Not doing too much today

The trip about wiped us out (meaning me and Ivan) so we're taking it easy today. When we arrived yesterday we turned the air conditioning on right away, but it was so sweltering hot in the suite (one of the hottest days of the summer so far) that it never did really cool down. About midnight Tina went down to the front desk and asked for a fan for the bedroom. The a.c. unit in the far corner of the living room was barely keeping that end of the room cool and not even beginning to reach into the bedroom. The fan helped some.

Until about 6 a.m. when the power went out.

No power. No air conditioning. No fan. No water.

No power also meant no continental breakfast in the lobby since they could neither make coffee nor toast bread.

We did discover it had finally cooled down outside so we opened the windows for some fresh air. Ivan and I ate banana bread I had fortuitously brought along and then Ivan went back to bed. He 's still recovering from being so sick with food poisoning last week AND is currently taking antibiotics for a severe ear infection. I just read for a while.

Meanwhile Tina slept through almost all the power outage on her day bed in the living room.

Once the power finally came back on at 11 a.m. we ventured down to the lobby, relieved to find they were willing to make us coffee and toast. A good cup of café con leche and functioning internet improved everyone's mood.

Then we put on our walking shoes and headed for Plaza Independencia, one of the bigger city parks. By the time we made it there, it was siesta time and deserted. We'll go back later when the artesanos have set up shop, and we understand there's free live entertainment nightly during the summer. On the way back we stopped at Carrefour's (the French equivalent to Walmart) and picked up food to fix for supper.

Today it's much, much cooler and the city streets are lined with trees which make walking around quite pleasant. One of the co-owners of the hosteria where we're staying spent quite a bit of time showing Ivan where things are on the map so later we'll take the car and visit some of the places farther away. There's a nice zoo, other city parks, and just a short drive up a nearby hillside there's an observatory that looks out over the whole city. Lots to see and do, but we're in no hurry.

Right now we're just going to enjoy the siesta hours by taking a siesta. 

¡Hasta luego!

How to add two hours to your travel time without even trying

Just travel with us to a place we've never been before, on a road with little to no road signs.

Seriously, we went hundreds of kilometers at a stretch today without any signs indicating which route we were on.

Through a barren no-man's land, that in some places didn't even have scrubby little bushes or grass, just sand and rocks and white stuff that looked like snow but wasn't (it was salt).

Yes, we had maps. More than one. Maps are useless when roads are not marked.

We wove in and out of provinces, visiting one twice that we didn't want to go to even once. When we finally made it back into the province of Mendoza for the third (and final) time, and had to stop* for the third (and final) time, Ivan commented to the police officer that the roads were not very well marked. The officer smiled and said something about "involuntary tourism". Whatever that means.

Quite a bit of the road had been recently re-paved and improved so possibly they just haven't gotten the signs back up yet? But it was like that for a good portion of our trip, not just this province so we're not sure what to think.

Along with the nonexistent road signs, gas stations were few and far between -- like every 200 to 300 km. Six hours into the trip and about to run out of gas, the map from ACA (equivalent to AAA) indicated a gas station coming up but when we got there it was all fenced off and obviously under construction. We drove around without seeing any people but there were a couple vehicles so Ivan went in and learned the single gas pump outside the fence was indeed functional. Thank goodness! That was the lone gas station for miles and miles in any direction.

I can't remember EVER driving through such a desolate landscape. And that includes our time in Africa. Today we drove hundreds of kilometers without seeing a single person, dwelling or animal (other than birds).

All the photos I've seen of Mendoza have been of green hillsides, green vineyards, green parks.... looking forward to seeing some of that greenery in the coming week.

And we are definitely taking a different route home!

*Mendoza doesn't allow any fruit from other provinces to be brought in so at our first visual inspection we had to eat the apples we'd brought along (it was either that or throw them away). Fruit production is one of the main industries and they guard it carefully. Any kind of imported fruit has the potential of bringing bugs that could decimate the groves so the ban is STRICTLY enforced. We also had to drive slowly through some kind of spray that would kill anything on the exterior of the auto. 

Oops! Almost missed a day...

Going, going, almost gone. The day just whipped by so fast and I suddenly realized I have half an hour to get a post in under the wire.

Typical Sunday here. Only four boys showed up for soccer but that's okay. Have been busy packing and preparing for our trip tomorrow. Had asado tonight with Pablo and Oscar, two young men from a Bible Institute who are spending their summer helping with the ministry. Their desire is to reach these young men who have been coming to soccer every weekend.

Have enjoyed laughing and eating and telling stories. The men have been giving Tina a hard time for not liking morzilla (blood sausage) but gotta give the girl credit for trying it. She and I agree it's not so much the taste as the texture and the idea. My once very picky eater has turned into a foodie who will try pretty much anything once...including python while we lived in Africa (the smell alone kept me from taking a bite).

So what's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

Project 365, Week 2

We haven't done much due to all the sickness this week so not a lot of photos to choose from. But I'm committed to Project 365 so here we go with what we got.

(Forgive the poor grammar, but it's been a long week and estoy muy cansada).

There are vast numbers of large, ugly, loud birds near Centro Esperanza (remember the dead bird high in the tree around Halloween?). Last Sunday one of them roosted on top of the car port area and I snapped this photo. There's a screen-like material between the camera and the bird, so it's rather blurry.

Tina enjoys daily strolls down to the lake and took this photo on one of her walks. As you can see the lake is slowly, slowly creeping back up.

A lot of companies like to advertise on vehicles, since they're driven all over town and provide pretty broad coverage. Each circle on this truck says "Jet-Set" and underneath "Carlos Paz". I have no idea what Jet-Set is, but it's a pretty snazzy truck.

Our tree is dropping peaches faster than we can keep up. I had no idea that piles of rotting peaches could smell so bad. Ugh. Ivan's going to dig them into the compost pile and hopefully that will cut down on the stench.

I don't quite get the whole boot sandal thing going on here. Why would you want to encase your ankle in hot lavendar leather in the summer? You can't tell but the heel is open. Interesting look, don't you think?

Our sushi extravaganza on Friday was fun and VERY MESSY. Which you can't tell in this photo of Tina with the finished product. Finding the jar of pickled ginger at Walmart last time made it extra special. Luuuuurve sushi with lots of pickled ginger!

Ivan took some photos of his current project today but I somehow managed to lose them in the transition from camera to computer :-(  So no photo for today.

And now, if I don't hurry up I'm not going to get this posted Saturday night and I'll have missed my first day of posting this year.