La Alboroza Maipu

... ons erg veel aan Peru denken, behalve dat het hier veel groener is. Overal langs de wegen staan heel veel bomen.
We eten een hapje, drinken en wijntje en duikenons bed in. Het waren vermoeiende dagen.

Op maandag regelen we samen met Chavier de vergunning voor het park, huren we expeditieschoenen en maken we kennis met de organisatie van onze expeditie, Inka!
Morgen vertrekken we dan echt......

... br>We were back on the road, through the flat lands that got a little more rollier and dryer and dryer as we moved further west. The crops changed from oats and wheat to soy and then to wine and olives by the end of the day, about 300 miles further towards Chile. The wild life changed too, with more cactus and flowers adapted to a dryer climate.

We got to the city of Mercedes in the early afternoon and ...

... Parks und einen ganz grossen (St Martin Park) der sogar seinen eigenen Golfkurs, Zoo und Campingplatz hat.
Wir haben um die 30 Grad und nur Sonnenschein, es regnet nur 30 Tage im Jahr hier.
Einen Tag waren wir ausserhalb Mendoza, haben uns Fahrraeder ausgeliehen und uns die Weinberge angeschaut. Wir hatten eine Rundschau und danach durften wir die verschiedene Weine probieren. Ja wir mussten uns etwas konzentrieren auf ...

... off the horse! I had my back pack on and that was doing as much jumping on my back as I was on the horses back!! Not the prettiest of sights I would say!

Because of the terrain we could only trot for short bursts and then we would have to round a corner so we got a breather to collect our thoughts and get a better grip on the saddle and we were off again!!!

We stopped to give the horses a rest and have ‘mate’ which is the preferred drink in South America ...

... the cheaper young red Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlots to the in between ones that contain a proportion of wine that is oak-aged to the older ones that have been oak-aged and subsequently bottled and aged in the cellars. We buy two bottles of the cheap and cheerful wine - less than 3 pounds fifty a bottle. You wouldn´t get anything nearly as good as this stuff for three times the price in London. The final stop is an olive factory that produces only extra virgin oil. The olive ...

... it was pretty but thats about it. It is very obvious that there is money floating around here, more than likely from all those vineyard owners, with locals spending their days sitting in cafes or jogging around the park. So day one in Mendoza.. More than anything i just needed to be outside after such a long bus journey and so made my way to the largest plaza in the city, Plaza Independencia, the center of activity (especially of a weekend), and with some nice green ...

... 2 blocks" away. Eventually we arrived at the bodega, which had seen better days (used to be a major winery, but is now a co-op and operates at 10% capacity). There was a worker painting one of their walls, so perhaps they are making a come back. We got a brief tour in Spanish, took some pics with their huge 75,000 liter French oak barrel, and headed over to the tasting room. We tried a C******nay, Malbec and a sweet dessert ...

... ate our fair share of grapes! Ben digging a bunch of C******nay grapes. And how sweet they were. Olive oil tasting at the Laur olive oil factory. Det and Sally, bless their hearts, foot the bill for a nice apartment in downtown Mendoza! We cooked awesome meals together ...

... I selected the hostel Confluencia ... At the reception I was told, that only a single room was available what was fine with me - although my single room had four beds (so it seems he is empty and wanted to make some more money because a single room is of course more expensive than one bed in a dorm room), but the hostel in general looks nice and ...

... fingers to scratch all the itches and the more you scratched the worse the itching became. We caught a local bus out to Maipu which was a good few kilometres out of town where we picked up the bicycles we'd rented for the day. We were given a map of the area and shown were the recommended stops were along the route. Due to all the drama at the hostel we got a slightly late start and only really got cycling around lunch time. Therefore our first stop was for lunch and we ...