Mendoza

Bit of trouble to put on pics....sorry!
I spent almost a week in Mendoza. This city was great! There is quite a bit of activities to do here. First off, there is great shopping everywhere you look! The city is always busy and full of people except at siesta time. I spent a day on a bike to get to the wineries which was pretty good, the wine was great. I also went paragliding for the first time, this was pretty cool. Basically you run from the top of a mountain towards the edge of a cliff and are swooped up by the wind and you glide down.
I spent a day going white water rafting and abseiling (repelling). The rafting was great. The rapids were only a class 3 but this was enough to get us all soaked with freezing cold mountain water! The repelling was a bit scary. Your hooked up to a rope that you slowly let go of to get the bottom. We did this on the side of a mountain, and repelled about 30 feet downwards. I can definitely say, this is an activity I would NOT do everyday! But it was fun to try!
We sampled the nightlife of Mendoza, which is crazy like salta. Nothing gets going until about 2am. You end up very tired the next day!
The hostal also put on a BBQ halloween party which was a blast. The whole hostal got dressed up (budget style) and got our faces painted. We had an amazing steak BBQ (what else right?) and some drinks.
I took the bus to Santiago, Chile this morning. I almost felt like I was in the Canadian Rockies for awhile. The bus drives right through the Andes and all the mountains here are covered with snow! We actually drove through a ski resprt.
My tour to Patagonia starts on saturday....