A Tale Of Unrequited Love

Behold a classic tale of a true love; unabashed and unbreakable. Staring at someone that will never truly, or even remotely, love you back. The pain of such knowledge as unbearable as life without the water that quenches the unrelenting thirsts of each lifeform on this earth. And a thirst is what it is in the most literal sense. Because the one, or ones, that feel so much unreturned love are the little bastards that keep biting me on a nightly basis. I'm not sure what it is about me, but I think that I'm far enough north again to return to donning the travellers choice of cologne: Deet. But for now back to the tales of Mendoza.

After leaving the coffee shop with a renewed sense of vivacity for travelling, I went into action mode. I returned to the hostel and booked myself a wine tour for the next day. With that box ticked off I grabbed my bag and set off on a rather long walk. It was well and truly siesta time and I watched the shops, museums and bars consequently close up so that their staff could pop off to unknown destinations for activites to be determined in due course. Siesta at first seemed such a strange concept, as for three or so hours pretty much everywhere closes and whatever town you're in becomes a ghost town. As a brit this was at first difficult to comprehend, but as with most things which seem odd the subtleties begin to become apparent and you find yourself falling in with them. After spending time in the smaller towns and cities of Argentina, going for a midday snooze was pretty easy to get used to. However Mendoza brought out a totally different side of siesta that not only impressed me but endeared the entire idea of having such a large break in the working day.

My walk took me to the large, and previously recommended city park which must be around the size of hyde park in London. The sun was undisturbed in a sky as blue as could be imagined, and the contast of the golden late autumn leaves and the ubiquitous grass made the park on the verge of being surreal. One thing that became quickly obvious was the amount of joggers, walkers and cyclists about. People played football on the many flat patches of grass, the tennis clubs were all full and people of all ages were to be seen on the golf course. This was a Thursday at 2:15. And then I finally came to realise how much sense it actually made. They were all out appreciating another beautiful Thursday. I regressed to a time when in summer we would quickly grab some food and go to play cricket in the Warwick park. Still wearing our suits we would happily play for around 30 minutes before speeding back to work for the next 4 hours in front of our computer felling grubby, yet happy that our day had been divided by something enjoyable. The I went on to imagine how it would differ if we had time to change, play for a good hour, shower, get some lunch and a coffee before returning to work clean, fulfilled and refreshed after a sizeable break in the work day. The social, physical and general wellbeing factors alone would be enough reason for this to be adopted. Siesta had taken on a new meaning to me and, although I doubt that it will ever be much more than a hindrance as a tourist, I could happily imagine incorporating it into my daily routine.

After walking around 3 miles I reached the end of the end of the park and the zoo, which I could smell before I could see. If I'm honest I don't really like zoos especially when, as was the case here, many of the animals seem to have gone mad in their undersized cages and have to live in the constant stench of their own fecies. However, having my camera in this underfunded zoo kind of alleviated my slight guilt for going because capturing the unsavoury aspects is sometimes as important as capturing the picturesque views and frequent natural wonders. The evening passed as many others have in Argentina: big midnight steak with two new travel mates (Martin and Stu from England) and an early night (2am).

The next day I went on a rather curious wine tour which took us to a church, a factory and a small factory to see their concrete wine storage tanks and to try some rather mediocre wine narrated in length in spanish and followed by pigeon english explanations in as few words as possible. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect everyone in the world to be able to speak English to make everything easier for me. In fact I make every attempt at every opportunity to try and converse in Spanish. However, a wine tour that sells itself as being available in English should not be a series of apologies for poor English by the guide before reverting back to Spanish for another 45 minutes. In fact, with a few exceptions, in spite of Argentina being a wonderful country with great food, people and places, on the whole their ability to cater for the lucrative western tourists leaves much to be desired in many respects.

On Saturday I joined Martin and Stu on a whitewater rafting day in the mountains, the whitewater rafting was good fun however slightly marred by the fact that after we had to sit around and wait three hours for them to take us home because some of the group was trekking after. Once again another instance of unexpected letdowns to slightly taint the experience in hand. In retrospect looking back it seems to me that the problem isn't actually the customer service but the lack of information about these things. If they had told us when booking that we may have to wait a little while for a trek or that we could join it after, it's likely that we would have signed on for the both and come prepared. As with the wine tour I would have felt less cheated if I had known in advance that the group would be mixed but that the guide spoke some English. A rudementary fact that people won't be disappointed if the product does what it says on the tin.

As Sunday approached my time in Mendoza was nearing an end and I had virtually no idea where I would be going after. I had three choices, West to Santiago, Chile, North to Salta or North East to Cordoba. But that was a choice for another day and a story for another blog.