Mendoza, Argentina

Arrived in Mendoza on thursday at about lunch time...the heat here is like nothing iv every experienced before.. it just stays hot ALL of the time..no matter what time of day or night it is! Arrived at our áll in monkey hostel´(we knew by the name that it would have to be a rocking joint...) and met the irish receptionist who was listening to 2fm which was playing christmas songs..in that moment we knew it would be a good christmas! we spent our first day exploring the city, which is quite big, our hostel is about 2 minutes walk from the plaza and ten minutes walk from the san martin park.  Day two we decided that long at last we would get our white water rafting in! what a morning! the only thing was that is wasnt quite ´white´water rafting as the river had picked up the minerals and whatnot of the surround land so it was more ´brown´water rafting..however was pretty exhilerating, our guide Paulo taking every opportunity to try to frighten us! Ate lunch after in a tiny restaurant out in the middle of nowhere... had wine and ravioli..another Argentinian restuarant where the wine is less expensive that the water or cokes.. Departing the restaurant with a bag of cherries that the owner insisted we take for the car, we were extremely satisfied with what had been an energetic morning, and an absolutely fabulous way of seeing some of the country...

Christmas eve rolled in in the form of a xmas evening bbq in the hostel with endless amount of meat and red wine...apart from this most beautiful food, there were some fantastic ozzy and english ppl that really made the night a most memorable xmas eve. One of the ozzy girls Paula had an ipod that also created a great vibe in the hostel,,evenif by controlling it we     catered mostly to irish, english and ozzy tastes! The night was also made by the fact that we got to play shane mcgown´s fairytale of new york, always a song that makes you happy of christmas eve, but even moreso in mendoza monkey hostel at 3 o clock in the morning! We spent xmas day with champagne and a picnic with Leah, Paula, Linda and Chris in San Martin park.. obviously a lot of other people had the same idea as us because the park was flooded with people, particularly local families, whose tradition it is is obviously to spend xmas day in the park.  This was really lovely because we felt like we got a feel not only for the backpacker xmas, but also for the local xmas experience.. the day was a long fun filled one..all the kids playing in the park till after twelve o clock at nite! quite a different park culture then at home! In mendoza untill Tuesday, bike tour of the vineyards tomorrow...what a wonderful christmas it is :-)