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Published: November 21st 2007
Wine barrels
Oak barrels for the expensive wines.I think big cities are really getting to me. And driving me to the drink. :-) So we left Buenos Aires yesterday for the wine growing region of Mendoza.
After a 14 hour bus (piss easy for me now, but a bit new for Haze) we reached a cute little town. The first day was spent "wine tasting" which basically meant drinking lots of wine. Lunch was at the main square, and since the first glass of house wine we had was so extremely delicious (and cheap!), we decided to have some more. The waiter by this time had fallen in love with us, so he brought out two massive glasses (not wine glasses) topped up completely for his "amigos". Which was nice and all, but led to a slight staggering effect once we walked out - the wine here is really strong.
Walking around trying to book bikes for the next day, we looked in through the window of a pub and I spotted Rob, a dude who had been staying at Loki Lima when I was working there. Bit random, but then bumping into people coincidently has happened so many times to me now, that I cant
The gorgeous chocolate and alcohol place
Lovely place, lovely people, lovely alcohol, lovely chocs. A must visit place. even comment on it. So we sat down with him and his two friends, and had a few drinks, until I realised I had forgotten about my laundry around 9 o clock (I had been wearing the same clothes for the last 2 days) so did a runner towards the laundry.
Obviously given my luck I had to trip over a big stone and break my sandal. Which meant I had to walk balk bare foot to the pub, and sob on Hazel's shoulder. We then strapped it back to my foot with a hair rubberband, and it was bloody uncomfortable. The only other pair of footwear I have at the moment is my big hiking boots, so its a bit of a problem right now but yeah....
Anyway we then went for dinner with Rob and his friends, and then got absolutely soaked in the rain walking back. No taxis around so we had to run back to the restaurant, me doing my best not to fall over with my broken flipflop, and finally made it to shelter.
Basically not a fun day, apart from the nice wine :-)
The next day we went on
South American humour
soy puto, means im a whore an all day bike ride around vineyards in the major wine growing valley near Mendoza...Or that was the trip we were sold. Basically got ripped off by the company (Bikes & Wines), (travellers make sure you take the cheapest tour from them for 30 pesos, and get a local bus to the valley, rather than pay for the all inclusive 110 peso pkg which is crap).
A couple of the vineyards were shut, and the others we went to were either trying to charge extortionate rates to taste some wine, or were just plain rude. The two places that saved the day though, were the local wine museum where we got to see how the wine making process has changed over the years, and got to taste some wine obviously.
The best place in the valley though, was one that made flavoured alcohol and chocolate. They allow you some free tasting, and the things are yummy - coconut flavoured rum, lemon flavoured alcohol, chocolate with hazelnut alcohol, the list is pretty long and endless...really nice people, lovely place.
The evening was slightly ruined by a bunch of Aussies who were so drugged up that they were peeing
in each others mouths at the bike rental place. Yep, not a nice sight at all. They were also coincidently staying at our hostel, so we went back got our bags, and headed straight out of the door for the bus station and a bus to San Carlos de Bariloche, a gorgeous town in the lake district of Argentina.
Oh and we also got sprayed by two kids and their water guns lying in ambush on a street. It was fun!
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