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Published: April 30th 2006
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After Bryan´s skydiving adventures in Cordoba, we headed off to Mendoza—the heart of Argentina´s wine industry, and a favorite of travelers. After an overnight bus (again with our friends, Padraig and Sinead) we went to a hostel that came highly recommended by a Swiss couple that we met in Cordoba. After staying there, we were not sure why is was so highly recommended, given that we had to walk what felt like miles to get to the city center. Maybe it was the $14/night pricetag??? Fortunately for us, the family that owned the hostel decided to close up for vacation, forcing us to relocate closer to the city center. As they say, location is everything because our whole perspective on the city changed and we really enjoyed being able to walk to the cute shops and restaurants in our new neighbordhood.
Once we changed locales, we could see why people love Mendoza. Charming shops and restaurants, and wide, tile sidewalks under leafy trees that were beginning to turn with Fall…it was beautiful. It was clear that the locals (mendocinos) take great pride in their city. The Mendocino shopkeepers are known for competing with each other for who has the cleaner
sidewalk in front of their store, and so at all hours of day they could be seen with mop and pail scrubbing the tile sidewalks.
The city also has a park that is larger than the city itself, Parque San Martin. We were amazed how beautiful it was with lagoons and palm trees. Relocation, anyone? We were certainly daydreaming about it!
A trip to Mendoza is not complete, however, without a visit to the local wineries that have made the region famous, and a tasting(s!) of its wonderful Malbec varietal. This required a trip aboard local transit, which is always a guaranteed adventure. This time proved no different. After hopping on (and then quickly off again) four different buses, we finally got on the right one to the little town of Maipú, about 20 minutes away. Once safely off the bus, we went in search of a company called ¨Bikes and Wine.¨ This probably doesn´t require much explanation: we wanted to do a bike tour of the wine country—something that would definitely not be permisible at home! Well, we found ¨Bikes and Wine,¨ but like many things on this trip: the reality never quite matches up with the
brochure. As you can see from the photo, Bikes and Wine was located in a stylish, boarded-up ??? It appeared to be closed, but out of nowhere came a teenager, who promptly pulled out two bikes from the ´80s and a small map of the wineries to go to—that was the tour! After a cursory check of the brakes, we were off!
The first stop was a wine museum. It was quite funny, because all anyone was interested in during the museum tour (including us) was ¨When is the free tasting?¨ Fortunately, we didn´t have to wait too long, and during the tasting we met a really great family from Winnipeg, Canada. Gordon, Louise and their two children, Elise (11) and Patrick (9), had been travelling for almost a year in Mexico and South America. (Sidenote: that has been one of the amazing things on this trip—the number of people we have met who have been or will be traveling for much longer than us. It turns out that in relation to other people, our three-month trip is actually short!!) We hit it off with them right away, and since they also were patrons of the infamous ¨Bikes and
Wine,¨ we decided to join them on the rest of the tour.
In all, (according to the brochure) we were supposed to hit 6 winieries (and 6 free tastings), 1 place that specialized in liquor and chocolates, 1 organic vegetable farm where we were to have lunch, and 1 olive oil factory. Oh, and we had until 5:30 p.m. to enjoy everything. In reality, one of the wineries was shut down, we had to pay for most of the tastings, and some of the wineries were closed by 4:30! Nevertheless, it was a great day. The roads that we rode on were underneath great canopies of trees, and were lined with grape vines that were starting to turn orange and red.
One of the highlights was our private tour with the owner of a winery that looked right of the pages of Wine Spectator magazine. It was gorgeous, and after our tour, we got to enjoy a glass of wine watching the sunset on the deck with our new friends from Canada. The only drawback of watching the sunset, meant that we had to ride our not- so-trusty bikes back to the town in the dark. The winery
owner´s last words to us were, ¨Be careful with the traffic.¨ Hmmm…riding an old bike in the dark with trucks zooming past you and honking, flying over potholes and gravel after a day of wine and sun…I think I know why this is not allowed at home. Fortunately, we all made it back to ¨Bikes and Wine¨ in one piece, and handed our bikes over to Grandpa, who seemed to have no idea why we were there with bikes in hand in the first place.
After such a great day of biking and wining, we decided to embark on another adventure with Gordon, Louise and kids, and go white-water rafting. Melia was a little nervous about rafting without our rafting-pro friend, Tim, to keep her in the raft, but her fears were soon assuaged when she realized that the term whitewater was used very loosely by the company. The Mendoza River, which apparently is well-known in the rafting circles, was quite low this time of year, so we had a very easy-going, Class 2 trip down the river, with just a few adreniline fun-filled spots. And, unlike the other time when she rafted, Melia actually paddled, so it
was a quite a success all around! Of course, when the guide asked us if anyone wanted to get out and swim for a portion of the rapids, guess who raised his hand? Bryan did a great job swimming and kicking against the current, and his stellar performance surprised his wife a bit, since he has often said how much he hated North Lake Lapper swim practice as a kid!
In all, we spent 5 nights in Mendoza—the longest we have stayed in any one place on this trip, and a definite testament to the fine City of Wine.
Hope you are all doing well!
Love, Melia and Bryan
P.S. We were able to add photos from Salta and Cordoba, so check those earlier entries out--especially some of the skydiving ones (although more photos of that adventure will be coming later)!
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anonymous
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The walkway in the park picture of you two is too cute! Keep the blogs coming... I'm living vicariously through you guys ;)