My last day in Chile was EPIC. Aquiles (who prefers to be referred to as Aquiles, Rey de la Cordillera) showed me a fucking awesome day. It turns out he lives up in the mountains 4 months out of the year as a hiking guide. He took me up a HUGE mountain-- we were at 3000 meters when we parked the car! THIS is the cordillera, he kept telling me. He was absolutely right. I usually say I live near the mountains, referring to the adirondacks, but I will never again refer to the adirondacks as the cordillera. This was some serious mountains. We took the day very slow because of the altitude which was just fine with me. We stopped to have tea twice. Aquiles brought a massive backpack that included a stove, two pots, a bottle of wine, a wine glass, warm clothes for him and for me, comida and even some floss (just in case). Both stopping points were incredibly beautiful and we decided worthy places to spend an hour drinking early grey tea and eating empanadas, palta (avocado) and tomatoes. As we were waiting for our water to boil, we saw a magestic condor fly overhead (chile´s national bird adn the biggest in the world) . We even saw the sunset on the way down and it was one of the most beautiful sunsets that I´ve ever seen. It was the perfect way to end my stay in chile, containg all the necessary ingredients taht have comprised my stay there: empanadas, tecito, random friendship, the kindness of strangers, beautiful scenery and soooo much chilean slang.
After an incredible bus ride through the Andes to cross into Argentina, I made it to Mendoza. All of the border control workers wore face masks and looked at me and my Canadian friend extremely suspiciously. Once they considered that neither of us had touch foot in the northern hemisphere in over 4 months, they realized that the chances of us spreading Swine Flu were pretty low. Although I´ve left Chile, I´m carrying every part of it with me here in Argentina. I still talk with my chilean accent and everyone finds it hysterical. I compare everything that happens to chile and teach my friends chilean slang. I met a charming Argentine man who tried to convince me to switch my heart over to Argentine, but I promised him it would be staying in Chile. Anyway, despite my resistence, Argentina is awesome. I met up with Allison, Suji and a bunch of their friends from BA. The weather here is beautiful, the wine is delcious and the beef is even more so and we´re having great time. Today we´re going to rent bikes a tour a few of Mendoza´s famous wineries. Today is Sujatha´s birthday which means we already celebrated last night, and will continue to celebrate today. My birthday is Tuesday and Rodrigo´s is Wednesday, so its going to be a busy week for me. But what better way to end my adventures than spending a week celebrating in Buenos Aires?
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