Wining and dining in Mendoza

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Day 139: Food tours

Having been woken up at six to a delicious breakfast of coffee and two minipackets of savoury and sweet biscuits, there was only half an hour of the journey left, before we arrived at Mendoza bus station. As is always the way with long nightbus journeys, I hadn't slept too well and was looking forward to having a hot shower and getting settled in our next accomodation; but not wanting to appear too eager, we sat in a cafe at the bus station for a second and third round of coffee, before showing up at our accomodation at a slightly more sociable hour.

The last time I spent the night anywhere that wasn't a hostel (discounting planes and buses), it was in a tent. You can therefore imagine my excitement at having finally moved up in the world, checking into a bed and breakfast. With our very own little motel style unit with en suite bathroom, Los Varietales was great. Admittedly, the double bed actually consisted of two singles pushed together with a couple of sheets over the top, but you can't have everything!

Despite checking in way too early, the lovely lady on reception showed us to our room straight away, so we could have a nice long kip before heading into town to explore.

The original Mendoza had been flattened by an earthquake a hundred years previously, and the new city was subsequently organised to preempt further natural disasters, with low buildings, wide streets, and numerous plazas to act as evacuation points. Although functional, it did make for an attractive city, and we had a nice stroll round before stopping for a very leisurely lunch, which included an obligatory bottle of Mendoza wine. The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering the streets of the city, eating icecream, and since Mendoza is the main wine producing region of Argentina, we arranged a wine tour for the following day.

Recommended by just about guidebook and magazine, we went to dinner at Anna's Bistro, a popular restaurant, ten minutes walk from our accomodation. The whole set up was lovely, with comfy seats, tables inside and out and ambient lighting. Our table was on the grass to the side of the bar and restaurant, and the food was fantastic. Nick was soon raving about his steak as being the best ever, whilst my pasta in a creamy sauce was perfectly cooked. After such great main courses, it would have been wrong not to have had pudding as well, and a little while later, we were tucking into a plateful each of profiteroles. After a very pleasant evening, and having finished the fabulous meal (naturally accompanied by cocktails and wine), it was all we could do to waddle back to the B&B for a much deserved good night's sleep.


Day 140: Wine tours

It was a late start this morning, and after a buffet breakfast of toast, fruit, biscuits and cheese (giving the ham and dulce de leche a wide berth), we hung around the hostel until lunch time when the bus arrived to take us on a wine tour of a couple of nearby wineries.

The tour commenced, with an unscheduled and rather chaotic tour of Mendoza. Stopping at just about every hotel and hostel in the region to pick up other people for the tour took all of about an hour, before we were finally on our way. An hour's drive out of the city and we arrived at our first stop, a very modern winery, in a state of the art building surrounded by vineyards. After a guided tour of their largely mechanical wine-producing equipment, all in what seemed to be a very sterile environment, we were taken upstairs for one (that's just one) sample of Malbec. Disappointingly, although not terrible, the wine wasn't so great, and after not the best start, we continued on our way to a local olive farm where olives were grown and pressed into oil. Again there was a quick guided tour, before some much needed free samples (serving as a meal replacement). The second and final winery, being smaller, older and using more traditional methods, was much nicer than the first. Again, we had a guided tour around the dark and dingy cellars, before getting our free tasters (this time we had two), with both wines at this winery being much nicer than at the first.

We had thought that after two wineries, we had finished our tour, but there was much applause (from the locals) when it was announced that there would be an extra surprise stop at a local church on the way back to Mendoza. Bear in mind we were already late back, it was getting later, and we hadn't had any lunch. The news of another little excursion didn't fill everyone with joy, but nevertheless, we filed off the bus with everyone else and went to look at the church where a service was in full swing. It did feel a bit intrusive turning up whilst there was a service going on, and we hovered outside, where after a bit of procrastination time, we were finally on our way again, eventually arriving back at Mendoza half an hour later. There followed another hour long faff, as the coach drove to each hostel/hotel in turn dropping people off. Since we had been the first to be picked up, we were also the last to be dropped off, and arrived back at the hostel, rather tired, at nine o'clock.

Not really feeling like a big night out, we wandered down to the local pizza place for dinner, where a giant pizza and litre of beer came to a little over three pounds. Bargain!


Day 141: Did you hear the one about the engineer and the doctor who went on holiday together?

After a slow start, we had a bit of a rush getting our things together ready to check out, but by eleven, we were breakfasted, packed, and ready to go. Our bus wasn't until eight in the evening, and so with time to kill, we took a walk to the museum.

The museum was shut until the afternoon, and with not a lot else on the agenda, we wandered into town. After a leisurely lunch outdoors in one of the pedestrianised streets, we wandered around the plazas (and I ate a ginormous tub of icecream), before heading back to the museum.

The museum was built around some of the excavations of the old city and was sited where the old market and town hall had been. Exhibits included displays focusing on the history of Mendoza, with artefacts found in the region and photos of the city before and after the earthquake which flattened it. Although interesting, most of the exhibits were in Spanish, and on a hot Sunday afternoon, I was lacking the patience and ability to translate the vast majority of it.

Since it was a lovely afternoon, we decided there was time for a quick drink before getting our bus, and opted to sit at a roadside cafe with a bottle of chablis (not very Argentinian I know, but pleasantly refreshing). Unfortunately, we lost track of time, and before we knew it, it was less than hour until our bus was due to leave. We decided to get a taxi to the B&B to pick up our things, and then drive straight to the bus station. Unfortunately, taxis were in short supply, and after a wasted ten minutes trying to hail one, we resorted to running, tipsy (and me in flipflops), back to B&B to pick up our bags. Immediately after retrieving them, the lady on reception called us a cab. We told her that we had a bus to catch at eight, but she seemed to think we had plenty of time (it was gone seven-thirty at that point). The taxi arrived five minutes later, and in another fifteen minutes, we were on the platforms, looking for our bus. With ten minutes to spare, I asked in the office and got the platform number, but our bus was nowhere to be seen. There was another bus there that turned out not to be ours and with eight o'clock drawing near, I asked around other drivers and fellow passengers, but was just told to wait. And wait we did. Half an hour later, we were feeling more than a bit anxious that we had missed the bus, and so I went to ask in the office again, to be told what time it was. It turned out that the clocks had gone back the night before, and we'd spent the whole day rushing around for no reason at all and could have actually had an extra hour in bed.

The bus arrived on time, and very relieved, we climbed aboard. Although our seats had been separate, the one next to Nick's was available and so I took that one and we made ourselves comfortable as the bus pulled out of Mendoza. Dinner was served (ham and cheese sandwiches and a meaty pasta concoction, I had a bag of crisps), a film was shown, and all was well until we stopped in a town to pick up some more passengers. I was subsequently evicted from the seat next to Nick by a new passenger, and returned to the correct one, but was a bit miffed when they tried to move Nick too. After a bit of an argument, in which we managed to get the Argentinian couple behind us on board, we found out that we had been wrong all along and due to the inability of either of us to read tickets correctly Nick had actually been sitting in the wrong seat. Red-faced, we were consigned to opposite ends of the bus and kept quiet for the rest of the night.

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