Touring Mendoza Wine Country Tips and Personal Referrals

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For future travelers looking to get to the Mendoza wine country on their own from central city. The bus stop is Rioja and Garibaldi (which you can find off the main strip Calle Villanueva), bus company #10 and bus number 170,171,172 or 173 going to Maipu (which is an outskirt town of Mendoza where the wine country can be found). Apparently the first number is the company, so don't get confused. But you need exact change in coins to ride, which is 1.40 pesos to get to the wine country.

A huge referral to rent bikes from Mendoza Bikes which is owned by Mr. Hugo. There are many bike rental places, but this family is extremely warm, kind, and open. They open their house to you, give you a bottle of water to take with you, a map, and even offered to pay our bus fare back when we were leaving if we didn't have the right coins (and as anyone traveling around Argentina knows that finding cambio or monedas is VERY difficult). THey charge 20 pesos for the whole day to rent a bike, where as some of the other companies charge 20P for 4 hours and 35P for the entire day. Have the bus driver drop you off in front of Mendoza bikes, which is right across from the police station in or ask for a yellow flyer which most of the bus drivers already have which will show you where its at. I believe in spreading the word of good business, and so i personally highly recommend Mendoza BIkes (Mr. Hugo) from the experience we had.

The road in which you will bike on is a little scary, i'm not going to lie. There isn't much room for bikers off of the two lane road, and you often find yourself swirving from side to side of the road swiveling your neck from front to back looking to avoid any large buses and trucks and speeding cars headed your way, and on occasion, just pulling off to the side of the road and pulling your bike up as far as you can (if there is alot of traffic coming from both ways). I expect a sidewalk to likely be built in years to come with the likely success of the wine biking. But until then...keep your eyes open, and don't enjoy the wine too much!

Also a great great hostel in Mendoza, which also happens to be Hostel International, is Mendoza Inn. Great staff, clean, great ambience, and the most comfortable beds in all the hostels i've stayed in throughout our journey around Argentina! If you come by bus, there will likely be a staff member waiting as you get off the bus to recruit you to come..and they will even drive you to the hostel. There are one of 3 HI's, they all work together, but I think Mendoza Inn gets the prize for being the best. And its location is right outside the main bar area.

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