Gran Hotel Mendoza

A good start but bit of a struggle with the signs on the Chilean freeways (sorry not free they charge for them)!
As always eventually get on the right road which is the reverse of the route across from Mendoza. It is a lot warmer today but I have extra clothes on just in case it cools a bit higher up, I got really chilled coming across first time and don't need a repeat.
It is a really quick ...

Went to Mendoza to meet Marcela and just walked around the city for 2 days and then done a wine tour on bikes. Mendoza is famous for wine, and even though wine tastes like ****, I done it anyway.

Hired bikes on the wine route and first went to a Museum of wine. Boring. But free wine. Next rode to a chocolate/liquer place which was awesome. Lots of different weird liquers to taste. Stuff like chocolate ...

... and cheap) steak and wine deserves a special mention!

Lowlight: Wierd white, crustless bread sandwiches with ham and cheese served on every bus. Enough with the ham and cheese now.

Funniest moment: The cacophany of vomit sounds coming from green faces on the whale watching boat, and then everyone walking back on unsteady legs carrying their little parcels of puke. We were unaffected so we had great fun mimicking their sounds to make them vomit more ...

... the border complex of Los Horcones, you´ll find Puente del Inca, this is the southernmost point the Incas ever went. It is tought that the year they reached this natural bridge, they had to turn back because the Tupungato volcano (6500m) was in eruption. There used to be a spa at Puente del Inca but that too was not meant to last as it was destroyed in an avalanche in the 1980´s. The road down from Puente del Inca to ...

... a measly ARS100 (less than USD30)! Directly across the street from Carinae was an olive oil plant that is 400 years old! The perfectly timed snack of fresh olive oil and sundried tomatoes was phenomenal, but it was the ARS6 (less than USD2) jar of olive tapenade that was to die for. I don't know why we didn't purchase tons of this stuff, it was so freaking good and damn cheap. We learned that it takes 8kg of olives to produce a 1L ...

... long way. It also helped that I was wrecked after St Patricks Day so I slept for a good portion of the 16 hours. I had no hostel booked when I got to Mendoza so I met a woman at the station who was meeting people coming off the buses who owned a hostel close to the station so I went to her place. Its pretty nice, and very cheap, only 30 pesos per night. Then after I had settled in a bit I went to Maipu to rent a bike and visit some wineries. Met up with a Canadian guy, 19 ...

... je niets meer te vertellen... Oke, helaas bleek bij alle wijnproeverijen de Malbec op het hoofdgerecht, maar ik moet zeggen dat het wel leuk is om iets meer van wijn proeven te weten. Trouwens, dat het naar bosbessen, vanille of leer ofzo smaakt, is volstrekte onzin. Dat is alleen maar prietpraat van mensen die elkaar willen aftroeven om te beschrijven hoe veel de wijn fruitig (druif) of naar eiken smaakt. Goed, genoeg Argentijnse wijnles. Het was tijd geworden om een andere ...

... a wine cellar where your friendly sommelier helps you choose the wine for your meal which is pretty flash! I head off to the mountains for a sightseeing trip and we get as far as the border of Chile at the christo redentor monument, 400m up and its 4oC, bit of a shocker! The andes are spectacular, reminiscent of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, they are a multitude of colours from all the minerals. We stop off at a currently unused ski resort and i head up on a chair ...

... days we walked until our feet felt like falling off (around 50km over two days) and were blown away by the views of the glaciers and the famous torres (towers) of rock. The place was one of the most beautiful we had seen with glaciers, huge valleys and even tadpoles for Charlotte. And best of all was the weather which was supreme, without a cloud in the sky- something we would later come to appreciate even more. We crossed down into Chile for our planned 4 day ...