After an unusually restful night's sleep at the hostel in Mendoza,I got up relatively early on Monday morning in order to have plenty of time to cram in a full days' worth of bike-riding and wine-drinking. The day started off a bit slow as we invited along a couple of the girls from the hostel to join us in our wine-touring adventures. Low temperatures, a late start, and a self-doubting rain cloud brought a bit of grouchiness out of me, and when we missed our bus after waiting for nearly half an hour because one of the girls went back to the hostel to look for a magazine, I bit my tongue, folded my arms across my chest, and did everything I could to not allow my head to explode and showering a bunch of innocent bystanders with shards of cranium and my cerebral cortex.
There was no such explosion, and once we were on the bus, my mood immediately changed for the better. Now en route, I felt like I was back on the track to being productive in my quest for new experiences. In addition, though the menacing rain clouds weren't giving us much sign of breaking, my trusty watch was predicting sunshine within the next 6 hours. Have I mentioned how I love that watch?
Well, the watch was right, and by the time we arrived to Maipu, we were able to wait in the sun while the unhelpful, unfriendly, and inefficient bike rental attendant arranged the bikes we would be using. In our effort to see as many bodegas (wineries) as possible, we had to truncate some of our visits, but we were able to talk the friendly, if somewhat goofy and eccentric, attendant at the wine tasting bar into giving us an impromptu tour of the Tempus Alba bodega.
From there we traveled just down the road to another bodega called El Cerno, where we got to taste a couple of their vintage reserve wines for about 3USD. The picture below was them unloading the harvest before we walked into the very informal sitting area.
With our wine buzz in full effect, we picked up the pace a bit to make it down to the Bodega Carinae, which ended up being our last bodega on the tour. With some heavy pedaling and a thirst for some chocolate to float in my belly full of wine, I turned what was supposed to be a 40-minute bike ride into 20-minutes and made it to the Museum of Chocolate and Liquors a few minutes before their last tour. I got the sweets I was craving and managed to stall long enough to keep the museum open until my friend came back to claim me. In the whirlwind of activity from the last bodega to the chocolate factory and back, we lost one of our group members when she decided she would rather head back alone than stop at the chocolate shop. There was a slight intimation of drama, but on account sheer exhaustion, I don't think it amounted to much.
Matt and I broke off from the girls who came on the tour with us, and stopped by the most amazing all you can eat restaurant on the planet. For about $7US each, we were able to fill our stomachs with as much red meat off a wood-fire grill, fresh made paella, casseroles, omelettes, and an eclectic array of all kinds of different fantastic foods as our little bodies could handle. Having sufficiently limiting our ability to do anything that would require motion or effort of any kind, we headed over to the casino one more time. As usual, I went up, and as usual I played too long. This time, though, I managed to win 150 pesos (about $50US), and I actually stopped and walked away from the table with the money in my pocket. But with Matt still struggling to break even, boredom and greed got the best of me and I bought in with 100 pesos of my earnings. I of course lost the majority of it, but I still managed to escape the grips of my addiction having won back all of my losses from the night before with a little to spare.
Unfortunately, I was at the wrong place at the wrong time (or rather, perhaps it was the right place at the right time), because when Matt and I walked out of the casino, we were immediately accosted by a Dutch guy who had supposedly just been robbed. He told us a pretty compelling story about how he had been pepper-sprayed near the bus station, and that he lost his passport and wallet. He had to catch a flight out of Buenos Aires to Amsterdam the next day, but he couldn't buy a bus ticket because he didn't have the money. And his friends couldn't buy it with their credit cards because he didn't have any identification. He (allegedly) called the police and his embassy, but they were unhelpful and slow in getting back to him (which sounds about right for everything here in SA). His eyes were pretty blood-shot, which led me to believe one of three things: 1) he had not slept in several days, 2) he was on drugs, or 3) he was telling the truth about being pepper-sprayed. He did have an Dutch accent, which lent a bit of credibility to his otherwise fairly incredible story, but I still think the latter of the three possibilities was probably the least likely of the scenarios; nevertheless, I could not help but think that I would not have been able to pay him if I had not won in the casino. And if I had not gone to the casino, I would not have seen him. So acting on the premise that everything happens for a reason, I decided to relinquish my hard earned blackjack winnings, putting me once again in the red for my trips to the casino. He promised to pay me back, but I somehow suspected I would never see the money again. Thus far, those suspicions have been confirmed.
Oh well. If nothing else, maybe it will earn me some karma when I need it somewhere down the road.
The next morning, it was off to the bus station for another 6-hour bus ride back to my now hometown of Santiago. So back to the daily grind of 15-hour work weeks I go.
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