I kissed a boy and I liked it

Argentinean men kiss each other. Not in that way. It's a greeting when they say hello, just as men in the UK shake hands. When we saw it for the first time it was certainly strange but after our fourth week in this beautiful country, we're beginning to get used to the culture.

The manager of the small hotel we're staying in, Pablo, has become a good friend as we see him every day and he has now begun hugging and kissing us both. However, rather than moving to a position that he couldn't reach me or making an excuse to tie a shoelace or get something from the room (something I've done for the last week or so), I decided to embrace the culture and go with it. Apart from feeling bristles on my face I loved the liberation that the guys here have. They are completely comfortable in their own skin and this is purely a greeting, a peck on the cheek. Yes, I kissed a boy and I liked it.

Friday started with breakfast and a quick run out to a different rafting place than we did last week. This time the water was clear!

Although it was fun, it was only 5k (not 13k like last week) and the instructor was intent on getting us to stand up in the boat so we all fell overboard every 5 minutes so, with our bad backs, we pretty much ignored these instructions!

This is us in our fetching rafting attire! Quite glad this one came out dark!

We were due to do abseiling afterwards but didn't feel comfortable leaning back over a 100ft drop with a joker for an instructor so we made our excuses & they ordered us a taxi to take us back to Mendoza.

I have been loving practicing my Spanish with taxi drivers and anyone I meet and this day was no different. Phone in hand I start a conversation and when I get stuck for a word, type the English into my translator app and it gives me a helping hand.

We chatted with the driver for 30 minutes and he agreed to pass by our hotel so I could pick up my passport and then drop us off downtown at the bank.

I jumped out at the hotel leaving Lauren to chat with the driver and when I returned Lauren looked like she was doing an impression of Rod Hull's 1970's annoying puppet, 'Emu'. Either that or she was trying to tell him, with both hands, that he was talking too much. However, it turned out that she was doing an impression of a crab to tell the driver about the delicious meal we ate in Ushuia! Out came my phone and the app told me that 'Crab' in Spanish is 'el gangrejo' and the somewhat worried and confused driver suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter followed by a fantastic reenactment of Lauren's crustation impression.

He dropped us off downtown at the bank and then my worst nightmare hit me.

I was on the pavement and my phone was in the taxi which was now out of sight!

For those that know me well know that I use my phone for EVERYTHING; Maps, communication, internet, banking, blogging, photos.... You name it, my iPhone does it for me!

I went cold and stood rooted to the spot slapping every pocket as if my shorts had just caught fire. I was somehow hoping and willing my phone to just appear in my pocket but I knew deep down I'd left it on the back seat of our private hire taxi.

Then the tour manager/problem solver in me burst into action. 

Simultaneously I grabbed Lauren's iPhone, opened the "find my iPhone" app and started to track my phone. I could see it on a map in front of my eyes disappearing street by street, nestled comfortably on the back seat of the taxi being chauffeur driven around Mendoza! 

Remotely I temporarily blocked the phone, sent a message to the screen saying it was lost and to call Lauren's number and sent a remote action for the phone to make a loud beeping sound to alert the driver that I'd left it there. Hopefully one of these actions would get his attention.

We stood in the same spot he dropped us off at, just so he could find us if he came back, as I called our hotel to get them to phone the rafting place and ask them to call the taxi company to find out who our driver was and in turn, call him!  However, as I started speaking to Walter on the front desk of our hotel, Lauren's Argentinean SIM card ran out of credit and before I'd explained everything we'd been cut off! Seriously, you couldn't write it!!

All at the same time everything was going wrong! I ran to the "Claro" mobile phone shop, leaving Lauren in place in case the driver returned, but it was mid afternoon and it was shut for siesta! 

Using a mixture of Spanglish and Charades I managed to get directed to a "Kiosco" (small corner shop) one block away, bought some credit and called Walter back so he could start 'operation iPhone recovery' from his end.  That was it. We'd done all we practically could apart from jump in another taxi and chase the original driver but the 3G signal was patchy at best and my phone was only showing up on the app every 5 minutes so that wouldn't work.

So we decided to attempt to get our cash out which was the reason we'd come downtown in the first place!

For the first time there was no queue and I confidently marched up to the counter and passed my passport over, hoping for something to go right in this stressful afternoon!

"número de referencia" said the lady from behind her bullet proof screen.

"err, I've lost my phone with my emails in, I don't have my reference number here...perdone" I replied whilst flapping my arms in a desperate attempt to act out the sentence I knew she wouldn't understand.

"número de referencia" she said again in a monotone, unimpressed tone, looking down at some paperwork that was nothing to do with me.

"Er, No" I uttered hopelessly, knowing I was defeated.

"número de referencia" she repeated like a broken record but this time she slid my passport back through the tiny hole in the glass, the one my money should've been coming through.

I admitted defeat and beat myself up for being so reliant on a tiny piece of technology.

I then realised that I had no idea how to access my emails online and, if we went back to the hotel and picked the email up on my iPad, the bank would be shut before we were back! Arrrggghhh!!!

All this time I was hoping and praying that the driver would be honest and bring the phone back but in the back of my mind I knew that my iPhone would be worth more than a month's wages to him.

For some reason, iPhones are ridiculously expensive in Argentina. An iPhone 5 costs well over £1000 here and with the Argentinean economy completely messed up, next to no one owns one. For this reason, we rarely get our phones out on the street in case we get robbed.

Just the day before I had found an empty purse in a restaurant toilet bin having just been stolen from an unsuspecting tourist. As I reported it to the manager he commented that this was happening nearly every day. A thief robs someone, runs into their public toilets, empties cash and credit cards in their pockets and dumps the evidence. 

Then I had a brainwave, ran into MacDonalds to hop on their free WiFi, accessed my online money transfer account, got the reference number and headed back to the bank in time to join what was now a queue of about 30 people!

Just then Lauren's phone rang and a very chirpy voice from our hotel said, "Gareth, we have your iPhone! The driver heard it beeping and brought it back to where he knew you were staying."

The relief was immense and I lost count of the times I said thank you!

We celebrated by getting on a Mendoza City Tour bus which took us all around the city whilst explaining, through the audio on our headphones, the history of this beautiful city that had been our home for nearly 2 weeks.

City Tourists or airline pilots?

Various pictures of Mendoza from the top deck of our City Tour bus

The City taken from the top of the Park General San Martín.

As you'll see in all the photos above, Mendoza is a very green city. Every street is lined with hundreds of beautiful Platanus trees but one puzzling thing is that Mendoza is in the middle of the desert so how come all these trees survive?

Well, as we found out on the tour, every street is also lined with 4 foot deep trenches, something we have nearly fallen down many times in the last few weeks and something that I am certain gobbles up many a drunken raver at 5am each Sunday morning!

These trenches were developed by the Huarpes (ancient tribe) in the 15th Century and are actually a mini canal system that links the whole city and, on rotation, each street will get a flow of water to feed the trees, diverted from the mountain streams, every few weeks. It's very clever and as you can see, it works.

By the base of the trees is the canal running underground and above ground throughout the whole city

We returned to our hotel and I was reunited with my iPhone, holding it up in the air like a scene from The Lion King.

We then headed out to dinner to 'La Barra' who are well known for, yep, you guessed it, steak!

As we sat down and ordered, an American voice from the next table said, "Which wine are you going to order with that?".  

The voice belonged to Frankie, an American wine maker who was starting a wine project with world renowned Mendozean wine legend and rock star, Marcello Pelleritti.

We ended up letting Frankie choose our wine and he didn't let us down. Of course he chose one of Marcello's wines and it was delicious.

We invited Frankie to join us after our meal and we shared a second bottle together, again, another of Marcello's gems.

We headed to bed on the eve of another winery tour, wondering if supping 2 bottles of wine was a good idea...