Petit Hotel Mendoza

I finally settled in Mendoza, a city of about 1 million in the Cuyo, a central region near the Andes and 1060km (659mi) west of Buenos Aires. What a beautiful place it is. We have many lakes, so water sports are popular in the summer months. The mountains provide a forum for hiking, climbing, and horse-back riding. And ...

... that I meet along the road accompany me to the hostel, give me the Argentine high five, and wish me luck on the journey which initiate the positive atmosphere that carries through the rest of my stay.
Hostel Lao is a quaint, home-style hostel which was started by a Brit a number of years ago and captures most all of the good things about a hostel, and avoids many of the pitfalls. Not 10 minutes into my check-in I get invited out to dinner by a Norwegian named Magnus and a group of ...

... make into 8 or 9 different wines including two blends which they themselves have invented. So the whole place felt very personal and we got to try lots of wines (outside sitting at wooden tables in the sunshine) including some of their own mixes. Needless to say, we ended up buying a bottle of the Malbec Rose which we are saving for a rainy day :-).

In the late afternoon we did have a slightly amusing incident which instilled mild panic ...

... and bigger than Central Park in New York. Its a remarkable achievement. In my last entry I talked about how protesters burning tyres had blocked the entry to Mendoza, causing a 2 hour delay to our journey. Those protesters turned out to be teachers and other public sector workers campaigning for higher pay. But it seems like "piqueter" as it is known is somewhat of a national pastime - it happened again today this time ...

... joined us. We started work around noon and got home around 11:30! Just the way I like to start harvest. Matias got us this cute little cottage near the winery for us to live in. It has a sweet pool and a gorgeous view. It´s pretty much the best place ever. We are about 4kms from town so we have to rely on Jose (the only other employee at the winery) to drive us to town for groceries and ...

... room, the centre of which is a 3 ton stone table, which was put in in 3 seperate sections, and then the roof was put on once the table was in place. On 3 of the walls are wine racks from floor to ceiling, all containing various wines that Salentein produce. It goes without saying that the wines were very good, but I am starting to understand the tasting a bit more, and what I like in a wine and what I don´t . . and have got used to tipping away the remains of a ...