Mendoza, Argentinean wine region
Trip Start
May 27, 2008
1
7
26
Trip End
Sep 06, 2008
Mendoza,
Cuyo,
Argentina
Monday, June 16, 2008
After another long bus ride including an hour stop at Neuquen we arrived in Mendoza at stupid o'clock in the morning, tired, grumpy and in dire need of some sleep (the bus ride wasn't to pleasant!) we got our bags, grabbed a coffee and then took a cab to the Hostel in the hopes that it wasn't to early to get in our room to sleep. Luckliy although it was pretty early we only had to wait 20mins before our room was ready. Got into the room and it was only then we realised someone had gone through our bags! There was some of my stuff in Bushy's bag and it was all messed up and not how we'd packed it. They'd nicked the laptop charger (thats why theres been no blog entry for a while) Bushy's little video camera plus some other little bits, including the dam chocolate we were gonna send home so I'm afraid theres no chocolate coming for you mums and dads! :-( The guy at the hostel was very helpful and came with us to translate to the bus company what had happened but there was nothing that could be done, so never mind aye!
Well that night we went to a Mexican Restaurant called Cielito Lindo, which was great and a nice change from the normal pasta and beef dishes on offer throughout most of Argentina. We bought a nice bottle of red which was from a local vineyard and then a second :-) it was very nice! We decided we should definately do one of the wine tours while we were here so we booked one for the following day. When we woke up though the last thing we wanted to do was taste more wine! lol! but it wasn't till the afternoon so we went for a walk and found a bookstore with some english titles where we stocked up a bit, its amazing how much you can read on 12-14 hour bus rides!
The wine tour was really good except for the lack of wine to taste, just a drop in a glass per person?! thats no way to sell wine, I would've bought much more if I'd had a few glasses down me already! it included 2 Vineyards, one small family run one called Carmine Granata and a much bigger international company called Viniterra, the tour ended with a trip to an Establecimiento Fruti-Olivicola called Pasrai which I found really interesting as I had no idea how olive oil was made. They also dried fruits and veg to sell, so I bought some sundried tomatoes yum and dried apple slices (closest thing I've had to cider for a month! argh!). Once we got back we were in the mood for some more drink so we headed out, we had some awful food at this apparently amazing restaurant El Palenque, really not nice infact I could've done better lol! it was probably more because we were expecting something amazing but anyway the rum and cokes afterwards got us over the dissapointment just fine :-) The day after we spent most of the day in bed chillin or in my case asleep until 5, i wasn't to well self inflicted though so can't complain!
Well that pretty much adds up our time in Mendoza, short and sweet but I really enjoyed it. It's a lot bigger than I was expecting but one of the nicer cities to walk around that we've been to so far. Our next stop is Santiago, Chile after a 7 hourish ride over the Andes. I'm looking forward to that.
