a través de los ojos de la rubia: And we never had to sign anything

Continuing where I left off in Mendoza, Argentina...

Not feeling well...

Mer, Rae, and I woke up only 3 hours after getting back from going out the Argentines and got in a van to go trekking, rappelling, and rafting in the Andes!! I wasn´t feeling too well from going out the night before, but managed to trudge along on the hike and check out the awesome rocks and view. We didn't go very far and it wasn't strenuous, but at least now I can say that I went hiking in the Andes!
I felt better by the time we had to do the rappelling part of the excursion which was good because I wound up crashing into the rocks a few times anyway and getting scratched up. At one point I wasn't even holding on the rope and thought I was going to die, but obviously I'm still here today. Also, I thought the height was super freaky even though it wasn´t even that far off the ground [not sure exactly how high it was though]. I was the first one of my friends to go down so there aren't any photos of me on the rock, but here are some I took of Mer and Rae so you can get an idea of what it was like [but they were pros so imagine me someone falling haha].

Despite how cool the trek and rappelling had been, my favorite part of the day by far was the rafting. I have rafted a lot with my family in the US, but this was unlike anything I had done before. First of all, I was barefoot thanks to the fact that I hadn't brought any water sandals. I wasn't the only one though--Meredith and Rachael were too and a couple other people in our raft. Secondly, the guide we had was crazy--for example, he had us all stand up and hold hands while going over small rapids and purposely made us paddle into the rocks and then jump into the center of the raft as we bounced around and water splashed over us. I never felt like I was in danger, but one of the other girls in our raft did fall out at one point.

Having a crazy guide made the experience a lot more fun and the whole time my friends and I were saying, "I can't believe this is happening!" Whenever he said the word "party" [in spanish of course] we would take our oars out of the water and hit them together in the air, or when we were passing fishermen or another raft we would stand up and spank our butts at them. Things like that rafting trip are examples of why I love Argentineans.

The craziest thing about all the excursions we went on in Mendoza was that we never had to sign any paperwork and we never had any instructions. I already explained in the post before this one that the only thing my guide told me before we were going to jump off the mountain to go paragliding were "Run when I tell you to", but rappelling was the same deal. The guy put the harness on me, put my hands on the rope, said to slowly let it slide through the carabiner and then told me to start going down.
Rachael noted that at least if we were going to die, paragliding in Argentina was a pretty cool way to go. As would be rappelling or rafting, really. Our joke for the entire trip was "And we never had to sign anything" because in the US there would have been all kinds of liability paperwork before the activities we did.

Mer, Rae, and I were dead and famished after the trekking, rappelling, and rafting so when we got back to the hostel we immediately went around the corner to McDonald's [it was the closest place, I swear] and got double orders of food. Instead of going out that night we went shopping at this awesome "hippy fair" at Plaza Independencia and got some great gifts for "friends and family" [aka ourselves]. I also got a haircut by Edward Scissorhands and we explored the plaza a little bit. The next day we left Mendoza and headed back to Santiago in a sketchy little van where the driver continuously drove on the wrong side of the road to pass trucks and other cars while we could see oncoming traffic. It was a pretty terrifying/hilarious experience, but we got back home a lot earlier than expected, considering it was Easter. When we weren't noticing that our driver was doing yet another potentially deadly driving maneuver, Meredith, Rachael, and I were either eating the 12 Argentinean meat empanadas that we bought for the ride home, trying to sleep despite the spanish music that was blasting through the speakers, or enjoying the spectacular views of the Andes mountains.