Mendoza
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Chloe Writes: We arrived in Mendoza after a spectacular 8 hour journey over the Andes where thick snow in the winter makes the crossing a celebrated event as the road is closed 50% of the time.
There are two things you certainly can´t complain about in Argentina (well Mendoza at least), one is the huge selection of very cheap restaurants with fantastic food and the other is the amazing local Malbec red wine. Oh yes, and every where has heating too, always a bonus in the winter time.
Mendoza was levelled by an earthquake over a hundred years ago and was subsequently re-built with a plaza (like a mini park) for meeting places & refuges etc, on every other corner. It is a nice place to mooch around and has a fantastic array of craft stalls in the evenings.
You simply can’t go to Mendoza without a tour of the regions wineries, especially not a couple of wine experts like ourselves. This was a tour with a difference though, as we hired bikes and cycled about 20k to visit 3 wineries and an olive grove where we sampled some of the tastiest, creamiest extra virgin olive oil.
Pete Writes: Argentina = Great meat and good wine, yummy. We managed to sample our fair share of the local delicacies in the 4 days that we were there, on our first night we went to an all you can eat buffet, which had a huge selection of salads and a chef who cooked pasta to order. However my highlight was definitely the BBQ meat which was sizzling beside 3ft burning logs, top this off with a couple of full bodied reds and we were waddling all the way home :o)
We spent the following day wandering around the City getting a feel for the place whilst attempting to digest the previous nights feast! However the main reason to be in Mendoza was to hit the vineyards again. After an interesting 30 minute bus ride we were dropped off in Maipu, at Mr Hugo´s bike rental, 15 minutes later we were in the saddle on route to our first Vineyard to try a number of wines. 20km later, a little light headed and a little sore on the old rear end we were sat back at Mr Hugo´s with 20 fellow travellers as our host kept our glasses topped up with Malbec. Needless to say the day turned into night and we ended up stumbling in at 3am, Result :o)
Our next mission was to get back to Chile in time for School, so we had everything crossed as we boarded the bus at 8.30am. At 11am we were still sat in the station, although we had been informed that the pass was not open yet (well I think that’s what he said?) though we were still going to drive the 200km and hope that it would be open by the time we got there. As we snaked our way up towards the border it began to snow but this did not stop us going through, It did however turn our 6 hour journey into a 12 hour marathon, but we made it across in one piece :o)
Page Gallery
Our last view of Valparaiso before boarding the bus to Argentina
There were lots of people skiing on the Chilean side of the Andes
First view of Argentina
A random Chanukah menorah in one of Mendoza´s many Plazas
One of the wine cellars
One bottle of wine is to be kept from each barrel, this winery has been open since the late 1800´s
A building on our cycle route
It was a lovely day for cycling
The legend that is Mr Hugo
C&A lives on in Argentina
The Andes on our trip back to Chile
It was snowing by the time we got to the boarder, we were lucky to cross
Chloe Writes: Wellington really did live up to its reputation as the windy city. Gale force winds were so strong we had to move the van ...