San Martin de los Andes: Part 1

After much indecision, a few of us decided to risk the ash and head to San Martin de Los Andes in Argentina for our long weekend. There were hopes of skiing, but the ski resort there pushed their opening day back to the next weekend. Our bus left at 7:30am on Friday and we, that is, myself, Todd, Jessie, and Max, were all concerned about making it on time. To our chagrin, we had a friend's birthday to celebrate Thursday night. It was a close one with Jessie and Max running part of the way from their houses to the bus station, but we made it! We threw our backpacks in the storage under the bus, found our seats, and went back to sleep. My trip through the Andes was better this time as the views out of the window wasn't distorted by rain. 

 Max's first snowball ever in June.

Scrabble on my Kindle. Guess who's player One!

When we got to San Martin, we uncoiled our stiff bodies and collected our heavy bags..except Jessie's backpack wasn't under the bus. We had slips with a number that matched the slip number stuck to our bags, but the backpack on the bus that was unclaimed was not a match, in number nor in appearance. There had been a side-of-road transfer of some passengers during our trip who got onto a bus headed for Bariloche which we hoped meant that her backpack could still be recovered. Fortunately Jessie only had clothes in her bag, but nonetheless, there was value and sentiment in it as well. We spoke to a lot of people trying to confirm that they would recover the bag when they got to Bariloche, but for the time being all we could do was wait. If it was going to make it back, it wouldn't be until the next day anyways. So we headed out onto the streets to look around and make our way to the hostel. We stopped for some delicious sweets and preparations for dinner.

Cleaning up ceniza. 

Pre-made dough, sauce, 2 cheeses, sauteed onions and garlic (with egg!), tomatoes, and meat for the men. We also all bought a different bottle of wine (Malbec-the wine of Argentina) to try throughout the weekend. In the end my selection won: Hereford. I picked it because I liked pronouncing the name in a British accent.

We also drank Fernet, which is a popular alcohol in Argentina. It was Max's first time and he found he wasn't much of a fan. It has a strange bitter taste that, even mixed with coke, doesn't disappear. 

To end our first night in San Martin, we hit the hot spots in town. Our first spot was a really cool place in a house with white walls and bright accent colors. There was a roaring fire in the corner and it was hard to leave, but we were craving a snack. We then spotted a little place with delicious and Cheap empanadas. The girls got veggies and the boys, meat of course. Since we were out, we decided to make a last stop at a place called Alcatraz. It turned out to be a chill snowboard guy type place. Not many chairs or tables, surfer videos on the tv, and lots of underdressed guys chilling out, drinking beer. We stayed for a bit and then headed out for our looong walk home. We al hugged each other close and slipped on the ice as it was absolutely freezing. We set our alarms for the morning, praying that Jessie's backpack would be at the station in the morning

*Saturday and Sunday posts to come