Heavy-Headed Day

We wanted to find another hostel with a double room available, so we got up at 8 AM even though we had only crawled into bed at 3 AM. Now we're staying at Uvas, which is really well-located near shops, restaurants, and bars :o) Our double room with breakfast costs 60 pesos. We weren’t exactly fresh, so we took a nap in our new room before heading down to explore the city. Today, we just wanted to take it easy. Our only plan was to arrange a rafting trip for tomorrow. We decided to let our hostel book the tour for us. A full-day rafting trip, including transportation and lunch, costs 160 pesos per person. Mendoza is technically a desert city, but so many trees have been planted along all the roads to shield us from the sun that the temperature is a pleasant 25-30 degrees. On several streets, including the pedestrian area, the trees are so large that they’ve grown together at the top, making it feel like you’re walking through tunnels. Everything here is very modern and tidy. They really have things under control. There’s no litter anywhere, and even the sidewalks are washed—impressive! We’ve wandered through many clothing stores and visited the Plaza Shopping Mendoza mall, and everywhere the clothes are of good quality, with styles very similar to what we have back in Denmark. The clothes are cheap, but of course, there are also some expensive brands. Today was supposed to be the first day since we started our trip where we wouldn’t drink, as we want to be fresh to enjoy the rafting trip tomorrow. After having dinner at a traditional Argentine restaurant, Palenque, where Honny had a T-bone steak and I had a slightly less extravagant steak, we decided to do a bit more shopping since all the stores were still open, even though it was almost 10 PM. In a men's clothing store, we suddenly encountered a sales assistant who could speak Swedish because he had lived in Sweden for four years—his Swedish was impressively good. We didn’t come home empty-handed, as I spotted a really nice T-shirt in the window that only cost 35 pesos.