February 6,

I had trouble going to sleep again. Hopefully this is not going to be an every-other-day thing! We got about having our Javas and doing more bird watching. Breakfast was a mix of the last of one Muesli and a new Granola with yogurt and the last of a honeydew melon.

By 1000, we set out. We had to get an E-Sim set up on my phone first, as my new phone is finally unlocked! We went to Claro where Jeff had bought his Sim card. Thankfully, the guy we dealt with spoke English (unlike Jeff’s encounter). Again the lack of English speaking has really surprised us. With that achieved… we set out for our real venture. Today was a bike ride day. We did a bike rental service called, biciTRAN. They have an app of the same name. Jeff had – some days ago – set us up on it. They have bike stops throughout the town. The closest one to us was a short stop from Claro. We found it. You simply scan a code on the bike. A lock clinks open and you take off. We have a 24 hour period with a total of five – one hour rides. We set out, our first ride started at 1040.

The city of Mendoza has many bike lanes along the mostly one way streets. It was lovely weather, which was why we picked today. There was some cloud cover, but we still wore pants and long sleeved shirts for UV protection! It is intense at times. The bikes are three speed and we basically went north. It was great listening to the birds, and just riding on the mostly flat terrain. On our first ride, we ran out of time. We stopped at a park that had a bike stop. So the ride lasted right at one hour- the allotted required time. The app said we went 8.88 km or 5.51 miles. We sat for a 10 minute break in the plaza/park; rehydrated; and went to a grocery store that was conveniently right there. It did not have what we needed, so we left.

We rescanned the same bikes and set out for the Grocery store we were originally going to. Jeff went in for our list. There was not a bike stop place close by, so I stayed out with the bikes. This ticked off about 12 minutes of our ride time but this was okay. It was warming up and we were feeling our legs- sore muscles that haven’t been used in a while. Back on we turned back toward our place. We came past a place that was smoking meat outdoors and there was a bike stop!! That was kismet! So we parked up. The second ride was 3.4 km or 2.1 miles for just under 30 minutes (taking out the stop at the grocery store).

The place was called El Chiquito Parrilla. It was a little two man operation: one inside, and one outside manning the charcoal grill. It smelled fantastic and we were hungry! We ordered a Sandwich Chori (sausage); Pollo Asado (roasted chicken) with “chico papas”- small fries; a Sprite and a bottle of water. We ended up with a foot long sandwich and a ½ of a chicken with what seemed a large order of steak fries! It was super fine food!! The seasoning on both the sandwich and the chicken were superior! We ate half of the sandwich and fries, and all the chicken. It took me back to our Moroccan chicken place, and priorly to Lakis in Wichita (that is no longer there). We had them wrap up the remainder of the sandwich and fries for takeaway. So GOODDDD!! We paid 33,000 ARS, or $22.95 with a ten percent tip.

We loaded back up on our bikes for our third and final “segment” ride. We basically headed south, definitely liking this city! We arrived at the bike stop in the Independence Plaza and locked up the bikes. I was so sore! My thigh muscles right above my knees were screaming at me and other muscles felt like jello!

We walked gingerly back the short distance to our place! Our tally of the final ride was 5.39 km or 3.34 miles. So the overall total: 17.67 km, 11 miles!! We had a great adventure, lots of smiles, and very sore spots!

We had the other halves of the sandwich and the fries for supper with some Malbec wine. Then we ended the day watching more Mandalorian! Blessed day, indeed!!