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Published: April 3rd 2010
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One of the things that I discovered while researching this little sojourn was that Mendoza is the home of Malbec, which I´m fastly learning is one of the finest of South American red wines that you can get. So there´s no surprise that I decided to stop on by to see what all the talk was about. The road from Santiago across the Andes to Mendoza is one of those times that I wish I was driving or riding a motorbike instead of being a passenger in a bus, not that I have a motorbike licence or can ride one with any great finess but you get the picture. The view is amazing, I´m ranking it up there with driving through the Canadian rockies, except with this one you keep going up and up and up until you get to the border crossing. As with most border crossings that I´ve done overland in a foreign country where my command of the language spoken is well, not very commanding I just follow everyone else and hope that I´m in the right line. This one couldn´t be easier, get off bus line up hand over passport to Chilean guy, get passport back then
take a step to the right place your hands on your hips and then give passport to Argentinean lady who stamps it and away you go to line up at quarantine where they look through your luggage and x-ray the big bags. Back on the bus and away you go, how easy is that.
From the time that you first start to wonder around Mendoza you realise that it´s one of those towns that´s got it. A bit like the capital of Slovenia (you´ll have to google it, but it´s got a L and a J in the name) when I fled there after a slightly disappointing Lake Bled. Mendoza seems to have it all, nice pedestrian malls, parks and more than one restaurant / bar strip. The streets feel safe to stroll around at night as I trek the ten or so blocks from the B&B into the centre of town. Even though the taxi back to the B&B is only 10 Peso the walk into town was a good excursion and offset the absolute foodfest that I´d been having since I got here.
Still not being sure what timezone I´m in, I decided rather than go
riding around the vineyards (or bodegas) on my first day here I´d go for a massage instead. Fortunately the receptionist Mariana (absolute genius) had a friend who knew someone that worked at their hotel who could give me an hour massage for the princely sum of 80 pesos (which is about $23). So off I go trapsing across town to the other hotel where the concierge points me in the right direction. Now I wasn´t really expecting the massuese to be wearing jeans and a chequered cowboy type shirt (he even had a pack of marlboro!). But it was all good and fortunately for me didn´t turn into a brokeback mountain type scenario. Lunch turned out to be a little surprise as well, doing the aimless wonder yet again I end up at this nice little pub for the Argentinean version of a pie, the empanda. Again having an ever improving knowledge of the Spanish language, I can now say hello and thank you, I point and hope off the menu. Six of the finest little pastries filled with absolutely delish fillings of different meats, onion and cheese combinations arrive. Along with a glass of wine, and then another glass
of wine (note to novice Spanish linguistss promos means special and in the context of a menu usually includes a drink with the meal or in this case two drinks). So here I am having these yummo mini pastry numbers drinking a cheeky little red whilst listenning to the hits from the 80´s and 90´s while watching the passing parade all for 35 pesos (or about $10). As they say on the island, happy tumas. Dinner at Azafran was even more impressive from the salmon mouse with calamari ring to the tortilla espanola and up to the lomo steak tenderloin with the nicest of Malbecs all for 150 Pesos, you just can´t go wrong here.
If you do any research on the web about Mendoza one of the things that jumps out at you is doing a tour of the nearby wineries by pushbike. Again this sounded like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately the Argentineans are a little cartographly challenged when it comes to drawing a map of a wine area. What looks like a mere few kilometres down the road ends up being a journey to the end of the earth. It´s about this time that
Lunch at La Melesca
And time to change the trusty steed for a new improved model. one realises that I bear no resemblance to Lance Armstrong as I´m riding the trusty iron stead along the roads of Maipu. Although the trusty stead did manage to throw a chain halfway there, not an ideal way to discover your mechanical prowess after a few glasses of the finest malbec. Fingers safely intact I made it to the luncheon venue where in amongst the smattering of now improving Spanish I managed to ask the guy at the restaurant to ring the bike mob to replace my no longer trusty stead. Fortunately I managed to trade up to a new flash model that the gears actually worked on. Meanwhile Charles from Colorado (near where Mork from Ork was from) was having none of these issues. But what would you expect from a recently graduated law student who was riding his motorbike from his driveway at home to the bottom of South America. Charlie and Ewan where his heroes and it was an interesting chat along the way as he was wishing he was on his motorbike and I was thinking just being on two wheels was not the brightest idea for wine tasting.
Next stop Buenos Aires.
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