Finest wine in South America - Mendoza, Argentina

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Our last 18hr South American bus journey, from Bariloche to Mendoza, was probably the most fun of all the bus journeys taken. It was comfortable, the food was good, time to get to Mendoza seem to go quite quick and the biggest highlight of the journey was winning a bottle of wine at bus bingo in Spanish. Mum - you would be so proud of your daughter, all those years of practising with you paid off. To the disappointment of some of the locals on the bus, (l´m sure a lot of them were thinking ´not that roudy gringo chica in the back..´) it made a very pleasant and interesting bus ride.

Over 1000 active wineries in Mendoza makes up over 70% of the Argentinas wine. The minute l set foot into this city it spelled out cool, culture and great living. Wide streets, trendy shops, pedestrian streets, good restaurants and more outdoor activities.

Apparently it only rains 1 week throughout the entire year (of course in the 4 days we were there it rained for 2 of them!), so the sun was shining when we arrived and we´d heard that Mendoza is reknowned for great weather with very little wind...

The perfect place to go paragliding given the wind was calm, (l had tried in several places over the last 7 weeks but due to the wind conditions it was always cancelled). Paragliding was great fun, we started at 1200m high. Lou and l were the last to go so we got to watch all the gliders run off the mountain, running off the edge doesn´t sound so inviting but once we actually saw how it´s down it´s quite a graceful lift off. The highest reached was 2600m in the air, l literally was sitting back and enjoying the ride and the view over Mendoza. A couple of 360 degree turns to decent and a spinning head later l didn´t quite land the way l was suppose too but lets just say the parachute was still in good nick when we did!

The winery tour was top of the list for Mendoza, (of course l was already familiar with the wine having won bingo :0) ). We were taken to 2 different wineries, one industrial and one small boutique winery which specialised in limited wine only distributed around Argentina, and an alcohol distillery which specialised in Gin and Grappa. The boutique winery was great, the wine was called Wayna, they specialised in red wine and have the best Malbec l´ve ever tasted. Throughout the day wine flowed like a stream particularly over lunch. Lunch was fantastic. We all stuffed ourselves with great food and wine for the afternoon, which left everyone very content and ready for an afternoon nap.

Highly recommend Mendoza as a destination lots of rafting, trekking, wine tours are a must do (there is the option to do the wine tour by bike but you don´t get half as much wine nor lunch), and the sun is (usually) shining every day.

Last stop in South America, back into Chile and time for some relaxation on the beach.

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Photos

Overlooking Mendoza
Ready to hoist the chute up and run off the edge

Nadia and Alexander
lets fly..