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Published: August 8th 2010
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The overnight bus journey was nice and smooth with aeroplane-style meal service and even a communal game of bingo which was fun although difficult for us as our 'host' Hugo called out the numbers in Spanish with alarming speed. Stacey had picked a cold along the way and woke up with a terrible sore throat and general fatigue. We walked from the bus station to our hostel 'la cava' which turned out to be a fair distance south of the centre- much further than it looked on the map! The place was a bit rough around the edges but Nicolas the proprietor was very friendly.
We got a double room (the last one we'll have until returning home in a few weeks) and Stacey took some paracetamol and went to bed where she remained for most of the day. I went back out into the freezing cold weather searching for a supermarket which took me on a very long tour of the city. After an hour and twenty minutes wandering without success, I stumbled upon a 'Carrefour' and bought a couple of juicy steaks for dinner.
Mendoza is a low-rise but has a very sprawling centre with wide tree
lined roads and green plazas. The huge earthquake during the 19th century that levelled most of the city caused the authorities to rebuild it with very wide streets so rescues were possible in the event that the same thing every happened again. The city sits at the foot of the Andes on the opposite side being Santiago, Chile which can be reached by driving over the mountain pass which climbs to over 4000m and is often closed for snow in winter.
Back at the hostel, Stacey was feeling a little better and we dined on beef chorizo steaks cooked to give a nice pink centre- something we're getting progressively better at- along with the strange local potatoes (a cross between normal spuds and sweet potatoes- very tasty!)
We'd come to Mendoza to visit some of the 1300 local bodegas and had planned to do this the next day but alas since it was Sunday, they were all closed (as things always tend to be on Sundays here) so had no choice but to stay an extra night and do it on the Monday. The backup plan was a stroll to the huge Parque San Martin which serves as
the local park/recreation area. It was a long walk to get there but was worth it for the pretty lake and greenery with backdrops of the Andes. The locals were out exercising from cycling and rowing on the lake to organised aerobics on the grass which seemed to compliment nicely the local diets of steak and red wine. We sat briefly by the lakeside for a couple of minutes before being frozen by the icy wind and retreating back towards the city centre. After a brief walk along the streets of closed shops, we decided to get out of the cold and head back to the hostel via a stop for more steak.
We checked out and moved to a hostel nearer to the city centre- la cava was nice but just too far away from the 'action'. The new hostal organised Bodega tours and that afternoon we went out on one. After the minibus picked up up, the first stop was the Lopez Bodega- one of the oldest in the area. The guide helpfully spoke a bit of English which has become a more frequent occurrence and very welcome. The place produces huge amounts of wine (mostly Malbec,
the traditional Argentinian grape) in a mass production style business model. It was interesting to see them doing that, although a little charmless to see it brewed up in huge stainless steel vats. We finished the tour with some samples down in the basement before heading on to the olive oil factory.
The olive oil factory wasn't 'running' as such since it was out of season with no olives to pound. The guide showed us how they press the olives and collect all the juice before separating and filtering off the pulp. The samples here were put onto so fresh bread and turned out to be very tasty, one of best being the Rosemary olive oil that made us crave roast lamb (but not long to go before we can make some!). The final stop on the tour was a small bodega called 'The Family Cecchin'. These guys make organic wines in a very traditional way. They can't use pesticides so instead surround the vineyards with olive trees and fruit trees to tempt any bugs away from their precious grapes. All the labels etc. were still put on by hand which was a nice touch. We tasted a couple
and decided to splash out a whole £3 for one of their whites in the small factory shop they we had it that evening after our steak.
That night was the first in dorms for a while and not the last due to the cost of accommodation in Argentina and Brazil. Unfortunately it wasn't a good start since one of our room mates had the kind of snore that makes the walls rattle so little sleep was had on our part. The next morning we checked out and went for a look around the city centre, stopping briefly at a modern art gallery in the plaza de independence that was rubbish. It was freezing again (and lightly snowing) so went back to the hostel for lunch before setting off for the bus station cold, tired and looking forward to leaving Mendoza.
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