It was a brisk early morning as I leapt onto the slowly moving bus. I had enjoyed a nice media luna and orange juice for breakfast and I was prepared to embark on yet another exciting journey. This new voyage would take me to some far away cultures, beautiful scenery, and the feeling that I had really taking myself out of my own environment. I was going to WINE COUNTRY!!!
The bus arrived promptly at 9am. It arrived, that is, to a small bench on the side of a dirt road. The bus driver indicated that this was indeed our stop and that it was time for us to get off and stop coming up to him every five minutes to ask if we had already pass our stop.
I leapt off the last step of the bus with an energetic zeal. However, I was quickly brought back to reality when a bustling town driven by the vino tinto and blanco commerce appeared to be just a small farming community where nothing was open. Oops.
We new that this was to be expected as the vineyards were all a bit spread out through the small town. For that we were going to need to rent bikes. Luckily, using my spanish wit and charm, HA!, I spoke to the local butcher to discover that we were in no way near a bike rental place.
As usual we decided to simply move our legs in search of someone who might know a bit more information that the blood soaked meat barren we had just met.
SIDE NOTE: While the people here are very friendly and always eager to help out a fellow traveler, I´ve noticed that most the people have no real idea what is going on or where they are or what things actually exist in their country. For that reason you just have to ask an average of 5 people to figure out something that could most often be delivered by one. I guess it´s a culture thing.
We walked and we walked and would you believe it? we walked bit more. We soaked up all the wonders of the charming town and spoak to the locals about our enthusiasm for their wine and their lack of enthusiam for the obvious cold that was seeping into every crack and weakness in our insufficient clothing.
After an hour of walking we did finally find a bike shop. It only took about 20 minutes to then stir the incompetent (we would later find out) employee of this fine rental shack. He gave us some some bikes and our free ¨drinks¨ which appeared to be gatorade bottles that way way have been from the 70s when the company first began. I don´t know if they think like wine all drinks are better with age, but I wasn´t about to test that.
Well, what would you know, I had a bike and some old gaterade and things were looking up. We picked a spot to make our first bodega visit and we were off.
We took a nice ride about 10 km down the nice tree shaded roads and I was excited for a day that would surely end in me being too buzzed in a place where I should have ¨respected my alcohol.¨ I could see great things on the horizon.
That was, until, BOOM! The pedal of my bike after a slowly withering struggle to stay on finally popped right off in the middle of the road. Luckily the bike was already crappy enough that I was riding rather slowly, so I didn´t fall too hard. I tried to fix it some how, but the bike had decided that it was broken and that there was no going back.
Of course the rest of the group slyly hid the irritating fact that their bikes were still shittily functioning just fine and now they would have to walk with me. I thought the solution would be simple as all we would have to do would be to arrive to the fist bodega, call the bike guy for a new bike, have some wine, and await his glorious arrival.
After that decision was made one hopeful thing happened and a mess of hopeless things occured. While taking my bike on a walk along the road I noticed some gentlemen working on a gate at the front of a resident´s house. I asked if they could help and what do you know, they had a full tool box and all the enthusiam needed to aid the idiot tourist who was obviously just beginning his day as the annoying drunk biker who had nothing to add to his town other than noise and car accidents.
He did what he could to fix the pedal and I thought all was saved. I was quickly brought back to a rather glib reality when the new problem arrived...the bike fell apart. The chain broke, the gears actually snapped off and the pedal fell off again. My bike basically said ¨Fuck you! I quit!¨ Oh did it quit. I knew right then that somehow this day was not going to be as easy as I thought it would be. But then, when is it ever easy. I wouldn´t be able to write these stories if life was always peachy, right?
We continued on the hopes that some bodega would be open for us to call the bike man while enjoying some vino, but vineyard after vineyard was closed Closed CLOSED! Crap.
What could we do but walk the 10 km back into town for the next 2 hours. I really thought that the day might be ruined and I irritatingly apologized over and over for something that was clearly not my fault.
Our first stroke of real luck hit when we arrived to the Cabrini Bodega. They were also closed, however the woman there not only called the bike guy finally, but they offered our first taste of some delicious Mendozan Malbec. It was great!
After the man arrived the day passed with the ease and delight I had hoped for that whole day. It was truly one of the best days I´ve had here in Argentina. We visited several vineyards, all very small, and we learned a lot about the cultivation of Argentine wines and how the process and culture behind it differs from wines in other countries. Ask me some time and I´ll tell you all about it. Not here though, because you´ve read enough and I want you, oh faithful reader, to take a break. Enjoy yourself, take a bike ride, have a glass of wine. Do anything you want to remind you of how great things are if you just maintain a healthy and happy attitude. Remember, there is no spoon!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Stank folk!
Roommates. Almost everyone has had some type of live in, roommate, friend crashing on the couch, or something to that extent. The difference is that usually you have the option to pick who it is you´re sharing your living space with. When traveling it´s not like that. At least, not when you´re traveling on dirt dollars and can only afford the bleakest of lodging.
I have stayed in some shady places in my life, but this recent location has been one of the most modest hostels I could have ever had nightmares about. Some things you might be able to agree upon would be the constant smell of cigarette smoke even though no one apears to be smoking in the hostel. That smell is even present when you´re sitting on the plastic toilet seat using toilet paper you can see through. Next, you continue to breath in the second hand smoke fumes while itchily walking over to the constantly damp and slippery shower with the see through shower curtain that is barely hanging on the pole. Ahhhh, now you´re ¨showered¨ and it´s time to go get a bit of shut eye. You lay down on your soggy bed and it feels like your skin is rubbing up against the skin of some other person. ¨Have these sheets ever been washed?¨ you wonder? Most likely not. So that´s the start, oh fellow readers, but more is to arrive when one considers the most enjoyable part of the whole experience: the roommates.
I first met our two delightful roommates when I was taking a most awkward nap at about 6 in the evening. You see, that morning I had arrived from a 23 hour bus ride and was feeling more than a bit disoriented and I was really in need of some sleep no matter the hour. Of course, once I had finally gotten to REM status these new people came in and disturbed my slumber. I attempted to be social, but I was inhibited by the fact that I had finally fallen into a heavy sleep coma only to be awoken 15 minutes later. I tried some social dribble and then decided that I was more grouchy than interested in getting to know people and I left to go to a new smoke filled room to read my book on a broken couch.
So that was the intro. Little did I know that while I would not speak to my roommates ever again, I would have many strange and uncomfortable experiences with my new bunkpals over the next two days.
That night I arrived home ready to get in an early night so that I could wake up for a day trip that was truly amazing. (Sure I could tell you about my beautiful ride through the Andes and my experience at one of the world´s largest salt flats, but I´d rather complain about these psychos.) I walked into my room and for once it didn´t reek of cigarrettes. Rather, the room was soaked in the most pungent stink of B.O. I have ever experienced. This English couple appeared to be about as smelly as a dead rotting moose on the side of the highway. Holy shit some stank!!!
Somehow, I managed some sleep despite the feeling of plague ridden rats crawling into my nostrils to then keel over and die inside of my olfactory system. However, I was awoken at some ungodly hour by these two bumbling doofuses. They bumped around and somehow infiltrated a bit a alcohol breath into the otherwise BO dominated cave and then they both left. Note: this hostel is very cheaply built and you can hear every tiny disturbance in the otherwise silent building.
What I heard next was something that took this couple into inconsiderate asshole overdrive. The sounds of passion went echoing throughout the whole of the hostel. That´s right, this couple was having steamy gross drunk sex in the bathroom which only a day later was covered in a newly pungent and black throwup. Yuck! After the passion came to an echoingly loud climax, the newly sweaty couple came into the room, made out some more on the bunk bed above me, and then passed out without putting on their bed sheets.
I didn´t see the couple the next day and that proved to be quite a pain in the ass too. The way our hostel works is that there is only one key for the room, which means that the last one out simply has to leave it on a hook in the main room. Not a problem right? Oh no, I got locked out of my room twice yesterday. Both times resulted in having to call the manager guy to come from his house to phyisically open the door who´s lock has only one key. Why the hostel would put all their faith in every random traveler is beyond me, but I guess I´m not in the biz.
After I finally got into bed again, these dicks arrived once again drunk and late and ready to make tons of noise and add extra stink to an already seweresque atmosphere. This time the girl passed out quickly which was nice only until 5 minutes into sleeping when she started to make some of the most bizzarre and gross noises in her sleep. The guy didn´t arrive for about 4 more hours and even then he crashed with all his clothes on.
When I woke up this morning both were in their unmade beds sleeping on old stained mattresses with all their clothes on. Do these people sound like pyschos or what??? Yes, they are. I don´t understand what is going through their heads at all. But...tis hostel life.
Luckily, thanks to my charming personality and my delightful command of the local tongue (Spanish) I was able to explain my utter displeasure to our hostel folk so well that they have decided to move me into my own private room at the same price. I will always choose to be a good person over an inconsiderate dickhead.
I have stayed in some shady places in my life, but this recent location has been one of the most modest hostels I could have ever had nightmares about. Some things you might be able to agree upon would be the constant smell of cigarette smoke even though no one apears to be smoking in the hostel. That smell is even present when you´re sitting on the plastic toilet seat using toilet paper you can see through. Next, you continue to breath in the second hand smoke fumes while itchily walking over to the constantly damp and slippery shower with the see through shower curtain that is barely hanging on the pole. Ahhhh, now you´re ¨showered¨ and it´s time to go get a bit of shut eye. You lay down on your soggy bed and it feels like your skin is rubbing up against the skin of some other person. ¨Have these sheets ever been washed?¨ you wonder? Most likely not. So that´s the start, oh fellow readers, but more is to arrive when one considers the most enjoyable part of the whole experience: the roommates.
I first met our two delightful roommates when I was taking a most awkward nap at about 6 in the evening. You see, that morning I had arrived from a 23 hour bus ride and was feeling more than a bit disoriented and I was really in need of some sleep no matter the hour. Of course, once I had finally gotten to REM status these new people came in and disturbed my slumber. I attempted to be social, but I was inhibited by the fact that I had finally fallen into a heavy sleep coma only to be awoken 15 minutes later. I tried some social dribble and then decided that I was more grouchy than interested in getting to know people and I left to go to a new smoke filled room to read my book on a broken couch.
So that was the intro. Little did I know that while I would not speak to my roommates ever again, I would have many strange and uncomfortable experiences with my new bunkpals over the next two days.
That night I arrived home ready to get in an early night so that I could wake up for a day trip that was truly amazing. (Sure I could tell you about my beautiful ride through the Andes and my experience at one of the world´s largest salt flats, but I´d rather complain about these psychos.) I walked into my room and for once it didn´t reek of cigarrettes. Rather, the room was soaked in the most pungent stink of B.O. I have ever experienced. This English couple appeared to be about as smelly as a dead rotting moose on the side of the highway. Holy shit some stank!!!
Somehow, I managed some sleep despite the feeling of plague ridden rats crawling into my nostrils to then keel over and die inside of my olfactory system. However, I was awoken at some ungodly hour by these two bumbling doofuses. They bumped around and somehow infiltrated a bit a alcohol breath into the otherwise BO dominated cave and then they both left. Note: this hostel is very cheaply built and you can hear every tiny disturbance in the otherwise silent building.
What I heard next was something that took this couple into inconsiderate asshole overdrive. The sounds of passion went echoing throughout the whole of the hostel. That´s right, this couple was having steamy gross drunk sex in the bathroom which only a day later was covered in a newly pungent and black throwup. Yuck! After the passion came to an echoingly loud climax, the newly sweaty couple came into the room, made out some more on the bunk bed above me, and then passed out without putting on their bed sheets.
I didn´t see the couple the next day and that proved to be quite a pain in the ass too. The way our hostel works is that there is only one key for the room, which means that the last one out simply has to leave it on a hook in the main room. Not a problem right? Oh no, I got locked out of my room twice yesterday. Both times resulted in having to call the manager guy to come from his house to phyisically open the door who´s lock has only one key. Why the hostel would put all their faith in every random traveler is beyond me, but I guess I´m not in the biz.
After I finally got into bed again, these dicks arrived once again drunk and late and ready to make tons of noise and add extra stink to an already seweresque atmosphere. This time the girl passed out quickly which was nice only until 5 minutes into sleeping when she started to make some of the most bizzarre and gross noises in her sleep. The guy didn´t arrive for about 4 more hours and even then he crashed with all his clothes on.
When I woke up this morning both were in their unmade beds sleeping on old stained mattresses with all their clothes on. Do these people sound like pyschos or what??? Yes, they are. I don´t understand what is going through their heads at all. But...tis hostel life.
Luckily, thanks to my charming personality and my delightful command of the local tongue (Spanish) I was able to explain my utter displeasure to our hostel folk so well that they have decided to move me into my own private room at the same price. I will always choose to be a good person over an inconsiderate dickhead.
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