Friday, September 16, 2011

Mendoza

Mendoza, Argentina

I went to Mendoza because 1) its Argentinian wine country (wasn’t about to miss out on that), and 2) Kate and Ben were there (wasn’t about to miss out on that either).  I arrived super late on a Sunday night, around midnight, and was greated by a cheery group of Kate, Ben, and a few of their hostel friends, all of whom had been imbibing before I arrived.  Specifically, they had been drinking Fernet Branca mixed with Coca-cola.  Now, I had had Fernet before, but was accustomed to drinking it with ginger-ale, Manny-style.  But, apparently, Fernet and coke is an immensely popular drink all over Argentina.  They sell loads of different brands of the liquor in stores, and it’s a popular drink to find on any drink menu. 
The next day, which came far too quickly, I went on a wine tour with Kate and some others from the hostel.  We took the bus outside of town and rented bikes, which we rode to about four different wineries.  Surprinsingly (not sure why I was so surprised….) Mendoza was really cold, even during the day.  Granted I was there in the middle-end of winter, and so I should have expected it, but for some reason, I thought it would be slightly warmer…The winery tour was great nonetheless, and lasted all day long.  I even bought a nice bottle to bring with me to Buenos Aires to share with my mom.  The scenery was beautiful, the wine was awesome, and we learned quite a bit about wine.  Two small facts I didn’t know about Argentinian wine: 1) they are known for their Malbecs, 2) Argentina makes a unique varietal of white wine called Torrontes, which I ended up loving.
The next day, I went and hung out at Kate’s house, outside of Mendoza city, and just relaxed.  That night, we all headed back to the hostel for Spaghetti night.  Spaghetti night was an awesome experience, it was my first time in a hostel where literally everyone staying there came together for an organized hostel activity.  Basically, you paid a set amount, and you got all you could eat homemade spaghetti pasta with tomato sauce, homemade bread, meatballs, meat, salad, and wine.  Perfect dinner.  Every part of the meal was super tasty.  To top it all off, we had a massive karaoke session, facilitated by a brazilian’s guitar skills and ipad. 
All of this was wonderful, until I got sick at 4am, after being in bed for only two hours.  Yup, I finally got gastroenteritis.  The girl who used to do all those communicable disease interviews finally got a taste of what it was really like.  I felt like I was going to pass out from the pain.  After an hour of continual bathroom runs and crying from pain, I decided that something was really not right, and that I needed to go to the hospital.  I made it downstairs to the reception, who called an on-call ambulance.  It arrived, in what seemed like forever; the doctor examined me, gave me a shot in my butt for the pain, and told me that I needed to go to the hospital.  However, by now it was like 6am, and I had no one to take me there.  So the guy working the reception offered to take me, but I would have to wait until 7am when he got off.  Thankfully, the shot helped immensely with the pain, and I managed to pass out for an hour.  We then walked the two blocks in the dark to the public hospital ER.  Lets just say, the hospital doesn’t get an A for cleanliness.  The part of the waiting room floor next to the bathrooms, was flooded, I tried not to even think about what it might consist of.  The doctor examined me, asked me some questions, diagnosed me by writing down what I had in a huge oversized notebook (no medical charts or e-records here), and sent me to get a blood test.  By this time Kate had gotten word of my illness and made it to the hospital.  Thank god I had a familiar face to comfort me…at this very point, all I wanted to do was go home, see my parents, and Matt and go to Kaiser.  Nevertheless, I got my blood drawn, and the woman who did it wiped away a spot of my blood on the table with her bare hand.  No gloves, no formal paperwork, and a hospital that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since it was built in 1970.  The only comfort is that I saw her unpack a sterile needle. Thank god!  Anyways, turns out I had a very high white blood cell count, and the MD used that to confirm that I had gastroenteritis (no stool samples…).  He sent me off to the pharmacy with a prescription and put me on a white rice and liquid diet until my symptoms stopped.  Not the best way to be arriving in Buenos Aires, the steak and wine capital of South America.
As I felt better late in the day, I ended up taking my overnight bus to BA as originally planned.  Thankfully, as long as I didn’t eat any solids, I didn’t have any symptoms. 
On a side note, I think I got gastroenteritis either while I was in Peru or Bolivia.  I had been having milder symptoms the two days before I got really sick, and I managed to eat a not so pretty salad and drink a bottle of water with a gash in it in Bolivia.  :0(
Argentina <3 Fernet

Had to stop over in Buenos Aires on my way to Mendoza.  This is an aerial view of BA at night from the plane

First stop on our wine tour

All smiles


Aged bottles

Oak barrels

the scenerey on our bike ride wine tour


Taste of a very young cabernet at an organic winery, it was still in the fermentation tank

Mendoza wine country skyline

Spaghetti nigth!

Need I say more?

Kate and Ben!

Kate and I taking our turn at Karaoke


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