Argentina Norte

I have been neglecting my blog and now I am forced to cram so much madness into a couple of paragraphs. Argentina is an amazing country. Some place I could have easily stayed another month or so. The landscape is so diverse you literally get everything from desert to big city to massive glaciers.
After my short stint in Posadas I headed for Tucuman in the North of Argentina. There isn't too terribly much to do in Tucuman but it was a nice place to stop for a day and break up the endless hours on a bus you must spend to get south. From Tucuman it was off to Cordoba which is a wild university town with tons of young people and night life.
My first day in Cordoba was sunny and so warm and I took advantage of the warm weather and headed out to Alta Gracia the town where Che Guevara grew up. You are able to tour his home but more importantly for me I was able to learn a little bit more about a man I know very little about.
There are many great day trips out from Cordoba into the country granted you have good weather. I had decided to park in Cordoba for 6 days because I was a bit exhausted from traveling. Seeing as how there were more day trips that I had days there I thought I was set. Two things I didn't take into consideration, hangovers and bad weather.
It started to rain the second day I was there, but it was still about 70 degrees outside so it didn't really bother me. Its when the rain turned into a torrential down pour that I realized I would have to think of some indoor activities to occupy my time. Needless to say I scratched all my plans for day trips and hikes and enrolled in some spanish classes. The majority of the rest of my time in Cordoba was spent studying spanish, sleeping in late and taking in the night life.
Night life in Argentina is ridiculous. People don't eat dinner until 10 or 11 at night and then bars and clubs don't even open until 2am. By the time you have had a few drinks at a club, listened to some awful 80's hits that for some reasons argentines seems to be obsessed with, its 5am and the party is in full swing. A few of these days and waking up at 5pm the next day, still hung over, I realized that this isn't something I want to make a habit out of. After 6 days I had had way too much of Cordoba and packed my bags for Argentine wine country.
I arrived in Mendoza at 8am and after a scolding hot shower to wash off 14 hours of bus I was off on a Bikes and Wine tour. It sounds like such a great idea, rent a bike and ride around to different wineries. I hopped off the bus in the Maipu valley just outside of Mendoza and with my friend Rica bargained for a bike and hit the road.
No one tells you that you are actually going to be biking on the freeway, a two lane freeway at that, with the shoulders so muddy you are forced to bike on the pavement with the cars. I actually met a girl who was hit by a truck on the road! My first question is, who thought it would be a good idea to set up a bike tour here and second, out of the dozens of people I had met in the weeks prior who had been to Mendoza, why had no one warned me about the total tourist trap known as Bikes and Wine. I took it upon myself to tell everyone in my hostel how awful Bikes and Wine was and to definitely do a bus tour.
Even though I was forced to bike on the freeway and dodge cars that were doing about 100 mph while laying on their horns telling the bikers to get out of the way, I still had a decent time and met some pretty funny people.
The next day Rica and I decided to go horseback riding up in the hills of Mendoza. (There was already snow in the mountains so those were out of the question) The horseback riding was amazing with such beautiful country side as the backdrop. For lunch we rode back to our guide's ranch and he made us a traditions Argentine BBQ. It was so delicious and after another ride and a few rounds of mate it was nearly 8pm and time to depart from great company and a gorgeous day.
In a few days I would meet up with Dave in Buenos Aires.