Saturday, Oct. 11, 2003 - 7:04 p.m.
Arriving in Mendoza
Yesterday afternoon I ran into the Italian couple and found out once they'd heard the news about buses to Mendoza being full they went to the bus station and bought tickets to a small city called San Luis (about 260 km east from Mendoza). Then they would take a bus to Mendoza the next day.
Soon I was on yet another bus, this one to Mendoza. This too was a double decker bus and this time I sat upstairs on the upper level and was in the front row, so I had a nice view of the road and countryside. There was lots of farmland, green trees and flat plains of the Argentinian Pampas.
It was a long bus ride, about 10 hours. When we arrived it was dark, about 9PM. As soon as the bus was leaving Cordoba I had a sudden realization that I'd forgotten to get the name of the hostel in Mendoza I had reservations at. Mentally kicking myself, I figured I'd just have to call the hostel in Cordoba once I arrived in Mendoza. Being as it was a 3 day weekend and many Argentinians were traveling I was afraid I'd have the same problem with hostals being full in Mendoza.
So I found a place to make phone calls and called the hostel in Cordoba. At first no one was answering the phone. After a few tries Karina answered. In my limited Spanish I tried to explain that I needed the name and address of the place in Mendoza where I had reservations. At first Karina thought I was confused, meaning to call Mendoza, but called Cordoba by accident. Once I explained I was the girl who spent the night at her apartment, she realized who I was. After a few minutes, she understood what I needed and gave me the name of the hostel, which was difficult to pronounce. "How do you spell it?" I asked and then the phone line went dead. Somehow we'd been disconnected. Annoyed, I called back and got a busy signal. I tried again & again until I got a recorded voice telling me that the phone was turned off. I know there was a mistake and that Karina wouldn't have hung up on purpose or turned off the phone. I was so frustrated & upset I almost cried, sitting in a stupid phone booth of fake wood and plexiglass while other people walked past me at the bus station. It was about 10PM and the calling place wasn't going to be open much longer.
Finally, lugging all my stuff, I went to the tourist information office. Maybe they could help me figure out what place it was. All I knew was that the name started with a G or J and that it was near the main plaza. The gal there at the counter tried to be helpful, throwing out different names of hostels, none of which I recognized. Finally she pulled out a 3 ring binder of various hostels in Mendoza and I flipped through it, also with no luck of recogntition. At this point, I just wanted to find a place to stay, I didn't care if it was where I had reservations or not. The gal called a couple places, none of which had my reservation or any vacancies.
On the 4th try, we found a place with a vacancy. I said great and took a taxi there, relieved to have found a place to stay, and that I didn't have to spend the night at the bus station. Soon I was settling in to a dorm room with 2 bunk beds, I could hear lots of people talking and music playing loudly upstairs. I met a girl staying in my room, Froukje from Holland, who invited me to come upstairs where she said there was a little BBQ going on. I said "Thanks, I'll be up soon" and about 10 minutes later I went upstairs to a terrace where I found about 15 people, all staying at the hostel eating and drinking and being merry, with the music blasting. Everyone was very friendly, I was immediately offered a seat and a hamburger. It was really cool, especially since I hadn't eaten anything all day other than snack food.
Soon I realized that a lot of the guys were Argentinian, they were from Buenos Aires. Also I realized that Froukje and the girl next to me, Muriel from France, spoke Spanish fluently. I also met Laszlow, a guy from Switzerland whose Spanish was better than his English. I chatted with the others and learned that Froukje and Laszlow both currently live and work in Buenos Aires. Muriel is an exchange student in Santiago, Chile.
Laszlow told me that a group of them were going on a tour the next day, going to the mountains to do some sightseeing. The price was right and I asked if there was room for one more person. They didn't know but they thought there probably would be.
