Red Red Wine, White Water Rafting and Burning

Well, I've spent the last week here in Mendoza melting away in the scorching heat.  Mendoza is Argentina's wine country.  One of the first things I did after escaping the miserable humidity of Buenos Aires, was take a wine tour through Maipú region.  I did a half day tour that brought us to one organic winery, a more industrial winery (where they have one barrel imported from Germany that holds 44,000 litres of wine), a place where they grow olives and produce olive oil, and finally a liquor and chocolate shop.  The main part of the tour was focused on the production of wine and not so much on the tasting.  We only had 5 samples of wine in total, and I can honestly say I didn't learn anything I hadn't known beforehand.  I did enjoy the family owned liqueur making shop, where they produced all sorts of liqueurs, from Gin, to Brandy, to Vermouth and Irish Cream, to chocolate hazelnut and this one called 'Pimento Verde' made from this hot pepper... very spicy.  We were allowed to choose one liqueur each to sample (I went with chocolate banana) and samples of the chocolates, which weren't great, but I bought a box anyhow (it IS chocolate...).

the sunrise through the bus window

So, needless to say, being in wine country, I've been sipping on a lot of wine.  Their most popular grape is Malbec... we've been able to find some excellent varieties for 10 pesos (just over 3 dollars).  Amazing!  Oh!  And yesterday we spent the say ay Carrefour, this MASSIVE supermarket here, comparable to Walmart but higher end.  I haven't seen a place like this since I left Canada and it was a treat!  I cooked up a great vegetable stirfry with teriyaki salmon and rice.  Delicous!

Sunrise

Apart from drinking wine until 530 in the morning, I've been lazing around poolside at the hostel.  Mendoza is in the middle of a desert and it is HOT!  41 degrees out the other day, and I can't say it has cooled off much since then, so my day revolves around jumping in and out of the pool just to stop sweating.

We also hopped onto a bus for four hours and visited the Puente del Inca, a natural stone bridge that crosses the Rio Mendoza.  It's not possible to cross the bridge anymore, but it's a beautiful site... a gorgeous color, as the rock walls are stained a golden-orange from the sulfurous thermal springs.  From there we hiked 4 kms to Parque Provincial Aconcagua.  Aconcagua is the highest summit in the Americas at 6960 meters.  To climb this mountain you are required to register with the park ranger, higher a professional guide, and pay for permits.  The day we visited the region there were 800 people hiking that mountain, and it takes 2 weeks to do so!  We just walked around, went for a picnic at one of the tourist attractions in the parque, a Laguna, which looked more like a tiny pond you'de find just outside of Edmonton.  We hiked back from the parque through the desert and by the time we hopped back on the bus we were all burned to a crisp.

Tasting the Vino

I gave white water rafting a go (finally... I think I´ve been wanting to try this sport for much too long now).  The river through the mountains here isn´t what I would call ´white´.  I actually went 'sediment-filled freezing cold brown water rafting'.  But it was so much fun!  We went though Class II - Class IV rapids, and let me tell you, I lucked out!!  Of the 5 rafts crashing down the river... the guide for our raft was by far the craziest.  Where the rest of the rafts would bend around the rough rapids, our guide plowed us straight through the center of them.  The intensity snowballed... and we just kept paddling faster and harder through the rapids, until we flipped right over!  I was trapped under the raft twice.. once following the initial flip, and again when the guide turned the raft back over.  Half of us scrambled back into the raft and the others were helped into other rafts.   Frozen solid, and shivering like mad... but I hardly noticed, because the adreniline after that spill was pumping through me so fast!  We celebrated poolside in the Andes afterwards with snacks and beers.  I can´t wait to try out rafting in WHITE water back in the Okanogan now!

Liquers

Tomorrow I´ll be taking a night bus into Chile, where I'll be spending the next two weeks.  Chile is the most expensive country down here, especially on a backpackers budget, so I'm going to try my best to see as much as I can in a short time period. 

Organic Wine

Organic Vineyard

Charlie (WALES) and the MASSIVE lake

Me and What I think is Aconcagua Behind Me

Gauchos!

The Peak of Aconcagua

Mountain range near Aconcagua

Puenta del Inca