gathers no moss: una semana en Mendoza

I think I love it here.

This morning I woke up at 11am because I was out until 2am last night. But we went home early because everyone was tired. At 1:30am many people are still having dinner. The real nightlife goes until the morning and beyond. It works because nothing much happens on Sunday, which is why the place was deserted when we arrived.

My Spanish teacher took me out to a bar/restaurant with some of her students. It was an opportunity for them to speak with someone in English, which was of course great for me because I can follow Spanish at a very low level. All the city folks were out looking fashionable and laughing and talking. The guys were wearing scarves and nice jeans and nice shoes. The girls were dressed to kill, with lots of accessories and knee-high boots and leather jackets. Tables lined the sidewalk and throngs of people were out seeing and being seen.

I was beat because we got up fairly early yesterday morning for a drive up to Aconcagua national park near the border with Chile. We rented a little car from Budget. You have to be on your toes in the city because traffic rules are mostly optional and it's hard to navigate at the same time. Once out in the country it was more relaxed. We drove up, up, up this dirt road which was cut into the side of the mountain. The landscape was desert, with cactus and red rocks. We saw lots of llamas, fox, and birds of prey swooping around. Eventually we got onto the main road up to Aconcagua, passing through customs along the way. I explained in broken Spanish what we were up to, and the (well-armed) customs officer laughed and waved us on. Whew.

As we made our way back to the city, night fell and we were somewhat lost. We got off the highway at an exit and had no idea where we were. We weren't sure what kind of neighborhood we were in -- lock the doors and roll up the windows. But presently we arrived at a gas station and pulled in. The gas station was like a party! There was music and the staff, young pretty girls, were wearing hot pants as part of their official uniform. We asked for directions from this little girl wearing bun-hugging tights and then carried on. Best gas station ever! Like almost everybody we have met here, the people were soooo sweet. After forcing our way through traffic and avoiding fearless pedestrians, we managed to return the car safely.

Our language classes are pretty full-on. I am to the point where I can usually pick up the subject of the conversation. As far as talking, I only know about ten verbs and can only use the present tense. Every time we have some sort of encounter/transaction with someone, we learn new words. But people are mostly very patient and nice about it.

Today we are going to go for a hike up some nearby mountain. It's been splendid autumn weather all week. One more week of classes in Mendoza and then to points beyond.