Could you spare some change? Please....

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**This one´s from Dave...with KJ chimin´in here and there, as she does**

Mendoza...Tierra del Vino

In Chile, you seem to have pockets full of change all the time...we were always getting back lots of change (coins). But in Mendoza, forget about it! Getting a hold of the stuff that jingles in your pocket is a real trick sometimes as we found out in the suburbs when we were trying to find coins for the bus. It is all automated and accepts only coins and the driver carries no change at all, we had two experiences with that!!!! We´ve also received change back in the form of candy and once in band-aids. Go figure.

Anyways, we arrived early to the desolate streets of Mendoza on Sunday morning. The city center itself is a beautiful area with almost every street lined with very old Sycamore trees. Now for me that was ingenious forethought by whomever, because Mendoza is our first experience with the heat - It was hot there!! But thanks to the trees, walking around this great city was a pleasure.

At 8:30 AM the streets were quiet and we were hungry (the bus never stopped for dinner) after our 17 hour bus ride. The bus, actually, was kind of rough. We booked it with Andesmar (recommended to us by Ashley, who has been on a bus or two in this country) and we ended up on their partner bus Tramat. Not so bad except they had not cleaned it or communicated much of anything for the passengers. Oh well, we also were unable to get the direct bus to Mendoza and soon realized the difference - we must have stopped at well over 25 places en route, greatly adding to the trip time. We will not mention the extremely loud snoring guy that thankfully got off at about 3 AM somewhere. All in all though we were able to get a relatively good amount of sleep. We got the mostly horizontal seats down stairs and they are worth the price since we did not have any bus hangover and hit the ground running in Mendoza.

Once in Mendoza we found an open cafe for some early breakfast that recharged us and we set off to find a place to sleep. We finally found the very clean City Hotel and got a room there. Every person there was extremely friendly and very helpful. After dumping our packs we spent the rest of the day exploring the town as well as a 2 hour bus ticket planning and buying session. In that short amount of time we had figured out the next week ending with our next long bus ride to Salta the next weekend.

Mendoza itself is the largest most equipt frontiertown (meaning not Buenos Aires) in the northern part of the country. Its narrow streets and tree lined everything made it a very enjoyable place to be. We ended up walking just about everywhere and seeing the sights, old buildings, markets and many plazas and historical sights. Slowly, as the day progressed the city became more alive with people filling the streets. The end of the night showed the true beauty of the city with everyone and everything out along the sidewalks and plazas. Families, clowns, puppetshows, soccer rallies, and everything in between was out and about making it our nicest city / cultural experience yet of the trip. It definatily felt less touristy than the south and was a very enjoyable place.

That night we had a nice, very nice dinner just west of the main square. I had trout with potatoes and veggies and Kevyn had the steak. Yep we finally tried the meat and I even had a bite. While it was good, I never liked steak and it would have been wasted on me. But we will definately try it again and I am actually looking for another tenedor libre - all you can eat- to try a few other things. The highlight of dinner was a very good Andian trio of musicians who made played a great flutes and were quite enjoyable.

Getting Sorted with the Bus

The next morning we were off early to get our tent set up at a place recommended by Pete - Camping Suizo. We were told that we only needed $1,10 to ride the bus and set out to find the correct bus which was easy enough. Once we boarded we were confronted with the machine, a magnetic card or change only - of which we had neither. I tried to see if the driver made change and he only motioned me to move so others could board and he could continue on the route. We then asked other passengers for change to no avail. All the while some lady was going on about something as loud as you could possibly could, we told her we did not understand her so she started over only much louder and faster. So finally a nice guy sitting in front said he did not have change, but used his card twice to get us the 2 tickets we needed. All this while were are bouncing down the road with our packs and groceries and everything else we could possible have. We were definitely the unknowing tourists disrupting the natural efficient order and flow of the sytem and were only saved by the nice guy in front who I gave the foldable money to.

SO, Lesson Learned: have the correct change before getting on the bus! Simple enough, one would think, right?

We took the ride through a NW suburb and arrived at the camp site with the automatic gate. Alejandro met us and showed us the ammenities and a site which we took and made camp. Not wanting to miss anything we quickly got ready to leave and catch the twice hourly bus back into downtown, we had the correct change and the ride back was uneventful. We had our next bus destination figured and was able to get change quite easily by buying lunch and water.

Wines and Bikes, Bikes with Very Hard Seats

We made our way to the next bus stop and we were headed to another suburb Maipu to rent some bikes and ride around checking out some wineries which this area is very famous for.

We arrived to a very friendly place called bikes and wine (blasting Guns And Roses) and hired the 2 bright yellow bikes. Armed with our map and some water we set out in the 90 degree plus heat. We first entered a winery that was very modern and big. We caught the tail end of the tour and set off to the next without tasting anything because of the heat. The second one was a ways down the very busy and narrow road but we managed to survive.

The next winery, Viña el Cerno, was a much smaller and more traditional winery from before the turn of the century. They had the original grape mashing machines, but said when harvest comes they roll out the more modern equipment. Nonetheless, the older equipment was well preserved and very interesting to see. We went inside and saw the storage tanks, the fermenting tanks and finally the cellars where the age the wine in oak barrels. The tour ended and we had a brief intorduction on the proper methods of tasting and tasted a few. Our tour cost $5 US per person and included a bottle of wine for each of us! Can´t beat that!

Off to the next winery and by far the best, Familia di Tomasso. Originally built in the early 1860´s this winery was family run throughout the centuries until the Argentine devaluation when it shut down. It only recently reopened for business, although it does all of its fermantation elsewhere because of the old technology of the fermentors they have - concrete. They then move the wine to oak and store it on site. This winery started again in the early 2000´s at 10,000 bottles and is up to over 50,000 bottles this year - still a far cry from the millions of bottles that it used to produce.

The building was at least as interesting (if not more interesting) for me than the winery. It was, as our guide mentioned, the first building in Argentina built to resist the siesmic activity of the area. The bricks, concrete and steel were all imported from Europe and the building was built with very impressive walls and ceiling structures. I would feel safe inside in any earthquake and it has stood the test of time and hundreds of earth quakes since it was constructed over 150 years ago.

Our guide was great and very nice even though we were the last tour of the day and he was obviously tired. He explained so much about the wine, the building and some about Argentine history and identity with in its own borders as well as internationally. This was definitely the highlight of the tour. I should not forget to mention though that the dessert wine they had made was incredible, and I do not generally like such wines. The wine was derived from a family recipe that originated 100´s of years ago and is still being made in Italy by the decendents of the original family. Yes, we bought a bottle and are doing our best to get it home safely. Since they are such a small winery they export only to a few places and only in CA and Miami in the states. Each locatoin has a different name and label. They actually had one shipment to LAX denied at customs because the customs officials thought the wine label was related to the Spanish terrorism group ETA. So the wine was rejected and sent back to AR, that must have been quite expensive and they ended up relabling every bottle and resending it. This time it was cleared in 15 minutes and I do not know how much it costs to fly 10,000 + bottles of wine, but I am sure it raised the price quite a bit. Nonetheless the winery is growing and again getting ready to make the wine completely in house again.

Another interesting fact we were told was how Argentina´s wineries are trying to catch up in the market place. They are the home of the best Malbec and it is considered the capital for Malbecs. Between the military government and high prices wine never much made it out of the country until more recently and the world is finally getting to see the Malbecs enmass. They are learning the marketing and such as they become the world player in the wine business. It seems that they are doing well and devaluation of the peso in the early 90´s is really helping the export market. Argentines on average consume about 1 bottle of wine a day for every 2 people - so they are obviously producing alot of wine.

Next, we rode the 10 K´s back to the rental place where we were met with a misting hose that was by far the absolute best possible ending of a bike ride you could posible have. I went back for seconds and we then set off again for town; we just needed some change for the bus.

We tried the bike guys, the hardware store, the internet guy, the pharmacy, several smaller stores, a few bakeries and who knows where else. We asked for change and no one had any (or they would not give it up), finally one lady made enough change to get one of us on the bus, but we were still down one and finally decided to switch tactics. We would no longer ask for change, and tried to buy small items that would result in change - it worked and we were able to catch the bus after over 20 minutes of searching. Thankfully too because we were running very short on options in this more rural area. We made it and headed back to the center.

Hot and tired, we did some errands in town like pick up our laundry, visit a book store and some grocery shopping where we found for the first time some beans other than garbanzo or lentils. This was rather noteworthy because beans are the staple of my diet. Although no tortillas we bought some bread, avocado, onions and cheese. We threw it all in a pot and presto(!) - a great meal and a great little campsite. Off to sleep to get up early the next day to head into the big city of Santiago, Chile for some urban culture.

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Photos

The tree lined streets!!!!!
The only way to make a 90 degree day tolerable and even cool!

Dinner out in Mendoza
Dave had the trout...Kevyn had her first steak.

Mendoza´s Plaza España
Said to be the prettiest of the 5 squares in the center of Mendoza. The tile work through out this city block was unique and very beautiful.

Mendoza´s Plaza España
A close up of the expanse of the tile work as well as the monuments in the background.

Old macerator thing from the winery
They still use this old machine, but hook it up to a modernized pump and tank to keep it more hygenic.

Comments

[Dad]

I want to go...
Sounds like you guys are having a great time and eating and drinking your way through each country. I'd ask how the steak was but you don't have much to compare it to. I figured out why I fell behing reading your entries....not only are we not getting update email but when you go to the site the last entry is not updating. Now I know better! -Love, Dad