Mendosa

Mendosa pleased me more than Córdoba. It is much quieter and with less traffic. The enormous Plaza Independéncia is the centre of the city and is surrounded by four other lovely squares. At the west side of the city, there is an enormous park that houses the zoo, the Cerro de la Gloria and a lot of green. I took a long walk there in the afternoon on December 31st and guess what I saw there? Old blokes playing tennisfoebal! They played four on four and were only allowed to touch the ball one time. As they were quite good (for their age), I did not invite them for the World Championship 2007. It made me long for the next Belgian summer a bit, I have to admit.
For New Year's Eve we had a Cuban dinner annex party with a lot of people on the terrace of our hostel. We wanted to go out a little in Mendosa after the dinner, but to our disappointment, most bars and clubs were closed or the entrance was very expensive, so we went back to the Cuban party. New year's day went by without much happening. I sat on a terrace of a Shell petrol station most of the time as it was the only place that was open and sold drinks and food. I managed to finish 'The Beach' by Alex Garland,which I liked.
Then, next day, we went to Maipú, half an hour from Mendosa, rented bicycles and went on a tour around the bodegas (wineries). The Mendosa area is very known for its good wines and it produces about 80% of all Argentinian wine, if I remember well. We started of with a guided tour in the wine museum, with some wine tasting at the end of course, and went to two other nice wineries. In the last one, we ordered a good bottle of red wine and sat down on the gorgeous terrace covered with sun and overlooking the vignards, pura vida! Then, we finished our tour with a visit to a chocolate and liquor shop where we, well, tasted some chocolates and liquor. I have not seen any scales for the last four months, but I am quite confident that I did not loose to much weight!
In his last e-mail my brother, den Baas, wrote that my webblog suffered of a severe jet-lag and I can only say he is so right. I am sorry about that, but writing the blog takes quite some time and I do not always have acces to the internet. Moreover, there is so many more interesting things to do here than sitting in front of a computer!

Ciao ciao!