Heading Slowly North - Mendoza

---

Thursday 9th April - Mendoza

Today I did a bicycle wine tour, where I got to visit 3 wineries. A mini-bus picked us up from each hostel and then brought us to the bike rental place. The first was an organic winery run by the Familia Cecchin. We got a tour of the winery, which is rustic and a lot of the processes done by hand, each bottle is labelled by hand, and the grapes are harvested by moon light. I found it interesting and learned a few facts about the different types of grape and wine. After tasting some of their organic wines. We then cycled off to the next winery, this time a big winery called Vistandes. This winery was not organic and the tour guide explained some of the differences, mainly that they add sulphates to the wine, (its the sulphates that give wine a taste and also in cheap wine cause hangovers, however a hangover after more than 2 bottle is due to the alcohol not the sulphates!), We got to try an expensive Melbec here but I discovered I like the sweet sparkly wine not the darker strong flavoured wines. So basically there is no point opening the expensive reserve wine, when I'm coming to visit. 😊

The third winery was another organic winery, but they didn't give a tour or really want us to try any of their wine unless we were serious about buying some, so it was disappointing because they also did everything by hand and when we cycled up there were some men using a very interesting machine, but we were not allowed to watch them. By this time our bus had arrived back again, so we had to cycle to the bike drop off when we had lunch and then got the bus back into the city. The tour was interesting but our bike guide was not good at keeping everyone on time, and by the last winery I think we were behind schedule. It was not a great tour, but it was cheap and I did have an enjoyable day. The next day (Friday) I walked around the city, exploring the many parks and relaxing in the sun reading my book. It is very hot and humid so a perfect day to read and sit in the shade. Mendoza was not my favourite place, I was glad I was only there a few days. There was nothing really wrong with the town but I was glad not be leaving it also.

On Saturday I got another long bus trip to Salta. I arrived in Salta yesterday afternoon. After checking into my hostel, which is like a street with bedrooms off the main street. The main street being outside and the rooms are inside. Its an odd hostel but friendly. Today I am going to Cerro San Bernardo, we are still debating if it is better to walk up and get the cable car back down, or walk both or cable car both ways. Hopefully I get to the top before sunset!





Till next time

---