Day 87 – La Puerta
It´s easy to let yourself stay in a hostel longer than you intend to. You get to the know the people, it becomes comfortable, or you simply can´t be bothered upping sticks and finding somewhere new.
We had planned to move from La Puerta because there were so few people. But after a day or two, this became a definite plus point. Ben, Natalie and Alan (the English couple) and myself have been here for three days yet and, apart from when we arrived and found a couple eating on the patio, we haven´t seen any other travellers.
It has taken on the ambience of a student flat (a tidy one) for the four of us. The kitchen is getting regular use, partly thanks to Ben´s determination to eat meat – huge, juicy cuts of prime Argentinian beef – at every opportunity. He´s a dab hand in the kitchen, rustling up some fine puddings with thick, sugary chocolate sauce.
Mendoza is becoming a place where we like to say we´re going to things, but end up hanging about the hostel. Las noches largas don´t make it any easier to get out and about. But, for me, this is fine. After nearly three long months on the road, it´s nice to kick back and take it easy. I´ve been moving around pretty quickly, covering some vast distances, so I reckon I can afford to do very little for a while. If travelling was a sport, and I was a veteran sportsman being interviewed before a game, I´d probably say something like “Well I don´t feel like I have to prove myself to anyone”.
I´m sleeping more than at any point on the trip, thanks largely to the fact there is no-one else to wake us up in the morning.
The one aspect about this hostel that makes it feel a little different to a flat are the staff. Ivan, the older guy from Chile who seems to work the night shift, and his colleague, whose name I don´t know, are more parental than staff-like. We´ve been gently told off for taking over the kitchen on occasions. Which was puzzling to us as we were the ones paying to stay here. And we´ve been relegated to watching the tiny television outside the kitchen because Ivan is constantly watching football on the flatscreen in the lounge area.
But really we´re all one big happy family. And today, Alan was the happiest – we watched his team, Chelsea, win the Premiership by beating Wigan 8-0.
