Nikki and I got a little depressed once we got to Mendoza. I had a lot of work to do all of a sudden and was quite stressed about that. Nikki was in charge of finding an apartment in a city that doesn't use Craigslist (what? such a thing exists? yes, yes it does). And we were basically 1 for 25 in finding things:

• Restaurants that were recommended in both of our guide books would be closed and/or out of business
• Restaurants that were recommended at the information booth would be closed and/or out of business
• Our hotel was passable, but the pillows felt like they were stuffed with corn husks (maybe they were - we didn't investigate) and the hot water heater for our room broke which they refused to solve for 3 days
• We couldn't find an apartment. Craigslist had five entries - mostly from other people looking for apartments.
• Some apartment real estate agents wouldn't even call us back

For years now Mendoza has been a bit of a dream-world for us. A theoretical land of milk and honey (or wine and naturaleza). It is the pinnacle of this trip abroad, the place where we will spend the most time, the place that combines Castellano (aka Spanish) and wine and the natural world we love, the place where friends and family are coming to visit. And here we were tired, hungry, and not even the 24 hour a day hot dog chain was open when we needed dinner on a Sunday night:

bummer.

then Mendoza looks better

Then things started getting better. There is free wifi available on the peatonal full of cafes. I wrapped up a lot of the work things I had to do. And we got in touch with an apartment agent who found us lots of great choices.

So, as I sit here looking through glass doors onto our terrace in a nice apartment with air conditioning, internet access, and a great sofa bed for guests (and if you are thinking about it - please buy those tickets to come! we're here until March!) I can only think that this low point of our trip has come to pass and things are going great.

Here's Nikki with the rent and deposit money - fan it out.

Yay - time to go stock our wine cabinet so we can enjoy the terrace later on!