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Published: March 27th 2009
After a very hard week at school a few of us decided to get out of the city and take a tour to the mountains. Mendoza is situated right by the Andes (you can see them surrounding the city) so bright and early on Saturday we were picked up by Denis the tour guide in his van and headed off.
Despite spending the next 7 hours in a van we saw some amazing views and it was well worth the trip.
First on our trip was a beautiful lake where we watched the sun rise ( I wish I could remember the name). Next, we saw a natural bridge, created by water erosion from the moutains and eventually, the highlight of the trip, Mt Aconcagua. At 6,962 metres Cerro Aconcagua is the highest mountain South America and also highest mountain outside Asia. It´s meant to be an amazing trek! (perhaps when I am a little bit more prepared). For the time being, the zoom on my camera came in great use!
After a great lunch we then headed to El Cristo Redentor statue placed at 4000m. The statue was erected to symbolise peace between Argentina and Chile when
the border was finally decided. I´m sure my Grandad would be pleased to know it was a trip partaken by Pope John Paul II too (so a little plaque told me). That guy got everywhere!
It was also freezing up there so we quickly took some photos and headed back into the van.
It was a long day but good to see some sights and get some more than fresh, air
In the evening, I had a message from Lauren ( a girl I met in Bariloche) to say she was coming to Mendoza and sure enough, an hour later, she turned up at my hostel. In traditional girly style we squealed a bit, gossiped about the last weeks events and quickly made plans to travel together over the next week.
The following day, along with a Swedish girl, (who I´m ashamed to say we called the "the girl" all day because we couldn´t remember her name) we went to the the Thermatic Spa. It was in the middle of the mountains and consisted of 10 pools all at different natural temperatures. It was bliss! We sunbathed, chilled out, studied some Spanish (a bit) and chatted all
day, a perfect Sunday. In the evening, we headed back to Mendoza and enjoyed a meal in the Villanueva street again to talk about plans for the next week.
The next day Lauren was unfortunately sick but I took part in a wine and olive oil tour in the Maipu region. It was great, but then again, when isn´t free wine going to be great. We got to taste a 2004 Malbec and we all purchased a great organic red wine for just 15 pesos / three pounds. The 10 year old Malbec looked particularly tempting too but at over 1000 pesos I had second thoughts. We had a quiet Monday night sharing dinner with a couple of Germans at the hostel and enjoyed an early night to prepare for our move to San Rafael the next day, just 3 hours South of Mendoza.
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