Damajuana Hostel Mendoza

By the pool

I was quickly made aware of how things were to be in Mendoza at Damajuana hostel when I arrived at 7:30am and was joined in the lounge by two Scottish lads who were continuing their sleepless night with a bottle of red, giving renditions of Disney songs and saying that they were going to marry my sister. The Pool Whilst the word for pool in Spanish is piscina (although I think the Argies want to be different again and call it pileta) you should in no way take that in an English kind of way an...

Mendoza, Argentina camille

Mendoza

Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina and is located a short distance over the Andes from Santiago. I took the overnight bus from Bariloche and I was really concerned about the length of time - 17 hours. It ended up being a piece of cake! The first 6 hours were taken up by movies, then we had some food, then we slept and when I woke up, I was just 2 hours out of the city. The buses here come in 3 different classes - semi-cama, cama and suite. The semi-cama lies back 45 degrees with a bit o...

Mendoza, Cuyo, Argentina davejin

Mendoza - wine country

Its funny, but the moment i got back into Argentina I felt a lot better about things. Well, there was still the problem of trying to actually meet some great people and hang out with them for more than 2 days, but at least i could eat some decent steak again and not spend a fortune. I initially stayed at a hostel called Damajuana, which was about 10 blocks from the centre, and had a really nice pool and tv room. I stayed there for 3 nights, before moving across the road to another. Mendoza is...

Mendoza, Cuyo, Argentina howardino

"I am NOT drinking any malbec."

Mendoza is a bustling little city in the west of Argentina that has a deceptively sleepy Santa Barbara feel. It's situated near the base of the Andes mountains and the Chilean border. It's also the wine capital of Argentina, producing more than 60% of the nation's wines. I found a superb hostel right on the main drag with a nice backyard and pool. Felt more like a resort than a hostel. And as a bonus they played Oasis for nearly the full two hours I was sitting by the pool. Around 2:00pm a bu...

Mendoza, Argentina intrepidfred

jakedg stayed at this hotel on Oct 1, 2009 during their trip titled: Jakedg's Great Adventure

Mendoza, Argentina jakedg

The Wine Region!

And they thought they'd got rid of us... James and Jonny tried to adopt another couple Mike from Devon and Victoria from Glasgow but it turned out we all got along great. The lads bonded quickly by becoming addicted to ping pong and played on a regular basis into the wee hours of the morning. We changed from the Damajuana Hostel to Hostel Independencia, the guys tried to claim that although our first hostel was nearer the nightlife and had a swimming pool, the new hostel was in a better area,...

Mendoza, Argentina liammichelle

Hitch-hiking, Abseiling and Being Pick-Pocketed :(

A 4a.m start took me to the major city of Mendoza, where I stayed in the fab Damajuana hostel with pool & BBQ. I met up again with Reece & a big group of us went out Saturday night to a funky club that got busy at 3a.m....when we left at 8a.m, we beat the taxi queue by hitching! Argentinian nightlife is always v v late, with dinner about 11 & clubs after 2a.m, hard work even for a night owl like me!! And after nights like that, daytime activities are a little restricted (yawn!) b...

Mendoza, Cuyo, Argentina sara_minx

Malbec-land

Greetings from Mendoza, Argentina - the heart of Argentina's wine country. There are over 1000 bodegas (wineries) around Mendoza with a combined annual production of over a Billion liters. The majority of the wine produced is consumed locally - so I figured I would consume some locally as well! A group of us rented bicycles, a map, and took to spend a couple days visiting bodegas - we toured large scale operations and mom-and-pop vineyards, sampled some exceptional premium wines as well as s...

Mendoza, Cuyo, Argentina seankervin

Touching the top of Aconcagua - 22,841 feet

Mendoza is at the base of the highest mountains in the Americas, the highest is Aconcagua - which, at 22,841 feet, is the tallest peak outside the Himalayas. Originally I considered climbing Aconcagua, but it takes 12 to 15 days to summit. I didn't want to spend that much time so I took a bus to a good observation point on the Chilean border where I could "touch the top". . The scenery was spectacular - we stopped at a cool ancient bridge, a thermal hot springs they call the Inca bridge wher...

Las Cuevas, Cuyo, Argentina seankervin

Mendoza, canyoning and the wine tour

We are now in the home of Malbec and generally every other wine on the planet. Apparently Mendoza makes about 80% of Argentina´s wine...awesome! We have been exploring the town and it appears to be similar to pretty much a suburb of BA, has some nice plazas etc! Again, we came here to chill out for a while...as if we didn´t have enough of that in our 9 day extravaganza in Bariloche! But there really is no such thing as too much relaxation! On our first day here we were sitting in a pub for lu...

Mendoza, Cuyo, Argentina willandliz