A Weekend In Argentina

The coach ride from Chile to Mendoza is around 8 hours long! To begin with it's just your normal coach ride, crowded and one tiny little screen for the entire bus to watch. I spent a lot of the journey catching up on sleep.

That is until I reached The Andes! I Arrived at the infamous “Snail Pass”, Actual name ‘Paso internacional los libertadores’. Telling people I've travelled across The Andes is pretty cool, but nothing could have prepared me for that part of the journey.

The road is exactly how it looks in pictures. It's like a very thin snake climbing around the mountain. I would look over the edge from the window and I couldn't see any road beneath me, it was as if the coach was floating. The thoughts of the coach sliding down the side of the mountains was a constant fear in my mind, made even worse by the moment a gigantic lorry came towards us. We had to simply stop the coach and let it pass by and pray for the best.

I got to border patrol, which I had never experienced from a bus before. I'm from the UK! We don't do international bus rides. My only border patrol experience is at the airport, the fast paced, busy airport with tons of intimidating security and enough room to fit millions. This experience was far from what I was used to.

I was standing in a cold building tucked away in the Andes mountains. I watched as security went through people's belongings that sat in plastic boxes, the simple kind you can buy at IKEA to store your kids toys. An old X-Ray machine to give your bags a quick scan and a single man checking passports as you passed. Once it came to my turn to have my passport checked, it was all very quick and calm, so quite a pleasant experience.

This was until it came to returning to Chile and I realised maybe it was a little to "Quick" as they hadn't stamped my passport when i left the country. This raised questions on how I entered Argentina. The lovely views of the mountains soon shifted as I was being held in little glass room with PDI written all over the walls (This is basically there FBI). The room had one simple table and 2 chairs either side, and a light shining on my face from the ceiling. It was a very scary experience. Even though I had done nothing wrong, I somehow felt guilty. I tried my best to answer all the questions. After around 30 minutes I was allowed back on the bus. No explanation was given to me. I was simply allowed to leave. To this day i am still not sure what suddenly changed. Maybe they realised that this wasn't my fault and just let me go. I will never know. I was Lucky enough the driver was a lovely and understanding person and waited for me.

Once I had finally arrived in Mendoza the butterflies in my belly soon turned to rumbling, I was starving. The first place I went was a restaurant. This was the first time in my life I had ever eaten “chimichurri” on steak and chips! (Life changing moment!) Another thing that stood out for me as a Brit was a local pub called Liverpool and showed a picture of The Beatles! It definitely felt familiar and felt like home.

As I walked down the street of Mendoza I was taken away by the beautiful architecture. The buildings stood tall and glamorous and in front of them stood beautiful flowing trees. Little cafes, restaurants and shops with homemade trinkets filled the street. I walked further and came to a big park, in the middle stood a beautiful big water fountain. Looking around more i observed the perfectly cut grass and little blankets along the pathway where locals were selling items. I felt a really lovely connection to this vibrant culture.

After a well deserved rest at the hotel I headed back out, I was ready for more exploring. As always, not everything can stay perfect! This time I was seeing everything differently. The beautiful buildings were in front of me but now I was seeing other things, things I had missed. Big piles of rubbish filled corners of the streets, a lot of it thrown under the bridges and into the underpass. Graffiti covered walls, and not the artistic kind either.

One thing that stood out for me is the more I dove into Mendoza the more I realised that it wasn’t just filled with cute little cafes and shops but in fact had an overload of sex shops! I had never been anywhere where it was common to see sex shops on every corner. Here it seemed totally normal. The windows were covered entirely with pictures of women in underwear.

As I had already lived in Chile and could speak Spanish at this point I thought that I would be absolutely fine in Argentina to have conversations with the locals. I was very surprised to realise that I couldn't. I heard someone say “Las Malvinas Son De Argentina”, which means the Falkland island belongs to Argentina. In the UK the conversation of the Falkland war was something in textbooks or something our parents or grandparents may mention, it definitely isn't anything we sit and think about in our daily lives. In mendoza it seemed to be a current reality. Realising that there seemed to be an issue with some of the locals I stayed quiet for most of my time i was there, which made the whole journey less enjoyable.

I have seen many stories of people travelling to Argentina. I have never personally read a story about how anyone was made to feel uncomfortable. It makes me think; Did i go to the wrong part? If I had gone to the capital Buenos Aires would it have been different? Perhaps its more “normal” to see tourists in the big city.

Looking back, I don't regret going to Mendoza at all.The country was honestly beautiful, Even though at times I was made to feel uncomfortable, I cant help by admire the locals passion for there country.

My overall time in Argentina was not my favourite travelling experience. I do hope that one I can return and go to a different city to have a whole new experience! I would still recommend to anyone to travel to Argentina but i think maybe Mendoza may not be at the top of the recommendation list.