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MendozaWe got to Mendoza at about 8pm and made our way to Break Point hostel where I'd sent an email to reserve. No room at the inn though so we carried on up the road. I was trying to play it cool as we were in a very upmarket area but managed to completely fail by tripping and nearly falling into one of the very big troughs in the pavements, there to prevent flooding. Marvellous. After gaining my composure we walked up Villanueva Avenue which seemed to be the place to be - all the bars and restaurants were on this road and there seemed to be a lot of hostels. But they were all full. We were getting desperate and eventually got to a hostel international where they said they had two beds. We nearly snatched the woman's hand off and took the beds without looking at them as we were desperate. She led us to what appeared to be a tiny garage annex with six bunk beds crammed in. It was like being in Gulliver's Travels the beds were that small and you had to watch your head on the rotating fan light that hung precariously on the low ceiling above us. We told ourselves it was only for one night so we could cope and went off to have a shower. We then got told there were only two showers for this massive hostel and so had to wait in line for ages. We eventually got in and the shower head was slap bang in the middle of the small bathroom to create some kind of rubbish wet room. It pretty much covered everything in the bathroom with water including the dirty toilet paper in the open bin. I have to say that the places we'd stayed in, in the middle of the Bolivian desert were better than this. We went out for some dinner and of course some red wine (it'd be rude not to in Argentina's premier wine region) and then came back to the hostel and stayed up for a bit chatting to the other travelers. Whilst we'd been out, two more girls had arrived and moved our things off the beds. There were two other beds free but the sheets hadn't been changed since the last guests. So I went to reception to get them to change the sheets and let the other girls know but even so the manager still managed to come in at 5am and woke us up to check that the other beds were free.. In the morning we got up early, put our bags in storage at the new hostel we were staying in and went on the wine tour we'd booked through the rubbish hostel. As it was Sunday we could only do the half day tour as most of the wineries were shut but we were told we'd get to see two wineries, a chocolate factory and a place where they made olive oil. We went to the two wineries as planned, which were really interesting. Both were family owned and one produced organic wine purely forexportation (Argentinian's don't 'get' organic apparently). The most common wine produced in Mendoza is Malbec and we did plenty of tasting which felt slightly wrong at 9am on a Sunday morning. I really wanted to buy some wine to send home but it's impossible to post so sorry dad! We then got back in the bus and the guide told us we were heading back to the hostel, which we questioned him about since we were supposed to be going to the other places. He told us that they were shut on a Sunday and that the hostel should have told us about this. They obviously hadn't. So basically we'd paid the same amount as the people who go mid week but we only did half the stuff. Bex wasn't having any of it so when we got back to the hostel, she asked for some of the money to be refunded. The girl said she didn't know they were shut on Sundays and said it wasn't possible to get our money back so we asked to speak to her manager. The manager told the girl on the phone that since she'd made the error she'd have to refund us out of her wages. We thought this was a bit unfair so we left it but I thought I'd put this in my blog so everyone knows not to stay at Hostel International, Mendoza!The afternoon went much more smoothly for us and we made use of the afternoon by going for a walk around the city and then to a museum showing Mendoza before the earthquake and the ruins of the old town hall (the museum is built directly on the top of it). None of the explanations were in English but it was still good even though we didn't get a lot of it but we had fun making stuff up. On the walk back to the hostel we saw a crash involving two cars and a police car. Not surprising though as they hardly have any traffic lights here and just slow down at junctions to see if anything is coming before carrying on. Mendoza was rebuilt after the earthquake in the early 1900s and not only were the streets built in a grid system, they were also built really wide to make sure if there was another earthquake, the rubble would fall into the streets and not the other buildings. That evening we had dinner and a few drinks then went to bed as I had to get up early for my coach back to Santiago and then my flight that evening to Auckland and then on to Fiji. I'll be really really sad to leave South America but I can't wait for the rest of the trip….
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