Mendoza

  Mendoza, Argentina
Sunday, June 7, 2009

Severely bendy road!

 On Saturday we caught the bus from Valparaiso to Mendoza which was an absolutely spectacular journey, crossing the Andes. The mountains were jagged and huge and surprisingly colourful – thinking back now one of the most distinct memories is the colours; purple, green, coppery colours looking beautiful in the sunlight. The 7 hours actually flew by, and though there was one section of the road that was perilously hairpin-bend-filled, we had to do it very slowly as we were behind a truck so the travel sickness was kept under wraps. 

Fountain in Plaza Indepencia in Mendoza

 We arrived in Mendoza at around 3pm, walked into the centre of the town and found our hostel. After dumping the bags we headed out for a walk and had a lovely meander round the craft market. Mendoza is quite pleasant to walk around, as the streets are really wide (sadly because it has been destroyed previously by earthquakes so they re-built it with wide streets as a “terremoto”-precaution). We stayed up late watching films and had a nice long sleep with a lie in in the morning. 
 

Jim at the lake

 On Sunday we got up and decided to head to the park on the West side of town, and had a nice walk around the lake there and saw our first Argentinian birds. We also visited another open-air museum, this time it was a road lined with boxes containing models of typical Mendoza scenes, like “the marketplace” which were cute. In the late afternoon we went to the supermarket and bought ingredients for a pasta-dinner back at the hostel. We had a really nice evening chatting with everybody in the kitchen. 
 

Us at La Rural

 On Monday we had a fantastic and hysterical day. We caught the bus about 45 minutes out of Mendoza (with three others from our hostel, Claire, Jamie and Vicky) to one of the main wine-growing regions to visit some “bodegas” (vineyards). So we decided to all hire bikes, and we chose to hire a tandem which added much hilarity to the whole experience. The afternoon was gorgeous, warm, blue skies and sunny and we were cycling along tree lined avenues in the countryside and then popping into vineyards in between so it was fabulous fun. We visited a few bodegas, La Rural which is the biggest wine producer of the area where we got to have a look at some of the old equipment, like old grape-presses and lots of other little quaint bits. And then we got a free tasting of a Malbec, which is the red wine which the region is famous for. 
 

The two of us on our tandem!

 We then had a long cycle (we think 11 kilometres or so) to reach the Carinae vineyard (one of the smallest in the region) where we had a guided tour of the winery and learnt loads about how they make wine and everything so that was interesting. It's called Carinae because that is the name of a constellation which they can see only at the time of year when the grapes are being picked so they have the constellation printed on the labels which was cool. The vineyard is owned by a French couple who had always dreamed of running a winery so they retired to Mendoza and refurbished one that was in a state of bad repair. 

Wine tasting at Carinae vineyard

 They had to learn everything about wine when they started so they grow Cabernet, Malbec and Syllah grapes which they 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 :-).
 

La Rural winery

 In the late afternoon we did have a slightly amusing incident which instilled mild panic into our veins when we realised that we had actually changed time zone when we entered Argentina and we didn't know so it was an hour later than we thought it was and we had to cycle back to the base with quite some speed. In the evening we got our first long-haul bus to Buenos Aires which was a really amazing coach with big reclining leather seats.
 
Anyway.....we miss you all as always and are looking forward to our ever-nearing reunions xxxxxxx