Mendoza II

Mendoza II

I know it’s taking a while for us to publish things to the blog, but that’s the way things work on vacation. Different priorities and situations arise all the time. For instance, this week our focus was on crime and President Kirshner’s (Argentina’s president) visit to Mendoza. The city was virtually in lockdown around the outside amphitheater that Kirschner was speaking at. He actually had 35,000 Porteno’s (Buenos Aires residents) flown/bused to Mendoza in order for him to appear to have supporters within the area. Apparently, from what we were told, Kirshner is not well liked in this city. After his lengthy speech (elections are in 6 months) he informed Mendoza that the city was going to be a focal point for better police control and support. Typical politics at its best!!! Why do I mention crime? Well, simply put, our car was broken into in front of our “safe” neighborhood apartment in the middle of the day. Very interesting that there were not any witnesses. They took our stereo, (piece of shit, not worth more than 50 USD) Payton’s backpack (filled with diapers, food/snacks, medicine, hat, gloves, blankey, sunglasses), IPOD, first-aid kit with my new stethoscope and worst of all, our Chariot. Oh, I forgot, they broke the passenger side window to get into the car. All I can say is that they are lucky we didn’t find them. The following day I went to have our window replaced and asked the very nice salesperson from MH parabrisas where local thieves sell stolen goods. I got directions and later in the day our neighbor and I went to this shady place to find the chariot. Needless to say, it wasn’t there. However, this place was very interesting. Everything at this particular location (5 or more acres) was items that were stolen. The most abundant items were fruits and vegetables. I was astonished. Who steals fruits and vegetables? Apparently it’s a lucrative business. The second largest stolen item was baby diapers. A pack of 48 Huggies diapers for 3 USD? SOLD!!! Walking around this place was sketchy. I can’t tell you how many strange/peculiar looks I received. Is it the hair, or the fact that I’m 6’1” tall and white?

Two days later at the ultra safe park down the street from our apartment we witnessed a robbery 25 ft from the park Payton was playing at. We decided to leave the city the following week. We occupied our time with visiting a few more wineries and experienced a traditional asado (BBQ) with our neighbors. A traditional asado with Argentine’s is an experience everyone should have. We must have eaten over a period of 3-4 hours and talked and drank. Payton loved it more than us. She fell in love with the daughters of the hosts, also our landlords, and the also adored Payton. We will truly miss them all. We felt like we had made some great friends!

What about biking? I went to this awesome area north of Parque San Martin, however, after riding for a little over an hour by myself I came across a few bikers who informed me that I was being watched by people above the canyons. The bikers stated that the observers would stop me at gunpoint and take my bike and valuables. Needless to say I rode out of the park with the other bikers. We planned on meeting at the park the following Tuesday for another ride, however, that didn’t work out. Temperatures had dropped to the low 20-30’s with a wind chill and with a shortage of gas in the area we decided to leave the following day. When I say the shortage of gas, I mean natural gas. With the extremely cold temperatures there was an abundance of people using gas to heat their homes and our hot water heater wasn’t receiving enough gas to keep the pilot light lit.