Malbec and smelly slackers


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South America » Argentina » Mendoza » Mendoza
April 1st 2006
Published: April 1st 2006
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An extremely comfortable bus journey landed us in Mendoza a few days ago. The Argentinian buses are fantastic..we´d paid 6quid extra to go "Coche Cama" instead of the normal semi-cama (the primera clase not being available on the route) and got a superb leather reclining seat with tonnes of room on the bottom floor of the bus..nice and quiet and a superb place to spend 20 hours. We had hot food (3 courses) and free soft drinks, and managed to get something of a good night´s sleep...a good thing as you´ll see below.

Walked through the lovely tree-lined boulevards of the city to our hostel at 8am, along with Laura, an Italian girl we´d met in the hostel in Bariloche. The hostel, the Damajuana, appeared lovely, and very much as had been described to us by someone in Buenos Aires...spacious, nice tv room with comfy couches, large garden with a pool...somewhere to while away the hot days. We knew we´d have to stay in dorms for the first two nights, but hadn´t had any problems with them previously...unfortunately this luck was about to run out!

I generally like most Australians I´ve met - friendly, worldly-wise (those that have left home, anyway) and good company. The (predominately) girls staying in our hostel were quite unlike this stereotype, preferring to fit the drunken Ibiza party stereotype instead, but crossed with country bumpkin and a little dash of open air between the ears.

We´d had a decent night out, avoiding the slacker crowd who seem to congregate in places like this in warmer climes (they somehow never manage to make it to the colder parts of the world they profess to be visiting)...our roommates, a dutchman, an american, an english guy and a german were all out so we thought we´d get a decent night´s kip, which we did, until they started to wander (stagger) back around 4am, with one of them banging open the door then realising he´d done something bad and collapsing on the bed. At least he washed on occasion and so didn´t smell too bad..unlike our english friend who has been wearing the same clothes since we arrived, fragranted only be the multitude of fags he´s been smoking... one of those dreadlocked types who somehow manages to go to uni then doss around the world for a year or so whilst never earning any money...how do they do it?

To top the night, one of the aussie girls then decided to wake everyone up in the hostel, after getting in from the pub at 6am . Totally plastered, she was determined to repeatedly open the door of our room and slam it shut again 2 secs later, cackling in a particularly offensive manner and attempting (from what I could hear) to stand up straight. She´ll never know how close she came to being thrown into the shower room and the cold tap turned on.

The next day we got up wearily and took the "bikes and wine" tour around the nearby Malbec bodega area...quite overpriced as it turns out..for what we paid, we got a taxi there and back, bike hire and a deli platter lunch...drinks not included, and most of the bodegas turned out to be free anyway! To top that, I crashed my bike in the first 10mins and had to suffer the remainder of the day with a large bleeding gash on my leg.




However, the bodegas themselves were cool - from the old to the new to the small to the large, all with nice wine, and most with very friendly and enthusiastic staff. The best was the Tempus Alba bodega, a fairly modern place, where we were told of their "Malbec Project" - a long term exercise in selective breeding of the best Malbec plants in order to have some kind of Malbec Master Race in about 10yrs - ambitious and clever. Their tour was excellent, and the wine we tasted already fantastic. Sadly, it´s not yet available in Europe, but it's one to watch for.

Another noisy (and smelly) night in the hostel passed, and we took a local bus out to the town of Uspallata in the Andes near the border with Chile. The scenery was stunning...all the mountains you could ever hope to see in one place, including one which I´d never heard of -Anaconcagua (?), which at nearly 6.9km high is apparently the 15th (not 2nd..sorry) biggest in the world after Everest! The area around town is where they shot the film 7 years in Tibet, and there's a nice wee bar in memory of this.




Back to the hostel then for 2 nights of peace in a lovely double room. Amazingly we met a wee man from Cookstown, Co. Tyrone...he didn´t believe I was from Derry at first. A tasty asado followed, complete with the usual 2 tonnes of meat and a gallon of wine. Laura´s birthday today and we´re both feeling a bit groggy, so it'll be a quiet day before tomorrow´s bus trip to Salta.

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4th April 2006

rubbing salt into wounds
as much as i enjoy reading your blog it is starting to make me feel extremely jealous.....glasgow has yet to admit that it is spring, and i am begining to wonder if you can develop trench foot just from walking to and from uni.... glad you are both still having a wonderful trip, i've always thought australians were the southern hemisphere's answer to americans. keep up the good work, and laura hope you had a great brithday.
5th April 2006

Now its not so long ago...
...that you were a smelly slacker yerself :) Happy Birthday to Laura!
14th April 2006

Aconcagua
....it is the 15th highest mountian in the world....K2 is the second highest.

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