Take on the Andes like a boss? Why, yes, I do believe I did.

Just call me Mr. Mountain Man! Today, was one of the best days I've had in Mendoza. After crawling my way out of bed (I literally had to tell myself "C'mon Brendan, do it. It'll be a good experience. Take advantage of the opportunity.") I made myself a quick breakfast, then packed my bags and headed outside to meet up with Cat, Shelby, and Moriah so that we could walk to the bus terminal together. Along the way, we picked up two more of our party, and we trekked to what felt like the other side of the city to the bus terminal where we met up with four more of the Mendoza Crew who had woken up bright and early for this new adventure. We bought our tickets, but since we were half an hour early, passed the time with a few people buying sandwiches from the shop while others waited by the bus. I decided I should try to go to the bathroom before sitting on the bus for an hour, but when I got to the bathroom, it looked like you had to pay in order to use some of the facilities. I asked the man at the desk (there was a desk in the bathroom) if I needed to pay. He mumbled something in Spanish to which I responded, "Ok, bye." I am going to the mountains... I can use a bush for free.

While the group rallied and walked to where the bus was departing, it looked like the bus that we needed to be on was beginning to pull away. We asked the guy standing at the station and he flagged the bus down and we got on. Someone obviously forgot to tell the driver that this was South America and that everybody is late by half an hour, not early. Big difference. Anyway, once we were finally on the bus and situated, it was just a relaxed bus ride up to the Andes mountains. A few of us slept on the way up, and a few of us just gazed out the window at changing scenery that passed us. After what did not feel like an hour, we arrived at our destination. The driver dropped us off in a parking lot and we took in our surroundings. We were surrounded by mountains (durr), covered in snow to our right, and completely clear on our left. We began to walk together for a little bit, but ultimately decided to split up into two groups. The group I was with headed down towards the lake that was there because we wanted to walk around it and see the mountains on that side. As we were walking a big shaggy dog came out of now where and just followed us wherever we went. The group named him 'Marley' (Balto was already taken) and he set off on our adventure with us. We walked through a bunch of trees and brush and eventually came upon some horses that were just hanging out. We got excited (because we don't have those in America) and took pictures with them.



One began following us!


 Marley must have gotten jealous because he began barking and rushed at one of them. The horse made an angry sound, and Marley ran away. Yes, Marley, good job. Piss off the horse and then run away so that we have to deal with it. Bad dog. So anyway, we kept walking for a bit and eventually, some members of our group saw a side of a mountain that they just had to climb. At first, the rest of the group just watched, but eventually everyone followed suit. I've never really climbed a mountain before (granted it wasn't Everest), but it was both hard and fun! I began to hum the Lord of the Rings theme in my head and got really into the activity. We stopped every now and then once we would reach an even patch of land, but we kept on hiking to the tallest place we could find. One the way up, one of the bands that acted as a lace to one of my shoes broke. Usually, I would have been very upset with nature for breaking my shoe, but I was so involved in what I was doing that I didn't care and I just kept trekking forward. Once we got to the top, it was so exhilarating! The view was beautiful and I felt so accomplished!


Finally making it to the top!




Look at the view!

 We all decided that we had tackled a pretty significant task so we took a little breather. Just taking in the view and everything around us.


Our traveling companion, Marley.

The way down was almost as fun as the way up. We just kept looking for different ways to climb down the mountain, and still head in a direction that would take us around the lake. It took almost longer going down, a lot of the rocks and stones we're not exactly stable, and I actually fell twice (once on a cactus) but never fear, Mountain Brendan was in full form that day and he just sucked it up and kept going. After we made it down the mountain, we blazed a trail for a bit before ultimately deciding to eat lunch on a really big rock that we encountered. It was very relaxing to just sit on that rock, eat our food, and take in the nature some more. After resting for about 30 minutes we saddled up and kept walking. We encountered a kind of resort thing in the middle of all of this and decided to look around it (many of us needed to take a bathroom break). It was situated right next to a perfect looking part of the lake and they had a bunch of recreational activities like zip-lining, kayaking, rock-climbing and much more. We also met up with the other section of the group that had split off from us and we chatted and shared stories of what we had done/encountered. A few people decided to stay at the resort-like place and zip-line, while the rest of us kept moving forward. We went under this tunnel-like thing and on the other side, it was like a movie set. The water was so blue and the mountains were gorgeous. We just passed the time walking around in this paradise looking place for about an hour before deciding to head back.

The walk back felt quite long. I hadn't realized how far we had actually gone in the day. We eventually found ourselves back at the parking lot we arrived in. They had a little shop there and so a bunch of us went in and bought snacks (we were really hungry from all the calories that we had burned) and then we all sat around outside and waited for the bus for an hour. While we were waiting, we saw a bunch of kids on stilts walking the streets asking for money. One of them had a clown wig on. Whatever brings in the money kid. When it finally deigned to show we rushed it and tried to get seats on an already heavily occupied bus. The ride back felt longer than the ride up, and I even slept some of the way back. When we finally got back into the city, I walked back home with some friends and could immediately begin to feel my body start to crash. It had been a long and early-starting day. I just wanted to go to bed, but it was only 7:30pm. I lounged around the house for a few hours and then a friend came over so that we could Skype a friend back in the states. Afterwards, I just stayed in. My head was hurting and I was just exhausted overall. Tomorrow I have my first day of classes and it starts bright and early at 9:30am... We'll see how that goes...