Crillon Mendoza

... exhillerating, so will try some place else. Did manage to book a couple of other excursions though, a wine & bike tour for the next day, and some downhill mountain biking the day after, the main reason for us both coming here. Discovered that night that our room was right above the entrance and reception area, and the hostel took in a bus load of 18 year old kids that day so had to break out the ear plugs again.
Next day we went on a tour of local wineries on ...

... a lot of interesting things we have never heard before and told us what wine means to him. Everything! He puts his heart and soul in making perfect and tasty wine. Of course we could taste some different wines as well and to be honest, the wines we tasted at Carmelo’s winery were the best ones I’ve ever tried! Especially one of them which actually is a mixture of different wines. It took Carmelo more than 40 days to find the perfect combination… ...

... the Himalayers at 6900m - although we stuck to the foothills at 3000m). After a 3 hour bus trip we reached our destination, doned our snow shoes and set off in a rather clown type fashion - these shoes are twice as wides as normal shoes and four times as long, they took some getting used to! With a bit of practice we headed towards the southern face of the mountain, through several feet deep snow and across frozen lakes. The walk was actually ...

... uniforms here, they all have the pleasure of wearing Mc Donalds jeans, denim shirts and belts... Also the "chef" was dressed like Robocop... we christened him "Robochip".... picture explains it all.... gas mask, hughe black gloves... they sure take their job seriously.... Feeling wrecked so went to the market and had a few early beers to wreck us out for a long siesta. Then it was time to check Mendoza out, this is beautiful city ...

... started after sunset as we had a greedy tour operator who sold two consecutuve horse rides as sun set rides, the tour before us got the sunset!), and finished off with a huge bbq and red wine.... Well, it was our last bit of time in Argentina. Reluctantly though it was time to head back to Santiago to catch our flight to Sydney. Yet another final epic journey, here goes - 10 hours on a bus including a 2 hour stop at customes where we were all lined up and ...

... who seemed to enjoy hobnobing with us. It was a good experience. Which was lucky as at this point it was too late to search for any other of the few wineries who were equipped to host us.

Unfortunately, that was the extent of our wine country experience. If you really go to Argentina to taste wine, do their homework and line some tastings up, or at least, a route as otherwise you will wind up driving around ...

... bottles of wine and empanadas. We eventually finish up at 3:30am in the hostel bar anfter dragging a few more people in tow and losing others. Turns out Ori is a budding magician and has a few card tricks up his sleeves. All in all a cracking introduction to Argentina. PS Juan old buddy old pal - the chicks are better looking in Northen Chile than in Mendoza Fact!!! Never thought I would say that but itīs the indisputible truth