Trip Across the Continent - Part I On the Bus and Mendoza

We started our grand adventure from Tres Cruces, the bus station half a mile from CasaACU. We were very excited to be on the bus and on our way. As you can see from Jennifer and Chelsea's picture, we were also really clean still. :) Watch we get dirtier and dirtier as the trip goes on.

The bus ride from Montevideo to Mendoza was 24 hours. They served us lunch. It was a very unusual one. It had sandwiches that had ham and cheese or chicken salad. Which wouldn't have been weird except the bread was really cake. It was... um... different.

We had been on the road about an hour when the bus pulled over. Its never good to see all the people that work on your bus. When we started up again they had turned off the A/C and on the heat and were driving really slowly. After awhile it got pretty miserable. After about an hour of driving slowly and stopping periodically we stopped at a mechanic. They fixed the bus pretty quickly. And we were back on the road.



We stopped about 1 AM, for dinner. It was a little strange to try to figure out a new bus station when you are half asleep.

When we woke up in the morning we were surprised by the scenery just east of Mendoza. It looked amazingly like West Texas... flat, dry, with little trees, shrubberies, etc.

For breakfast they served us a cookie and coffee. Here is the weird thing: I liked the coffee. (For those of you who don't know... I hate coffee.)

About an hour outside of Mendoza we got our first view of the Andes. It was hard to believe we were actually seeing them. It was fun because pretty much everyone on the bus started leaning over the right side to see them. It wasn't just us uncultured Norte Americanos. The South Americans were as excited as we were.

Because of the bus troubles, we arrived a little late, but after 24 hours, we were finally in Mendoza.


Once we arrived we had two main tasks, to get to our hotel and to get some lunch. After we checked in we started to wander. We found a restaurant where we could sit outside and enjoy the weather. We split up so that we would get our food faster... I can't imagine how long it would have taken if we hadn't split up. It was crazy as it was. Jennifer and I got our food pretty quickly, but I think it was over an hour and a half before some of the kids got to eat.

Those of us who ate quickly managed to get our tickets for our next bus trick from the travel agent. (Who was super nice and came in on a Saturday afternoon to get them for us.) And also booked our whitewater rafting trip for the next day. We have decided to always trust men with babies. The travel agent brought in his baby girl and was super helpful. Another time some of the girls had been warned about some guys trying to steal their stuff by a man with a baby. (So guys if you want girls to trust you, carry a baby with you.

Once the whole group got back together we headed to Parque de San Martin. This park is almost as big the entire city. It was gorgeous. We found a beautiful fountain, which not surprisingly someone (Jonathan S.) almost ended up in it after he splashed the girls. We found a big crowd. We couldn't figure out what was going on. Then all of a sudden I realized it was Spanish I understood -- AEROBICS! They were doing aerobics in the park.


There was also a rose garden in the park. We wandered around and took lots of pictures. If you are interested I'll show them all to you when I get home. It was gorgeous though!

Our group split up and Anne, Chelsea, and I walked around the lake in the park and sat and talked and compared wedding horror stories we had heard of or were involved in. I still win with the soccer/ Southern bell wedding.


As I mentioned last week, we went Whitewater rafting on Sunday morning. It was one of the highlights of the trip. We still giggle over splashing the other raft, Anne being kidnapped, and Jonathan and I falling out of the raft. Every so often we still quote Estaban with "Forward, my team." Always great for random moments when we are heading somewhere.

After our rafting experience we went back to Mendoza and fed ourselves. Then Kelsey, Jonathan, and I went on our afore mentioned quest to dry out the shoes. After trying a couple places, the people at the hotel put them in their dryer. It did get them some drier, but they were still kind of damp. They didn't end up mildewing on us, so we were in good shape.

Our bus left around 10 that night. We stopped at the Chile-Argentina border around 3 AM to go through passport control and customs. I guess between being asleep and the altitude, I felt pretty terrible. In fact we were standing in line when I got really light headed and couldn't see straight. I looked at the students and said, "I'm going to sit down now so I won't pass out." They just looked shocked and said, OK. Here was the person who was experienced at crossing borders, about to pass out. The other exciting thing that happened there was that a couple of the girls had oranges in their bags which were found. One of the girls had declared them and the other hadn't. I think the one that hadn't declared her oranges and got a lecture, but they didn't keep her... so that was good.