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Published: February 23rd 2009
After saying goodbye to Ashley on the afternoon of January 18 I made my way from the airport to the large Retiro bus station in Buenos Aires. I intended to make my way across the country to the Mendoza region, the area that produces about seventy percent of Argentina’s wine. I searched the terminal for buses that left almost immediately and eventually found one that left around 9 pm. With that I was headed for Mendoza on an overnight bus, destined to arrive around 8:30 am the next morning. About an hour into the journey we were served a horrible, airplane-like dinner that was close to inedible. Afterwards I was sitting listening to music and the guy across the aisle struck up a conversation with me. I figured he spoke English because as we were boarding the bus I saw him walk up to the conductor and point at his ticket, signifying he did not know how to ask if he was in the right place in Spanish. I learned that his name was Jason Nelson, he was from England, and that he had recently quit his job and was traveling for a month before starting a new one. We talked
for about an hour and got to know each other a little better, then decided it was time to take advantage of our executive style seats that reclined into a complete bed. I slept for the remainder of the trip and can honestly say I have never slept that well on a plane or a bus in my whole life. When I woke up we were about a half an hour from our destination and I talked to Jason a bit more. He had a hostel booked for the next two nights, and seeing as I was just winging it, he suggested I check out his hostel to see if they had any beds. I figured since I had no idea what I was doing or where I was sleeping it was a good starting base and we headed for his hostel once we arrived in Mendoza. After walking around the outside of a gated hostel we eventually figured out how to get in. Unfortunately, the Chimbas Hostel was all booked for the night, so we exchanged emails and I went on my way to find another place to stay. I met another guy from Alaska looking for a hostel
and we shared a cab to the main bar stretch in town, also the location of the three most modern and popular hostels. Unfortunately for me, as they were modern and popular, not one of them had even one bed open for that night. At this point I just decided that I was staying in the first place that I found an opening. I took another cab to another hostel recommended in Lonely Planet and, luckily, was able to book two nights in Punto Urbano Hostel. At this point it was about 10 am and I decided I was going to shower and check my email before voyaging out to find somewhere to wash almost all of the clothes I had as they were all dirty.
Upon checking my email I found a quick note from Jason asking me if I had found a hostel and what my plans were for the rest of the day. I told him that my main plan was to find a way to get my clothes washed and that I would probably just wander around and get to know the city of Mendoza. Since I really did not know how the whole clothes
situation would work out I told him that I would let him know once I figured it out. With that I took off for a laundromat suggested by the owner of the hostel. Laundromats in South America are a little different than the U.S. in that all of them are full service, meaning you leave your clothes and pick them up later. You can not wash your own clothes, even if you want to (at least this was my experience). The first place I went told me they would not be able to have my clothes ready until 8 pm that night, and seeing as that would pretty much deter me from making plans for the night, I decided to find another place. The next place told me to come back in three or four hours and they would see what they could do. I finally came across a place that told me they could have my clothes ready by 5 pm, which was by far my best offer, so I took it. I then grabbed a quick bite, bought backpack sort of thing (as Ashley had been kind enough to carry around most of my stuff when I was
with her), and then headed back to the hostel (just for reference, the backpack I bought fell apart by the end of my 10 days with it, so it was a real high quality backpack). After emailing Jason and setting up a meeting time and place I headed out to take in a bit of Mendoza.
My first stop was La Plaza Independencia, the main plaza in Mendoza. There are five plazas in the whole city, with Plaza Independencia being situated in the center and the other four plazas being situated at the four corners, each being a few blocks away. I walked around the plaza and tried to go to the modern art museum (yeah, I am really cultured), but unfortunately it was closed on Mondays. I went from there to Plaza España and Plaza San Martin, then wandered around a bit in the main retail district of the city. After that I still had about three hours to kill and, upon suggestion from the Lonely Planet, I caught a trolley (yeah, that’s right, I said trolley, with electric cables and all) headed towards Parque General San Martin. This park is a 420-hectare area that I would liken
to their version of Central Park in New York. The entrance of the Parque General San Martin has some very impressive looking gates that were apparently shipped over from England after originally being made for the Turkish Sultan Hamid II (I am sure you all know who that is). The park has a variety of walking paths, roads for cars, a manmade lake, many interesting plants and trees, all with a backdrop of the Andes Mountains. I may not have mentioned this before, but Mendoza is near the Argentinean-Chilean border near the Andes Mountains. One interesting thing about the park is that there is a drainage system throughout it that looks like little gutters, but they have doors that can be opened and closed to control the direction the water flows. The drainage system is used to direct the water that runs down from the mountains through the park and towards the city. I spent about three hours just wandering around the park taking pictures and enjoying the scenery. Afterwards I headed back to the laundromat to pick up my clothes, quickly stopped off at my hostel to drop my stuff off and shower, and then headed out to meet
Jason. We planned on meeting at 6 pm and I arrived right around this time. Jason did not arrive for a bit and I began to wonder if he was not coming (as we had earlier in the day talked about how we are both pretty punctual about time and are a bit bothered by the laid back South American sense of time). I was waiting outside a café and decided to have a beer while I waited. About 15 minutes later Jason showed up and said he had gotten lost on the way, understandable as I had been lost a few times already that day. We chatted a bit about what we each had planned for the next few days and realized that we both wanted to do the same things, whitewater rafting and vineyard tours by bicycle. We decided to do both activities together as we thought they would be much more fun with somebody else as opposed to going alone. We decided on whitewater rafting for the next day and set out to book out trip with a company recommended in the Lonely Planet. We eventually found it and were able to book what was called a
full day adventure, about 4-5 hours on the water with lunch and transportation included. With that we set out to find a place for dinner and drinks to wrap up the night. I had my fourth Argentinean steak that night and did not rank it quite as highly as the others that I had tried. We sat and chatted until about 1 am, then departed to our respective hostels with plans to meet up in the morning for our rafting adventure on the Mendoza River.
I woke up the next morning, had a quick breakfast, and then went and waited for the rafting company to come and pick me up. By this point of the trip my skin had gone from blistery red to peeling like a reptile, making me look really attractive. I put on as much sunscreen as I could, but even this simple action seemed to rub layers of skin off. Anyone who saw me must have thought I had some disease, probably leprosy. But enough of that disgustingness, on with the story. I was picked up about an hour late and sure enough, Jason was nowhere to be found. He had told me the night
before that if he was not there I was to make sure they picked him up as he would not know what to do because he did not speak Spanish. I asked the driver if we were picking someone else up and he said yes, so I assumed it was Jason. After picking up four more people the van was full and we were heading out of town. At this point I was slightly unsure what was going to happen to Jason and I asked again where he was. To my relief, I was told there were four other vans of people, so I just assumed he had been picked up and we would meet at the base camp of the rafting company. After a scenic hour drive through the Andes we arrived at the camp, and sure enough, there was Jason. We sat around for a bit while the company got the rafts and equipment together, received our gear, and then headed out on another 20 minute drive to the launch point. During the drive to the launch I really did not think the river looked that wild, but it had a rapid ranking of 3+/4, a ranking system
out of five that gauges the difficulty of navigating the rapids and the difficulty swimming the rapids in the case that you fall in (the latter would apply later in the trip). Once we arrived at the launch site we unloaded the equipment, got geared up, and then had a bit of a tutorial about general safety tips, paddling commands, etc. We had a group of 8 people, two guides, and a safety kayaker in case we needed help if we fell out of the raft. My raft was myself, Jason, a German couple, and our guide Shahara, a girl in her twenties from Colorado who is apparently the only female raft guide on the Mendoza River. It was interesting in that, although we were on a rafting trip in South America, all of the guides spoke English and that was the language used on trip (probably because the majority of people who raft with them are from other countries and speak English). After a brief tutorial in the water, we were off with Jason and me manning the front of the raft.
The first 20 minutes were fun, not too strenuous, but a good way to work into
the experience. Every larger rapid we would approach Shahara would tell us the name of the rapid and then yell commands as to which side of the raft was to paddle forwards or backwards. She told us that she was just there to guide us while we were the ones that needed to do the work. As we came to our first rapid with a rating of 4/4+ the experience became a whole lot more interesting. The difficulty of navigating through some of the bigger rapids is that when you hit them, the water brings the raft to a stop, and if you don’t get moving again quickly you will tip over. As we approached the large rapid the right side of the raft (I was on the left side) turned into the rapid and just stuck there. Before I knew it their side of the raft was up in the air and a ridiculous amount of water was coming at my side as the raft tipped us backwards, extremely close to the water. At this point I knew I was going in, despite any effort I could make to avoid it. With that the water knocked me out of
the raft and into the river, giving me the real whitewater experience. It all happened so fast and the adrenaline rush was so great that it is almost hard to describe exactly how I got back to the raft. Oh, and at the point that I went in I thought I was the only one that had gone under, but this turned out not to be the case. I was swept under the raft and popped out behind it on the left side, exactly opposite as where I had gone under. As I looked I realized that the German lady was also in the water. Shahara frantically stuck out a paddle to me and I grabbed it, then grabbed the German lady by her paddle and pulled her to the raft. It was not over yet, we still had to get in the raft while going through the rapids. We had been shown the correct way to pull someone into the raft before the trip, grabbing them by the shoulders of their lifejacket and using the momentum of your own body weight to fall back and pull them in. Apparently Jason and the German man were not paying attention as
they were not too useful in helping us. They both started grabbing me by the arms and tried to pull me in, but in the end I pretty much just pulled myself up and over the edge. I jumped back to the front of the boat and started paddling again as someone still needed to help Shahara get us out of the rapids, assuming Jason and the German guy would help his wife back in the raft. I was completely wrong in this assumption. I looked over and there were Jason and the German man paddling away with smiles on their faces while his wife was still in the water yelling for help. I thought this was pretty absurd, but I figured I had to get her back in the raft if they were not going to do it. I jumped to the back of the raft, grabbed the lady by her lifejacket, fell backwards, and with that she was back in the raft. We all got back to our seats and continued the trip, laughing about what had just happened. Jason and the German man used the excuse that they had to keep paddling to save us and that
is why they were of little use in getting us back in the boat. I did not believe it for a minute. As we continued down river we took in the beautiful scenery of the Andes and were lucky enough to see some wild llamas, although I do not remember the name for them in Spanish. At lunch time we pulled over at some ruins of an old Argentinean railway station and ate a picnic that was packed and waterproofed on our rafts. It was a very unique experience to eat there and it was a nice break from paddling (and falling in the water). Oh yes, and I was also peeling a crazy amount at this point and everyone on the trip saw it as we took off our wet suits to dry off (kind of embarrassing). After lunch we geared back up and continued our trip down river. The second half of the trip was more fun as we went through a lot more large/challenging rapids, and I even managed to stay in the raft throughout all of them. We had some good laughs about us falling out of the raft, but actually, I am glad it happened
because I wanted to know what it would feel like. We ended the trip about 10 minutes from the base camp, drove back, showered, had a quick beer, and were then headed back to Mendoza. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures from the experience as we could not bring our cameras on the trip. That night Jason and I met up and had dinner and a few beers, then turned in as we were pretty tired and had another day of activity planned for the next day.
On Wednesday, January 21, I woke up, had a quick breakfast, then checked out and headed for Jason’s hostel where he had booked me a bed for that night (I also stopped and purchased my bus ticket out of Mendoza for the next morning). I arrived and we chatted with some other people in the hostel for a bit, then we took off for our next adventure, this time in the vineyards surrounding Mendoza. We hopped on a bus and headed about an hour outside of Mendoza to an area called Maipú, known for its vineyards, olive oil, and chocolate factories. Like I said before, the Mendoza area produces about 70
percent of the wine in Argentina, this being because of the favorable climate and the access to fresh water flowing down from the Andes Mountains. We had both heard that the way to see the vineyards and sample the fruits of their labors was by bicycle, so we headed for a bike rental agency called Mr. Hugo. We arrived, talked to Mr. Hugo himself, were given our bikes and a little map of the area, and took off to see what we would see. Our first stop was a large corporate vineyard called La Rural that also had a wine museum. We figured we would learn a little something before we started sampling for the day (oh, and there was wine sampling at the end of the tour). We were taken to the vineyard where we saw the grapes growing, entered the museum and learned about winemaking in the past and how it has evolved, and then went to the modern factory and learned a bit about the process used today. I actually learned quite a bit that I had never known about wine. I will dazzle you with a few of the most interesting things I learned. The name
of the wine, such as Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon, is given by the type of grape used to make the wine (maybe I am just dumb for never knowing this). The aging in oak barrels has two purposes; it gives the wine some of its flavors while also giving it its shelf life properties. One more fun fact, unlike most wines that continue to improve with age, Argentinean wine will only improve for ten to fifteen year, at which point it will being to go bad (so do not hold on to Argentinean wine too long or you will end up drinking something rancid). The region mostly produces red wine, with each vineyard maybe having one or two white varieties. Although I am not a huge wine connoisseur, nor do I drink much red wine, I figured “When in Rome” and began sampling at the first vineyard. Although the tour was interesting and it was fun to see some of the old machinery, the amount of wine given (about two sips) was not really worth the investment of an hour of our time. We decided that we had learned quite enough and that at the next vineyard we would start
with sampling and then move on to the tour if there was time. We headed to a second vineyard that was much smaller and family owned. As we biked up we saw two girls coming from the other direction that had apparently had a few more samples than we had as they were swerving this way and that on their bikes. We all pulled up to the vineyard and entered together, conveniently forming a small sampling group. We were greeted very warmly by the man in charge (including an Argentinean man kiss) and were led outside to a patio overlooking the vineyard. For the record, in many South American countries it is customary to kiss the opposite sex on the cheek when introduced. It is a bit different in Argentina in that it is customary to kiss the same sex as well, definitely something that would take a bit of getting used to. I was told that my face was one of shock and confusion as the Argentinean host went in for the man kiss (I do not doubt this). It is really not a big deal, but being approached for a kiss by a random stranger, it being a
man in this case, was a very new experience for me. So after the kissing was over we were seated on the patio and were given six different glasses of wine to share between the four of us, Jason, myself, and the two girls we had just met. We talked with them and the host for a bit, enjoyed the wine and took some pictures, and then decided to move on to the next vineyard. The girls were renting from the same bike company that we were using, so we said maybe we would meet up later. Jason and I then went to two more vineyards, having lunch and wine at one and going on another short tour at another. The last one was nice in that they gave a bit of a tutorial about how to taste and appreciate wine correctly, a completely foreign concept to me (as most of the wine I have ever had has come out of the good old Franzia sack). With that we headed back to Mr. Hugo bike rental agency where we found the girls we had met before, now snoozing in hammocks. Mr. Hugo was very hospitable and gave us a few
glasses of free wine, so we ended up staying there about another hour just chatting and enjoying the wine. As we headed back on the bus we made plans to meet up with the girls that evening for dinner.
After going back to the hostel and showering and relaxing a bit, Jason and I grabbed a cab to the main bar/restaurant district. We met the girls, Kristen and Yvonne (from England and Australia, respectively), and all headed for a local restaurant. After waiting a bit for a table and enjoying some appetizers and more drinks (a common theme for the day), we got a great outdoor table where we enjoyed dinner and a beautiful night. After dinner we headed for a few bars along the strip, finally ending up at a small bar/dance club called Por Acá. We stayed there until about 5 am dancing with locals and tourist alike. I learned one valuable lesson that night; Do not order a whiskey and seven up in wine country, it ended up costing more than ten dollars American! All in all it was a very fun night and an end to an enjoyable time in Mendoza. I must say, of
my whole trip, Mendoza may have been one of my favorite cities. This may be because I had such great experiences whitewater rafting and touring vineyards, but I really did enjoy the city overall. Of all of the places I went in Argentina I would say the Mendoza region in a not to be missed destination. I realize that this post has gotten ridiculously long, even for me, so will cut it off now. I still have another seven days of my trip to blog about, so do not think you are out of the water yet, there is plenty more to come ;-) I hope all is well with you and that you are having a nice winter, wherever you are.
-MWC
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rija
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and so this concludes my marathon of reading your blog in which you have reminded me that.... (a) people always seem to appear in all the right places when you need them (b) I must visit mendoza (C) I haven't eaten meat in over six months