Week 3: Halloween, De Martino Winery, & Mendoza

The last week was insanely eventful and life doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon.  We got home from Valpo/Vina just in time for Halloween - don't fret, they still celebrate it in Chile.  A bunch of us found costumes, had dinner and drinks at our apartment (thank goodness the boys are good cooks!), and then ventured down to the local expat bar, California Cantina, which has become one of our go-tos while we've been here.

After two days of classes, we spent Friday touring the De Martino winery, a family owned vineyard about an hour outside of Santiago in Mapio Valley.  We had a brief overview of the Chilean wine industry and De Martino, toured the vineyards, and then had a HUGE Chilean bbq with copious amounts of wine - it was fantastic!

We left bright and early Saturday morning for Mendoza, Argentina.  The part I was awake for during the 8 hour drive through the Andes was gorgeous.  (The bus was actually really comfortable and reclined further than an airplane - so that combined with our Friday at the vineyard made staying awake was tough.) 

We spent our first night in Mendoza similarly to the first night of all new places we've visited thus far - appetizer and booze bar crawl.  Sunday we spent a lazy day by the pool at the hostel, bbq'd at night (as we're learning almost everything is closed Sundays in South America), and met new friends - it was much much warmer in Argentina than Chile so the pool was definitely appreciated.  Monday we went on 5 hour-ish bike/wine tour with our new friends, Suzanne and Mike - visiting vineyards, drinking wine, munching on snacks, and trying our best to stay on our bikes.  (Unfortunately, my bike's pedal fell off mid-day but thankfully, we found the Argentinian police who were quite friendly - although didn't speak a lick of English - and drove me back to switch to a new bike.) 

After a brief debacle at customs (lesson learned: apples can be smuggled from Chile to Argentina but definitely not back again), we made it back at 5AM this morning, just in time for our 9AM lecture.  We're resting up for 2 days of classes tomorrow before our big Patagonia trip next weekend.  Life is good.