Shot through the heart...
Mendoza, Argentina: I got shot! Of course the title is exaggerating, I only got shot in my behind, and I wasn´t hurt either, except in pride.
The calm city of Mendoza isn´t all that calm after all! While touring the city a friend and I actually got caught in the middle of a civil uprising! While standing on the Plaza Italiana and taking some nice pictures of the fountain there, we suddenly heard gunfire and saw a large group (about 30-40) of 14-18 year old teenagers being chased by policemen on horses (and with shotguns!) right towards us. Realizing that running "with the herd" would only make us appear to be part of the fleeing crowd, we decided to stand right there behind the fountain and let them pass us. After all, having blond hair and being relatively tall makes you easily distinguishable as a foreigner down here.
The cops chasing the crowd shot another round of rubber pellets in the air to drive the crowd into a street they had sealed off - and one of those things hit me right in the butt as it came down!
As expected, the cops rode (or walked respectively) right past us and told us to get the heck out of this area. In the meantime they had locked in the crowd in a small, sealed off section of the street behind us, and we saw the 30 kids lying down on the road and grassy section of the park, face down, hands behind their heads.
Being good tourists of course we didn´t leave, but proceeded to sneak as close to the arrested juveniles and do some rubbernecking and picture taking. After another 20 minutes or so they were all loaded into an armada of Police cars that had arrived, and it was safe enough for us to return to the fountain and recover the rubber pellet - which I am now carrying around in my pocket.
The wine tasting yesterday was fine - we toured the Bodega Weinert and another smaller one. And even though we didn´t get a whole lot of wine to taste, you can´t go to Mendoza without doing a tour of some of the bodegas. To augment the lack of wine on the tour, we had another 6 bottles in our hostel afterwards.
Tomorrow I´ll finally do the tour around Aconcagua and the Puente del Inca - only to afterwards leave Argentina for good and turn up north through Chile into Bolivai and Peru. No more great steaks and fine wines - it´ll be mostly potatoes from here on (with the little exception of Santiago, where I hope to finally satisfy my craving for Sushi and Licorice - which are nowhere to be found here).
A little tip for the road: Don´t ever try to mail a sword from here to the UK.
The calm city of Mendoza isn´t all that calm after all! While touring the city a friend and I actually got caught in the middle of a civil uprising! While standing on the Plaza Italiana and taking some nice pictures of the fountain there, we suddenly heard gunfire and saw a large group (about 30-40) of 14-18 year old teenagers being chased by policemen on horses (and with shotguns!) right towards us. Realizing that running "with the herd" would only make us appear to be part of the fleeing crowd, we decided to stand right there behind the fountain and let them pass us. After all, having blond hair and being relatively tall makes you easily distinguishable as a foreigner down here.The cops chasing the crowd shot another round of rubber pellets in the air to drive the crowd into a street they had sealed off - and one of those things hit me right in the butt as it came down!
As expected, the cops rode (or walked respectively) right past us and told us to get the heck out of this area. In the meantime they had locked in the crowd in a small, sealed off section of the street behind us, and we saw the 30 kids lying down on the road and grassy section of the park, face down, hands behind their heads.
Being good tourists of course we didn´t leave, but proceeded to sneak as close to the arrested juveniles and do some rubbernecking and picture taking. After another 20 minutes or so they were all loaded into an armada of Police cars that had arrived, and it was safe enough for us to return to the fountain and recover the rubber pellet - which I am now carrying around in my pocket.The wine tasting yesterday was fine - we toured the Bodega Weinert and another smaller one. And even though we didn´t get a whole lot of wine to taste, you can´t go to Mendoza without doing a tour of some of the bodegas. To augment the lack of wine on the tour, we had another 6 bottles in our hostel afterwards. Tomorrow I´ll finally do the tour around Aconcagua and the Puente del Inca - only to afterwards leave Argentina for good and turn up north through Chile into Bolivai and Peru. No more great steaks and fine wines - it´ll be mostly potatoes from here on (with the little exception of Santiago, where I hope to finally satisfy my craving for Sushi and Licorice - which are nowhere to be found here).
A little tip for the road: Don´t ever try to mail a sword from here to the UK.
posted by Mark Peters @ 6:52 PM
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