Mendoza, Sunday

1833 At Bute, one of the few places open at this time, having rather expensive milanesa a caballo with 2/3 litre Heineken. (Ha! 650ml when it turns up. FFS.)

Woke up about midday but lingered in bed til 2ish and left about 3. Bit of a waste but I hadn't had an 'unlimited' sleep for a while and may not get one for a couple of days. (Saturday morning I had to change rooms which was a bit disruptive in terms of sleeping late.)

Walked over - about 4km, FFS - to Parque San Martin and up Cerro de la Gloria. Quite cool views etc up there and monument not bad (though trees block views in many directions) but boy was it a long way. Walked back and now here. Need to decide what I'm doing tomorrow. I guess I either split my remaining time to make a longer stay here and/or in BA or put in a couple of nights at some place X to be determined vaguely halfway between here and BA.

Quite nice view of Plaza Independencia from here. Plaza is green but not surrounded by bars and restaurants like eg Salta.

Couldn't finish the meal, not ill, just feel stuffed. Frankly looking forward to getting back to hostel and having a shower.

2128 At ZinC/2inC/? on Aristides Villanueva. Just ordered a litre of Schnieder Negra. Waitress told me to speak English. Didn't help because it's the name of the beer that is the pronunciation problem. She just offered me the wifi code seeing me fiddling with my phone. We seem to have reverted to Spanish and I haven't got a fucking clue what it is. I think the bar may be ZiC if I can infer from my memory of the password. Minor shame but I have no need for it.

OK, that's unfair to me. I know maybe 60% of the characters in the password.

They have Red Bull and gin on the menu here, not Red Bull & vodka. They also do piscola, which I may just have later. I still haven't touched a drop of fernet either, I do somehow need to try that before I leave.

Was a bit dubious about this beer, especially seeing it says 'stout' on the bottle (and it is very dark) but it's actually going down a treat. The Heineken earlier didn't really hit the spot, so although there's always an element of mood, it's not just that the local lager has been disagreeing with me.

Apropos of nothing, there are two railway tracks running down Belgrano which I have to cross to get here. The station is mark disused in my guide book but they do have overhead electrical cables so I have always had a bit of a glance before crossing. I infer from a sign nearby they may be being repurposed as part of a local (12.5km) metro system. I don't think they are used right now though as some roadworks I saw the other day appear to have left the rails in an unusable state at that point.

Had a bit of a gander at guidebook; because it's split up into separate PDFs I had to find a whole country map on Google and had to fart around with netbook to find which sections certain towns were in. Anyway, think I shall go to Rosario tomorrow and shall muse on it here and book hostel when I get back tonight. It's 10-12h (from memory) from here so an overnight tomorrow, I will stay there Tue & Wed nights and it's 4h from BA so I will get a day bus on Thu and spend Thu/Fri nights in BA before flying back. I could put in an extra night in Rosario but I am reluctant to have just one night anywhere, as noted before.

Go me. Just connected to wifi here. The network is called ZINC so I infer that's the name of the bar despite the illegible sign. Obvious in hindsight I guess.

I have no need for it but WTF.

Oh, I could (judging from a hand-written poster; I never asked) have arranged paragliding via the hostel (it was down as a 9am-3pm activity) but I didn't. Sod it. I am highly likely to return here in the future (it's quite a nice place and anyway I should like to try the bus crossing of the Andes), especially as it's near Santiago, and even ignoring that, I wasn't so keen to do it that I fancied burdening myself with a 9am start. If I had a little more time and could easily have stretched my stay here by a day or two without compromising elsewhere I probably would have done it, but I did it a week-ish ago and I'm not *that* interested in doing it again right now. It will give me yet another reason to return.

Cool, just eyeballed the small print (it is IME very hidden information on beer bottles over here) and Schneider Negra is only 3.9%. It is slipping down far too well and was a bit worried about a second litre given I need to book hostel and pack tonight/tomorrow morning before check out at 1030, but that reassures me.

It was showing 30C on my phone for Mendoza when I got up, and it was damn hot on the walk to Parque San Martin. Generally it's pleasantly warm verging on hot here and the nights are very pleasant, although if anything slightly too warm for my tastes.

Feeling quite relaxed, it is a shame I have to be up early-ish tomorrow but no matter. I do think moving on to Rosario is the right thing though, apart from seeing somewhere new it is nicely close to BA for a stress-free return in order to catch the flight - if necessary or desirable I can push my stay there and not have an enormous last leg ahead of me.

2306 Fearing to commit to another litre, have ordered a 'pinta' of Dowel Pale Ale, a 'cerveza artesanal mendocina'. I did see the taps, which are in the window open to the street, on my first pass down here Friday night, at which point I misread it as Duvel.

The head has subsided now (I haven't touched it) and the glass is only full to about an inch below the top.

Bar next door (Antares)'s blackboard advertises 'The Bootles, Pop Britanico'...

It's not a bad drop, actually. Mind you, it ought to be at ARS25 a 'pint' (or 2 chop (their spelling) for ARS28).

Oh, did note in guide book while struggling to find stuff earlier that tipping is apparently at the 10% level here. Not sure how current that is but I have probably been overdoing it. I shall maybe moderate down to 10% verging on 15% with rounding and see how it goes. It feels petty somehow but really it does add up I guess.

Undeniably an electronic guide book is less 'flick-through-able'. I only looked at the directory section at the end in the hope of finding a map. It's also rather inconvenient in some ways having it split into about 12 PDFs (presumably done in part as you can buy individual sections, though buying the whole guide as I did gives you about a 50% reduction compared to buying all the sections individually). I should probably prepare a concatenated version when I'm back home and shove it on the phone/netbook so it's handy next time I need it. It may be years but if I don't I will forget.

2343 May have one more, feel fine and it's hardly late when getting up at 930 would be more than adequate. This bar is at one end of the street so no idea if it's heaving down where I was the last two nights or not. Quite a lot of people out here and at bar next door anyway, it's obviously not 'late' by local standards even for a Sunday.

FWIW, I did a bit more laundry before I came out; given the excellent results I got yesterday in terms of drying (I think the ceiling fan helps enormously, and I left it on last night and tonight when I came out) I am moderately optimistic it will be dry by tomorrow morning. I am now almost provisioned with clean clothes for the remainder of the trip; I think at worst if I didn't wash anything else (underwear can easily be done discreetly even with a shared bathroom) I'd only have to wear a single top for two days.

2352 Yeah, just ordered one more. Can't remember how long I tended to stay in one place on the long trip in 2010, I guess I played it by ear a bit, but I am thinking four nights is generally better than three, though three is not a bad compromise in general. Don't regret only being in eg La Cumbre for two nights, clearly there is an element of variability.

Not such a head on this pint, which given its lager-like instability, is all to the good in terms of value for money.

Not eating tonight; after only eating about half of that milanesa a caballo earlier seemed silly. (The fried eggs weren't burnt though, which was good, and the fried onions were actually pleasant, which is not always the case.) In passing, veal seems very common here (the default milanesa is veal); I may or may not have observed this outside Argentina on previous trips. I am no gourmet but can't say I'm overly impressed with any distinctive flavour from the veal. It's perfectly palatable but I would have half expected a taste explosion. I have some vague idea it's even more unethical than the average meat but I guess I'm not that bothered on a 'when in Rome' basis. If it is particularly cruel I can't see it being worth it, all other things (eg availability of alternatives) being equal.

0014 I appear to be only customer at this bar though next door's tables are busy. No one seems to care, if they want to come and present me with the bill they are welcome. I suspect if anyone were to come and sit down they'd be happy to serve them, and that may well happen. They aren't giving any evidence of closing. It will probably be heaving here at 3am. ;-)

Have taken advantage of the wifi to precache map of Rosario while I remember. Not essential, especially given the (non-GPS, of course) map in the electronic guide book, but worth having.

Not exactly inclined to make a night of it, even without checking out tomorrow, but if I wasn't under that pressure I might stay out a bit. Not really fighting off temptation though. There was a group at a table behind me who just left and the music inside is still playing, I suspect they would be open regardless.

0032 Just asked for bill.

79, made it 90. Waitress didn't seem too gutted if not ecstatic.

Am virtually certain they aren't closing, as if it matters.

0051 Back. Did note while waiting (briefly) to be let in that a 4-bed dorn has its window next to the entrance, and only one bed was occupied by a sleeping body. Hostel not overrun but this is further evidence I guess that it's not really that late. (Did note about three or four people come in around 2am Fri night when I was briefly dissipating on the terrace after my return; the guy on night duty was out there and had to go let them in.)

Clothes virtually dry already, shall leave them hanging overnight anyway (it's an excuse not to pack tonight...)

Oh, now it's too late to be insecure, shall say I am at Trotamundos hostel, corner Peru and Espejo (the latter apparently being a name, not an object, though on arrival it inevitably brought 'Si no te hubieras ido' into my mind).

0108 Hostel in Rosario booked for Tue/Wed night. I do wonder, as always, why my hostelworld login can remember all my details except my nationality and gender.