Aconcagua Mendoza

Stay for two nights then go from Foz do Iguaçu to Mendoza, Argentina Take the train? Maipu you can do by city bus out of M. for about US$1.50. Tell the driver to let you off at the bicycle rental place. Rent a bike and do the winery tour. Glaciers Tour - http://www.losglaciares ...

... in the sun. There were 9 different pools of different temps and I made sure to try them all! <br><br>Monday, bus to Santiago with amazing Andes mountain scenery! Glad I took the day bus instead of the night bus. But, I didn´t bother to tell the Chilean border guards that I had been in their country illegally a few weeks before =) Somehow, I don´t think they would find it very funny...

... the name of the restaurant but the food was decent. I made sure this time that we had our checks separately. Thats one thing around here they don´t even ask you they just put you all together and trust me it is a HUGE mess trying to figure out how to separate a bill between 7 people. <br><br>After lunch we just hung out for a little while waiting to head to the bus station. We said goodbye to Mendoza and jumped on a bus for 14 hours I think....<br><br>to be continued Buenos Aires :)<br>

... of 4 wines. Well, actually only 2 wines. 3 of the samples were of Malbec, all different ages. The other was a very sweet and delicious dessert wine. Fortified by our tasting, we zoomed down the road to the second winery, a slightly larger and more modern affair. The fermentation tanks were concrete blocks, very unromantic. This time we got only 3 tasting...two of Malbec, and one of a Malbec / Cab Sauv blend. Can you ...

... we were sitting in a two-door car. On our drive back home, the bike race returned the other way, and I gave the riders some encouraging honks and yells out the window. Given we saw all of the sites in one day (we had planned on two), we raced home, somehow figured out our way through the taxi barricade and massive traffic it caused, and returned the car a day early. Mary cooked up another pasta dinner, this one quite spicy and tasty ...

Le sang de la Terre: promenade dans le pays du vin Blood of the Earth: walking around the wine country ---------- Après ces deux semaines à buller à Santiago, il était temps de retourner à l'ouvrage et de continuer ma route. Le plus simple pour aller en Argentine est de prendre le bus pour Mendoza, à 6h de route, de l'autre côté des Andes. C'est donc ce que j'ai fait, pour mon plus grand plaisir: cette route est extraordinairement belle, les montagnes sont superbes ...

... all went for a meal in Puerto Madera, in a really nice restaurant called Siga la Vaca (Follow the Cow). It was all you can eat, so we stuffed ourselves. Had another beautiful steak, and a bottle of wine was included in the price of 63 pesos so obviously I had to drink the whole thing. Then we went to an irish bar, The Kilkenny in San Martin and had a few drinks, and after that, went up to see the bears again in San martin plaza cos the girls hadn´t seen them, and ended up ...

... la terrasse d'un grand batiment surplombant la ville buvant un verre de vin en ecoutant des boleros. Beaucoup de couples, chiquement habilles, ils connaissent les chansons par coeur et les fredonnent. C'est tres beau, l'ambiance est super. Apres cela on dine quelques tapas dans un resto de quartier avant de rentrer a l'auberge. Changement radical d'ambiance.

All the good stuff in Argentina seems to come from Mendoza, like the best wines, mineral water, olive oil and other produce. Wherever we went, whether it was a supermarket or a restaurant in the south or in Buenos Aires, we spotted the name 'Mendoza' printed proudly on the labels. So we arrived in this small city at the foothills of the Andes with great anticipation. To add to the suspense, I couldn't get us a room in any hotel in the city (we later found out that our visit ...

... bodega, which was clearly much older than most of the others that we'd passed and was a real family affair. <br><br>Their method of producing wine differed to the new bodega we visited earlier, or the two bodegas that we visited in Cafayate; it was more traditional, more like the French wineries ...