Our apartment rental host wasn't expecting us early. Since we were in a new country, we had no way of contacting him. We attempted making a phone call from the bus station with some help from strangers, but it didn't work and the language barrier didn't help. So we just grabbed a taxi and went to the apartment. Of course, no one was there to let us in. We didn't have a wifi connection, so we couldn't email him. Maeve and I tried to find a restaurant with wifi while Michael and Liam stayed with our bags on the sidewalk. We were staying in a residential area, so we had to walk a bit before finding something.

We emailed him and waited, but didn't get a response. We walked back to the apartment. Eventually, the neighbor noticed us waiting. We told her the story and she called the our host for us. He sent his friend to let us in the apartment about an half hour later. In the meantime, we watched all of the cars drive down the street ignoring the stop sign despite the fact that it was lit up and flashing.

Once we were settled, we got our lay of the land and went to pick up some food and supplies. We went to the corner store and picked out our items. Someone was ringing them up and then asked what I assumed to be the manager a pricing question. He came over and rang up the remaining items. I noticed that some of the prices were different than what was marked. He charged a slightly higher price for some items and didn't scan them. Now I had heard of 'Gringo pricing' but hadn't experienced it yet (that I knew of). I ended up not having enough money and tried to stop him. He shushed me and just took off some of the yogurt and said it was ok. The whole exchange was very strange. The overcharge was maybe two to three dollars total. I didn't care, but didn't feel like arguing in a language he didn't understand and I couldn't put it all together in Spanish either.

The next time I went in that store, the same thing happened. I added up the difference and again, maybe a two dollar difference. Ok, so maybe he needed the money more than me. So I handed him my money and he shortchanged me. That's when I yelled at him. He tried to deny the amount of money I gave him. I very loudly insisted that I had given him 200 pesos and eventually he looked in the drawer and conceded. He handed me the extra 50 pesos. Again, it was about five dollars, but it was really obvious and I had enough.

I went back and told Michael what happened. He got so ticked off he decided to pay the manager a visit. I told him not to, as I didn't see the point since the man didn't speak English. Michael insisted and headed over. Funny, but the guy wasn't there. Michael asked, "Where's the big guy?" (he was indeed fat.) One other guy in the store said something like, "Maybe he's in jail." Seemed he had a reputation. Michael said, "Good, he belongs there." Needless to say we never went in there again.

So we weren't off to a very good start in Mendoza. We walked around town a bit and explored. It was very hot and no sign of rain for the week. We needed Argentinian pesos and were told about the blue rate. Argentina has two exchange rates - the official one that Argentina uses to pay its debts and is the rate that banks and credit card processing companies use. The unofficial, blue rate, is about 50% more attractive and is readily available for anyone willing to transact cash swaps in hidden corners and offices. These guys near the mall would say, 'cambio' meaning change and if you needed change you would go with them. It is kind of shady, but it seems that officials mostly turn a blind eye.

On another day we decided to take our usual double decker bus tour of the city.

Liam got another haircut in Mendoza. He still wants to shave his sides, but this was as close as he was getting.

There wasn't much to see in town. The restaurants were good and the wine was excellent. So we did what anyone else would do while visiting Mendoza....we booked a winery tour.