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Published: February 13th 2011
Central Mendoza
If you see a young lad in an Ajax jersey...RUN!I’m walking through Mendoza and I am urgently seeking the presence of an armed man. While that might seem to be an exceedingly foolish errand in South America there is method to this madness. I need to take out cash and both myself and Niamh have re-entered high alert mode, a mode that hasn’t been utilised since our trip in Rio for reasons I will elaborate on momentarily.
Eventually I find a slightly rotund policeman, Browning hi power automatic hanging from his hip standing next to a cash machine, knowing that south American police have a reputation for being trigger euphoric rather then trigger happy I commence pleasantries with the Bano Automatico, content in the knowledge that mr policeman will empty his magazine of 13 rounds of 9mm bullets with gay abandon at anyone who accosts us.
We withdraw 850 pesos, 150 of it designated as mugger money while the rest is secreted within niamhs clothing. All daily essentials are transported in a plastic bag rather then a juicy looking backpack, the bag of course breaks causing niamhs camera to plummet to the sidewalk.
You see we meet our Dutch friends from bariloche in the very same hostel
we booked into in Mendoza and they have been held up at gunpoint in the park just yards from the hostel and promptly relieved of there ipods, cameras and backpacks. In a horrific bit of irony, the man in question who held our Dutch friends up was wearing an Ajax strip, the jersey of a well known Dutch football team whom Duncan happens to support. If I see any dodgey blokes walking toward me in Leinster Jerseys I’ll keep my guard up!
Mendoza from a few Google searches has had a few problems with crime. The luxury hotels in the countryside are subject to the occasional commando type robbery. Commando type robberies don’t entail the perpetrators holding up the unfortunate establishment neglecting to wear underwear as Niamh theorised, although such an approach would undoubtedly be frightening, but well organised and armed individuals systemically stealing all the guests belongings in a lightening raid, one of the lads in work was actually on the receiving end of one of these raids on his honeymoon some years back.
Aside from this there are also scams, one of which has got myself and niamh eating indoors rather the restaurant terraces when
we go out for food. This little trick involves a charming young man about 6 years old approaching your table and asking to share your food, should you refuse to cut him off a morsel he massages his dirty hands all over your food anyway, witnesses say that the unfortunate chosen marks hand over food to him immediately rather then risk this fate.
Despite this rather rude awakening to the city, the place seems about as scary that hill the tellitubbies live in, nevertheless appearances can be deceiving and we are taking all the required precautions should Tinkywinky or Lala pull out a 9 milly and attempt to relieve us of our valuables.
Mendoza isn’t quite as amazing as we heard it was but its nice enough, interestingly most of the footpaths are lined trenches a metre deep and about 2 foot wide, these are irrigation trenches dug throughout the city that allow water from the mountains to feed the trees that line most of the streets. You really have to watch your footing though and imagine if they had the same setup back home the postmen would be throwing themselves into them like lemmings in search of
Definitly don't need more fibre!
Its actually pulp from crushed grapes a personal injury claim, watch your footing if your coming home from the pub with a few beers on board.
Quilmes beer isn’t the local brew up here, they have a brand called Andes and I can vouch that its absolutely gorgeous and a real treat at 1 Euro per litre. The only side effect is that you produce belches that could topple trees, which makes it extremely funny whenever Blondie decides to indulge in some cerveza.
Mendoza can be explored in a day. We hit all the museums, parks and sights by four o clock, with the exception of the zoo. The zoo is located in the middle of the cities massive park and from all accounts the cages are a bit cramped and filled with depressed looking animals pacing back and forth, scratching their genitals and playing with their own poo. We couldn’t bring ourselves to see them considering the equivalent animals at home do likewise while living in far better standards in such places as Oireachtas or the offices of various state bodies.
The local market is across the road from where we are staying and it has everything, 2 empanadas(filled pastries, a kind
Niamh floricking
Isn't she lovely? of Argentinean fast food- excellent) and a beer for lunch for 2 Euro. Elsewhere you can find crates of Chilean sea bass, pigs heads and if you re into the more extreme Argentinean meat dishes, fresh coils of cows intestine(small and large), udder and cattle gizzard. The intestines themselves are immediately identifiable as they smell like the U bend of a public toilet and resemble fat overweight skinned snakes.
The hostel itself is lovely, the staff extremely helpful and the fellow hostellers have shown no penchant for spraying their bile around the room in the middle of the night. The only sore point is the kitchen which in size resembles a broom cupboard, a point that’s severally exacerbated when some of the other occupants insist on wearing their backpacks and turning around suddenly while cooking amid 5 or 6 pots of boiling water.
The third night they held a party known as the “Chorizo Fiesta loco” which translates directly into English as “The crazy sausage party”. The name reminds me of those house parties you went to back in transition year where the girls from whatever girls school you were friendly with at the time decide not to
bother to come along and you and the lads are left with nothing else to do but go streaking or set fire to each others flatulence(all fun and games until someone ends up in a squad car in the case of the former or Vincent’s hospital in the case of the latter). Well all the chorizo was gone in 5 minutes and all we could do was eat locally.
There was a game I had on the super Nintendo when I was little called Zelda, in the game you had a magical flute( Go on Charlie you can laugh) which you blew into(Bilo you might as well have a chuckle too) that changed you from the “light world” into the “dark world”. The dark world being similar to the light world but with all the scenery and trees looking evil and nefarious. Well this is what the area outside the hostel is like at night, very different from tellitubbie land it resembles throughout the day. Needless to say we didn’t go far and settled on a steak house across the road. The steak again was magnificent and cooked just right too, the hunk of meat literally haemorrhaged when I
chocolate factory
No Oompa Loompas to be seen or are they just well hidden? cut it with my steak knife and my plate looked a bit like John Hurts midsection about an hour into the movie Alien when I was waiting for the bill.
Mendoza’s highlight though is the wine and the area is covered with 1100 wineries most of which welcome visitors with open arms and full glasses. We just missed the legendary bike tour where you mountain bike from vineyard to vineyard drinking your fill and running the risk of cycling headfirst into a drainage canal upon your return.
We did However sign up for an all day tour incorporating 3 vineyards, dinner, an olive factory and finally a chocolate factory. We were picked up by the tour guide Emanuel who was a real hoot. Emanuel, who was clearly in his late twenties explained to us that drinking wine for your breakfast kept you young, he then advised us he was actually 43. He then got us all to say our names and where we are from so it would “help with the drunken singing later”.
Whatever about Emanuel said about the wine breakfast our first vineyard had us swilling three glasses by eleven o clock as we toured the facility. Following that we visited the olive factory and a second vineyard which prized itself on brewing purely organic wine via organic methods, with strategically positioned beehives taking care pollination of the crops and similarly positioned trees acting as windbreaks. The tour guide claimed the organic wine would ensure the drinker had no hangover the next morning due to the lack of chemicals but being a victim of “hangover free” Czech beer some years back I knew to take the truth of this statement(don’t read baby Alex this Gav!) was up there in the same league as the existence of Santa Claus.
The final vineyard was industrial in scale and produced 1000’s of bottles a day. Therein we were shown a warehouse containing €12 million euros worth of wine barrels at any one time…If only Niamhs underwear lacking bandits could raid that!
The final tester had got to bed at 6 Am due to celebrating his birthday the night before and he poured us very healthy testing portions. Upon completion of the three standard testing’s he asked the edge of the semi circle if we would be interested in trying more wine? The tourist at the edge of this semi circle was me so you can imagine his answer was in the same vein as do dogs pee on lampposts.
6 testing’s later we left in high spirits and went to the chocolate factory, the last stop on our tour and easily the biggest disappointment…they didn’t have one single Oompa Loompa at work.
Last day in Mendoza tomorrow and not sure what the plan is, we could head North to Salta or just head over to Chile…We’ll promise not to fall down any mines.
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