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  Mendoza, Argentina
Saturday, January 5, 2008

Having had a great journey back across the mountains we got back to Mendoza and headed straight to the hospedaje where we had arranged to rent a room in a family home. We met the lady at the bus station before we left Mendoza and we decided that it sounded just what we were looking for.

We walked there in the boiling heat and were pleasantly surprised when we got there. It is s lovely little house, we have the front room, which is huge all to ourselves. Then she has two other rooms she rents out and their rooms, as well as a lovely garden. She lives there with her husband, daughter (Andrea) and her daughter (Lucia) and 2 dogs. The family are great and Lucia gives us a great deal of entertainment as she is about 2 yrs old and seems fascinated by us, as does her puppy dog, Tota! We are really enjoying it and Epis Spanish has been quite impressive.

Lucia

We showered and headed out to explore the town, our host was really helpful and told us all the places to visit.

On our way out to dinner we had a very strange encounter, which kind of left Epi and I talking all night (not that we don't normally talk, but we talked about this one thing all night).

Ok, apologies for the gap in time, for those of you who starting reading this a few days ago, but we have had no access to email for a few day now, so it wasn't done on purpose!

Well, we were walking down the street into town, chatting about the day and this man (blond and very tall) started turning around and listening to our conversation. As we crossed the road he asked if we spoke English, to which we replied yes. He looked really relieved and started chatting to us about how no one spoke English here and it was really difficult. I said I thought it was great as it was making us speak Spanish, but he didn't agree by the look on his face. He then asked us about our travels and we talked about Cordoba where we were travelling next and he told us about a place to visit (Carlos Paz)

Tota close up

. This went on for a good 10mins, as we were talking he kept stopping to talk rather than walking with us. As Epi and I are polite we too stopped to talk. We got to a corner where it was obvious that he was heading in a different direction. He asked how long we were staying in Mendoza and where we were staying, we answered 3 nights, maybe 4 to which he seemed surprised. He said he arrived today and wanted to get out as quickly as possible as he had a terrible experience and wanted to leave. We didn't ask what, but kind of made the noises you would if someone said that to you. anyway turns out he was mugged after leaving the bus station and they had taken everything, passport, money, everything. He said the police could not do anything to help and he had tried everything. The guy looked terrible and did look like he has been walking around all day in the heat. We made a few suggestions, but he gave us very credible answers as to why there were no good. We ran out of ideas. There was kind of an awkward silence and we said that we hoped he got to Buenos Aires ok (to get a new passport).
We walked off and both felt terrible for the guy. We were both imagining what it would be like if we were in that situation, with no money and no where to sleep. So we both decided that we would give him the change we had so that he could at least get a meal and pay for a room for the night. I ran back and handed him $42, which is only less than 8 UK pounds, but it would be enough to get a meal and a bed for the night and give him a chance to sort something else out for getting to BA

Tota, with the pool in the background!!!

. He looked like he was going to cry when I gave him the money and just kept saying thank you. He said he was going straight back to the bus station to try and get to Buenos Aires.

So, was the guy genuine or pulling our leg? Well, we were convinced, obviously, we gave him money and it is not like we have money to spare. However, there is no way he would have got to Buenos Aires on what we gave him, so we don't know why he was heading back to the bus station, but that may have been cos he wasn't thinking straight? There were loads of things that we talked about all night, why hadn't his embassy called back, why go to Buenos Aires when the embassy was shut until Monday anyway? Did they take his backpack too, cos he didn't have anything with him and why would they take a bloody heavy bag full of dirty clothes?
Anyway, it gave us lots of food for thought and has heightened our awareness even if he was telling lies. The other thing that we realised as we spent more time in Mendoza is that the bus station is always packed, which ever entrance you leave from, so how you could get mugged we are not sure. But he may have been telling the truth, in which case it was a terrible end to his year of travelling and a thing that I would not wish on anyone after my experience in America.

So that was our strange encounter, sorry if you were expecting more! Let me know if you think he was genuine or not!

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