Nov. 29: Bikes and wineries, and where American music goes to die

Robert Taylor traveled through South America from Nov. 24- Dec. 29. While there, he kept a journal. Each blog entry is an entry from that journal, posted daily (excluding weekends and a few other days), as it was written while he traveled.

We're traveling to Buenos Aires at the moment.

Today in Mendoza, we rented bicycles and went on a wine tour. We had to cut it short to make the bus but we went to a wine museum, which had huge story-sized barrels; a chocolate and liquor-making place, where we got a bottle of Absence for $6; and the oldest winery in Argentina that gives tours.

We tried four different types of wine there and I got a class on wine drinking. Turns out there's a right way and a wrong way to drink wine. Who knew?

The scenery along the ride was really pretty, with plenty of trees on both sides of the road vineyards spotting the way and the mountains on the distance on one side. Lucky for me, Tara kept pointing out how pretty everything was, since I'm a guy and wouldn't have noticed such things on my own.

She also came in handy when she translated one of the Spanish-speaking tours for me. She translates a lot for me, which I really appreciate.

However, not being able to speak the language has been really hard. It's hard not having the ability to communicate. I know my inability to speak the language is no one's fault but my own, but that doesn't make it any easier. It's pretty humbling to have to ask someone to do something as simple as order food or try to make change.

I've felt pretty isolated the last few days, as if I've been walking around in a prison without bars, which has made me feel down the last few days.

Today wasn't that bad though, we kept running into the same group of tourist on the tour and they knew English, so it was good to be able to interact with them, especially over lunch, while not feeling lost and left out. Two of the three tours were in English, which helped a lot too.

Due to the fact the conversations seem to focus only on a few things, such as how much something cost, directions somewhere, I'm starting to pick up a few words and phases. Combined with me following the tone of the conversation or the way people move their hands, I can almost follow the conversation, or at least have an understanding of the conversation's outcome. When she's done talking, Tara normally catches me up to speed, which I greatly appreciate, even more since she does it without me having to ask.

The tour of the museum was pretty lame. We waited for 25 minutes for a six-minute tour of three exhibits. However, it was pretty informative. I learned slaves used to pick the grapes at the museums vineyard, now they use migrate workers, using a process that sounds as close to legal slavery as you can get.

The second tour only lasted a few minutes after we waited for 40 minutes for reasons we weren't really sure of. It was basically looking into the kitchen they cook the chocolate in and a description of their alcohol product line. Then we got a shot of said product line and samples of the chocolate.

The tour of the winery was the best tour. The brick the tanks were made came from England to balance out the weight of the barrels in the back. I never realized what a science wine making is until today. It's pretty complicated and includes a lot of variables.

Bus travel in South America is way different here then in the States. The busses are huge and the seats are oversized and comfortable, they rival, and maybe even beat, airline cabins.

I think the biggest difference between bus travel is everyone uses the bus system here, it's just a way of life. In the States, bus travel is normally done only by poorer people.

The bus is showing American movies. Right now it's Leslie Nelson's "Spy Hard." In Chile, a lot of the music I heard was American, just as it was in the Middle East.

It's like we send our music overseas to die.

Out of everything our country has to offer other countries, we give them our cheesy 80s/90s pop music. I'm not sure how I feel about knowing that is the one thing they know about the American way of life.

To help catch the bus o time, we hitched hike a ride from a guy driving an onion truck.

It was pretty exciting because i've never hitched hiked before.