Mendoza from 7th – 14th of December
Its been quite a while and a lot of things happened in between. After San Juan and Valle de la Luna, we finally made it to Mendoza. Stayed there in a hostel recommended by a friend named Hostel Indep. There is a lot to say about this place. Its owner is a 50 year old „Lady“ from New Zealand which has lived in Germany some years and behaves like an American stereotype. She speeks about 5 languages got short blond hair, is hardly overweighted while still wearing to tight shirts and kind of looks like a chubby lesbian andy warhol without any sense of style. So, she is running this really beautiful relaxed Hostel, with free Wine hour from 7-8pm, with a huge patio overgrown by wine plants to protect the people from the sun, furnished with hammocks and chill out areas, including a huge bbq grill and clean and beautiful rooms. It cold have been one of the best hostels to stay located directly at the city center of this small but nice town. We actually found good friends there with whom we are travelling for Chile and we expect to celebrate Xmas with. And we had a really a great week there, had much fun, later more to this….
Back to the owner of HI- lets call her M. At first I really thought she is just an american guest who is bevahing like he owns that place. Later that day Tabea told me, that she is the owner. She was nearly always around in the Hostel, we assume she really lives in one of the guest rooms. She is that kind of a person I just had a feeling from the very first second that I dont like her. When i heard she was the owner, i thought i should give her a second chance, because these peolpe can always help you a lot when they like you, so i tried to put on a good face on things, even thought M. is quite good in small talk and seems interested in everything. But nevertheless, we recognized at some times kind of a negative vibe in this hostel. First weird thing that happened was, that we wanted to salute the staff of the hostel from our friend who has been there 5 weeks ago and recommended us this place, but nobody except M. remembered our friend. Later on the first night on of the travellers told us the reason for that. M. took over the hostel only 4 Month ago and withhin this period she fired alsmost 40 people, he told us. For sure, even if you dont like somebody you dont believe every bullshit which is told about him, but 3 days later we have been in the nice situation to actually watch the ritual.
There has been this really friendly 19 year old girl from Germany named Lucy, which helped out whith the breakfast every day. As soon as you got to the Kitchen she asked you if you want to have pancakes for breakfast and if so, she delivered these delicious piece of art of food directly to your table, so you just had to enjoy them. Last wednesday, we came quite late to have breakfast, so after she prepared our pancakes she made her own breakfast, cleared the rest of the dishes and then sat down whit us to eat. M. showed up. Looking quite angry about silly stuff again, she kind of started to scream at this poor little girl, that she has to finish the kitchen before she starts to eat. I had cooked scrambled eggs and i thought i want eat first, before its getting cold and do the dishes afterwards, so the kitchen could have been kind of a little bit messy. Lucy went straight to the kitchen to make up for her mistake, followed by M. going after her like a bloody dinosaurus which hasnt had food for a week, followed by Tabea who wanted to make sure, that not Lucy but me was responsible for the unwashed dishes. At this moment Lucy got fired. But not even for the mess i have made, no. She got fired, because she cleaned up the kitchen, washed all the dishes and let them dry next to the utility sink. She just wanted to have some food meanwhile they while dry, and put them in the cupboard after the breakfast, because they need time to dry anyways…. Seems like M. hasnt been in the best mood this day. There was no pancake Lady anymore and we really missed her tasty pancakes.
Another cook got fired because he didnt know how to make eggs benedict and another one, because there havent been any city maps on the reception desks. A friend of us did the receptionist nightshifts, and when she came down to repare the breakfast with him (because she fires the pancake lady) she started pretty on time, about 3.30. After they finished preparing the breakfast, she offered him a beer at 4 in the morning, just for her individual breakfast. that was the moment, we realized she might be an alcoholic. And as sad this fact is per se, i think her schizophrenic behaviour didnt came only from that that.
The really crazy thing about this has been, even thought, you might feel uncomfortable about how she treated the stuff, we have also witnessed a couple of situations when she didnt screamed at the Staff but on the customers. I even felt it myself. Crazy old lonely lady. Sometimes we really could laught about all this, sometimes all felt wrong there.
We decided we have to move on.
Either ways, Mendoza, we had a spectacular time, thanks for everything. And to all travellers: M. would be a good reason to look for another hostel, but everything else was really fine.
To end it up, here my favorite quote from her, happened to be in a situation when she talked to one of her workers: „If you get paint on this part of the Wall, I cut your dick off!!!“
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