I'm a few cities behind on blog entries -- not that this is meant to be a geographically comprehensive report as much as an entertaining one, but still. . . Mendoza just had too many glasses of wine -- it was drowsy, crossing its eyes and slurring its words. It forgot what happened last night. As much as I love a lush, Mendoza just didn't speak to me. So up into the mountains I went to Barreal -- into a land where tourism and the concept of service in general are relatively new phenomena. Along with the warmth and genuine nature of so many of the people I have met along the way, these unspoiled places have made me think a lot about how jaded we are, how we've seen it all and done it all and what a shame that is. It's refreshing to be impressed by something or someone without worrying that they might be better than you, to allow yourself to be effusive and exuberant, to be poorly-acessorized and all-around uncool. Despite my longstanding relationship with dorkiness, these are the kinds of places that make me realize the effects that big-city life has had on me.
Morillo, my trusty thoroughbred, carried me on a lovely tour through iron-infused hillsides nestled between the pre-Cordillera and the Andes. I hadn't ridden a horse since my Girl Scout days, but Morillo was kind of like the Ford Falcon of the equine universe, so wasn't at all intimidating. My guide and I sat on top of a hillside and ate apples he'd picked that morning and he pointed out to me the highest peak in the Americas. Back in town, I rubbed shoulders with the local teens in the Internet cafe, drank beer at the service station (where else?) and stared at the hills and the sky for hours. I also got a wicked tan sitting by the pool and luxuriated in the 500 thread-count sheets of La Querencia.
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