San Rafael

Got into San Rafael at 4am on Saturday. San Rafael's in Mendoza province, three hours-ish south of Mendoza city. Walking around the city on sunny Saturday afternoon I was reminded of the vibe that exists in Mendoza; things are pretty, quiet, and laidback, and there's an omnipresent cloudless, electric blue sky that I think has something to do with being so close to the Andes.

I went from one end of the town to the next, visiting the tourism office and travel agencies figuring out how to best spend my couple of days in the region. When the crowded Saturday afternoon streets become suddenly deserted at around 2 or 3pm, I realized sanrafaelinos observe siesta scheduling; that is, businesses are open in the morning until the early afternoon, and then close and re-open in the early evening. So well, I decided to do a little "When in Rome.." and went back to the hostel for an afternoon nap.

Sunday I decided to eschew the organized excursion route and go up into the Cañon del Atuél, the river canyon and surrounding mountains that are the area's main attraction, on the city bus and jump off at some point along the route that looked interesting.

The bus rounded a bend and I saw a couple of signs for rafting trips down the Atuél river, so I got off. A couple of minutes later I was sun-screening up for a trip down the river with a young family and a couple of guys from Mendoza. The level-2 rapids didn't give us the kind of rocky ride I was expecting ( I'd never gone rafting before... only seen it on TV) but the sun was bright the river was refreshing. At one point we jumped into the water and, holding onto the raft, were pulled down the river by the current.

The rafting company's "office" doubled as a general store and a bar, so after getting a drive back upstream in the company van, I followed up the rafting session with a couple of cold beers with some of my rafting partners. We sat at a couple of umbrella-ed tables on the roadside, me and two guys from Mendoza who'd been travelling around the province on motorbike, and told stories, jokes and talked about our respective countries and regions. I turned down their offer of a ride down the valley to San Rafael on the back of a Harley, though, because I felt squeezing a little more activity into my day in the canyon.

I realy wanted to go hiking. Many of the adventure tourism companies in the canyon offered guided excursions, but there was usually a 3 person minimum and at least a 30 peso charge. I started chatting with the woman who'd sold me my rafting trip and she clued me into the fact that right across the road from where we were standing, there was a trail that followed an old riverbed into the sandstone hills for about an hour. She may now have been wheelchair bound, she let me know, but she'd grown up in the area and knew all the trails that crisscrossed across it. I had a peaceful walk through the grey standstone hills, so different than the lush green forests I'm used to hiking in Canada.

I caught the bus back down to San Rafael and hooked up with Laura and Vanessa, two girls from Buenos Aires that were also my dormitory mates, for dinner.