Oh Mendoza, what a bummer!

This day started good. I did most of my souvenir shopping at Santiago's airport and then got ready for my flight to Mendoza. The flight from Santiago to Mendoza is very short (about 45 min), so LAN does not even serve any kind of snack. The flight time is just about enough to fill the thousand documents required by argentinian immigration and to contemplate the Andes! What a view!

After arriving to the airport, I took a taxi to the hostel. The price looked reasonable to me. During the ride, I was thinking that the driver probably chose to drive through the worst part of the city for some reason. He turned the news and they were saying that a boy was murdered in a small convenience store to steal his bike. I was like "omg" :s. But then we got inside the city, and he finally arrived to the hostel and things didn't look different! Arriving to the hostel was a little bit of a bummer too.

Staff was super nice and friendly, but there seemed to be nobody else there. I don't like party hostels but I don't like spiritual retriets for my stay either. Gaspar, the staff guy gave me an explanation of Mendoza and helped me organize my activities for today and the next two days. Then I went out taking a walk towards Mendoza downtown. Lots of vendings and thrash everywhere. The fact that it is winter now did not help, since the city didn't look green. The city didn't look pretty or attractive to me in any manner. For what I had heard, Mendoza was a very touristy place, so I was expecting people to be more used to foreigners. But I was yelled at when taking pictures of the city and people looked weird at me when I looked at my map. I started to feel a little paranoid and uncomfortable by then. I had lunch in a crappy place that does not even deserve a review.

I kept on walking endlessly until I got to the Park San Martín. It is a very big park with a lake, a zoo, and best of all, the "Cerro de la Gloria", a hill with a very famous memorial for independence hero José de San Martín. I walked for a while by the lake, then took a guided tour to the hill top. I was fortunate to meet very nice people during the tour, from Mexico, Spain and Argentina. At least it took away a little of the bad feeling I had been having. We were talking about how insecure the city looks. I said that I was feeling observed all the time and a girl from Spain laughed so much since she was feeling the same! She was happy she was not the only one to feel that, lol.

We then came back from the park, and me and the spanish girl went trying to do some shopping in the stores downtown. I didn't like shopping there, but at least I confirmed that it's not just a few blocks from the city that I don't like, it's the whole thing! But at least I made a new friend, and we agreed to meet tomorrow for dinner.

I came back to the hostel and again, there was only the owner there. It was the dad of the guy who received me in the morning. We didn't talk much since I was feeling very tired and just wanted to go to my room. But then I remembered I still hadn't booked my trip for tomorrow so I went to the office and told him about that. We were talking for a while and I could see what a great person this sir is. I felt so much better, and not alone, even though I still thought I was the only customer in the hostel. Later I found out I was not, but still this is pretty quiet. The owner explained that the swine flu had a lot to do with the drop in tourism in all the country. I thought that really sucks.

Well now I feel a little better than I was a few hours ago, but still I am glad that my trips tomorrow and the day after are outside Mendoza. There is really not much to see in this city.