Christmas in Mendoza and the Gift of Girlfriends

I booked a hostel online which is something I don’t normally do. I was paranoid I wouldn’t find anything decent for Christmas as well as the fact that I was dying from the heat of this country and needed a hostel with a pool. My anxiety of being alone for Christmas however took over and I ended up following a really nice English girl to her hostel which lacked in the pool department. She was cool, we got along well and I didn’t have a down payment on the other hostel so I figured why not spend Christmas with her.

I soon met friends of hers that she had met in Bolivia a Scottish girl, an English girl and a Belgium girl. We added an American guy to our mix who became the token male in our girl chats. I was feeling in good spirits again I was surrounded by a group of independent single traveling girls around my age which I was discovering harder to find as most travellers seem to be 5-8 years younger than me now.

This is the one thing I really miss when I am traveling; my group of girlfriends. The girlfriend bond is a very important one to have in our lives and we are very lucky we are able to have this type of relationship. Men’s relationship with other men usually revolve around an activity, it’s not too often that they will sit up all night sharing hopes, fears, and dreams with another mate over a case of beer.

Our girlfriends are reflections of who we are, they will be an understanding ear, a comrade in retail therapy, and they are honest and will give insight. Having a girlfriend makes you feel loved. It doesn’t matter if you are single or if you are having family problems, girlfriends provide you with love and support. As well with true friends no time or distance will ever affect that bond.

You can be an independent traveller who is able to make friends at every hostel or you can be traveling with your boyfriend who is always there for you but in the end something is always going to be missing, we need our girl time. I was very grateful to be able to spend my Christmas with a fantastic bunch of girlfriends. I had just met them but we got along right away and soon enough we were saying cheers to being single, independent women traveling the world and dishing our men stories.

Christmas is celebrated December 24 in Latin America so our chain of hostels put on a Christmas party. We didn’t have the traditional turkey and stuffing that comes from our countries but it was a nice meal with lots of Argentinean wine. They had a DJ playing pop, funk and reggeaton and gave out masks and shakers. This wasn’t enough entertainment for us so we decided to do the typical girl’s night out thing and make up dares. Ok I admit this is more like a typical 16 year old girl’s night out but I have never claimed to be mature. Fireworks went off at midnight while we saw how many Brazilian nipples we could lick... unfortunately they were all prawns.

I have never liked how commercial Christmas is and that’s why I can handle being away from home for it for the last few years but the one thing I do like about the concept of Christmas is being around people you love. Friends really are a better gift than anything else and I was happy to have the gift of girlfriends on this Christmas.