine is only a benefit of the wealthy and I have yet to receive a substantial paycheck in Argentine Pesos, entonces, I must push through this engripe with as many oranges and small glasses of water I can find.

Anywho, like I said my family has come and left and it was truly a once in a lifetime experience. From our peaceful and conversationally inspired trip to Colonia, Uruguay (which fortunately came in perfect time for me, my 3 months granted as a tourist in the country of Argentina was about to expire, last tuesday actually, had we not made the skip across the Rio Platte) to Elizabeth and I's action packed trip to Mendoza - the wine producing epicenter of Argentina. It was cool to experience these strange and never before seen things with people you know so well, it makes for quite a funny time too I have to say. When you know someone really well you know exactly the experiences you've shared and can use those memories in making the new ones even more fun. I think that made sense right?

Well I will quickly tell you of the Cloyd Children's trip to Mendoza - We made a speedy decision to leave Buenos Aires on last Saturday night, Elizabeth was kind enough to entice me with the purchase of our bus tickets - bus travel is by far the superior means of travel in Argentina, of the things they do right, futbol, barbaques, and managing to sip on one beer for over 4 hours, long distance bus travel is truly their speciality. It's 15 hours from Retiro bus station in Buenos Aires to the Bus Terminal in Mendoza, crossing clear through the pampas of central argentina to finally pull in at the doorstep of the Andes Mountains. The bus though, wow, two stories, seats that recline to about 140 degrees, movies, airplane style food, and most impressively leg room. After flying domestically in the US for so long I've been trained into thinking that peanuts aren't free, bottles of shampoo are dangerous and that you should be perfectly okay sitting like a stick figure for 8 hours. These seats are soft, big and you have space to actually create yourself an area - basically there good for riding on. We arrived freshly on Sunday morning in Mendoza, taxied it up to our hostel - which Elizabeth had also booked after repeatedly reading the words "never" and "quiet" in the reviews on hostelworld. We get to the hostel and it too is bigger and more comfortable than any I'd seen before, at least in South America. It had two big dinning rooms, a half indoor/outdoor bar eating area and a pool (Though the hue of the water made me think of toxic waste) So, the hostel was really nice and we rented bikes from it to tour our new found city. Because my back tire was riding on near empty, I wasn't able to show these decent mountain dwelling folk how to really ride bikes, we made it through many of the landmarks of the town and up to the park. All beautiful, all peaceful, and most importantly it was all fairly quite and the aire was pristine - basically the exact opposite of BA. It's a smaller sized town so we managed to see most of it that first day.

Day 2 - When you hear Mendoza, at least down here, you think of the wonka factory but for wine consuming adults. Thats because about 80% of Argentina's wines are produced around this town. There are two main areas that hold these vineyards - Maipu and Lujan - the thing to do, as in most vineyard like areas, is to rent bikes and go a'samplin. We chose to go to Lujan where we saw 5 different vineyards with 4 other people. There was a lot of funny things that happened during this time but to digress into their stories would really make this post a imposing group of words. Basically we saw 2 of the really big/corporate vineyards - Chandon (yep as in the french Champaign makers) and Norman - they had nice organized tours with information and english speakers to quell our oh so potent curiosity. The highlight was rushing into the Norman tour that started 20 minutes earlier, profusely sweating, and then begging to have a chance to try the first wine we had missed out on because, you don't want to do these kinds of things out of order. The other two wineries we visited were very Boutique, family run business. Cabrini and Miguel Minni - neither of them knew we were coming (even though we paid a man and I watched him call and set up a tour, though he could have been faking it) and both of them were shocked to see we were riding bikes. Upon entrance to Miguel Minni the lady saw us riding in and came out clearly confused, amazed that we had made it over the highway and through the gravel streets from hell all the way to her little eden of fermentation. This too was shocking because as far as we knew this bike tour was a common thing to do as was the route we were on. I still don't exactly know what all of it means but it adds up to something I think. Anyway we finished the sampling and bussed back to Mendoza for another surprisingly calm night in our hostel (apparently it's only not quiet on thurs - sun)

Day 3 - We booked a rafting run on the Mendoza river coming out of the Mountains. Again we had to wake early and bus out of the town, but this time it was west into the mountain, I couldn't help but remember the images of Colorado's I-70 and hwy 6 going into the Mountains from boulder, the view is very similar, except here everybody kept speaking spanish. We got to the basecamp for the rafting session, which was fully equipped with sun chairs and a bar, met some people, schmoozed and then get all wet-suited up and bussed up to the drop in point of the river. The highest class rapid we hit was a class 3 but it was still a great time. After the float I talked to the head guide at the base camp (Argentina Adventures is the name of the company by the way and if you ever want to do anything extreme in Mendoza and don't know where to start - zipline, mountain biking, river rafting/kayaking, rock climbing etc... contact them) and I convinced him to email me later this week and put me into contact with the owner, I am hoping that this spring he can take me on as an apprentice so I could live a few months in the outdoors getting paid to do these kinds of things.

We bussed back to BA that night after meeting some Americans (one from Wisconsin unfortunately) and had some good old times with a few of the bottles we picked up in wine country. It was a great time and too quick. Mendoza is a mountain town, and I think I belong in Mountain towns, the only downside is that it's way harder to make cash money in mountain towns, once I get that figure out than I think I'll be good.

Phew, lots told and so much more to tell. I'll let this marinate for a while and then share some of the other funnier happenings of my families' time here. Basically what I learned though is this, anyone who wants to come down here, I got room, and it will certainly be really fun. So do it, just let me know a few hours before you take off. Okay cool sorry for the long one but It's been a while since we've sat down and talked.



Nueva carrera means new way, new path basically.

Chau

Hasta Pronto