Mendoza

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Three continents. Four planes. Five cities. Forty hours of travel. Who cares? I'm back in South America! Time has become less tangible and certainly doesn't exist in a 24 hour cycle for me at the moment, but I'm sure that such parameters will return soon enough.

After such a prolonged journey, I set out on foot in the familiar surrounds of Santiago, Chile, observing the imperious snow-topped peaks of the Andes to the east which had held me captivated in their innumerable folds as we descended from our cruising altitude. I was in search of two things on this venture from the hammock at my hostel: a Chilean power-plug adaptor and some food. I got both, but the latter was indeed more memorable. Knowing that I am invariably hungry and not feeling entirely thrilled with the airline fare that I'd been gobbling down for two days, I saw a 'sandwich' sign and averted my path to get some sustenance. Naturally, I ordered 'grande'. Well, gargantuan it should have been labelled! I observed incredulously as the girl put eight beef patties on the grill - EIGHT! These were carefully placed inside a 'bun' that had the circumference of a deflated and flattened out basketball, then lovingly adorned with tomato, the contents of at least two avocados and lastly a dousing of mayonnaise that rivalled the snow atop the nearby mountains in terms of impressive coverage. As I wandered the streets with my conspicuous sandwich (my hands were shoulder width apart to hold each side of the circular entity), I found that every local was staring at me with a look of unmistakable incredulity. I'm not sure if they were shocked at the heart attck size of it, or the gringo who was aimlessly trapsing around the streets eating it. Hang on, this entry was supposed to be about Mendoza, so...

I was first drawn to Mendoza by the promise of Argentinian wineries that were accessed by a day or two of cycling and imbibing. An added bonus was that one of my oldest friends in the world was going to meet me there to spend a few days together - which meant that I didn't have to drink alone! Mendoza was completely rebuilt after a catastrophic earthquake levelled the city many moons ago. The result is a city of wide tree-lined avenues with multiple open air squares to relax in. The fear was that a crammed city would suffer again if another earthquake were to strike, so the planners designed a city defined by space. In these summer months, eating on the expansive footpaths is a must as the sun goes down, with dappled rays of honeyed sunlight peeking through the verdant canopy. After a day of bus travel through the Andes, walking along these avenues was much needed in order to stretch my legs, as was relaxing with a book outside a café to watch life in Mendoza unfold.

Tobias arrived the morning after I had set foot in Mendoza, so we went for a brief stroll to grab some brunch before hiring some bicycles to explore the 420 hectare Parque General San Martín on the western edge of the city. As we leisurely cycled around the lake and surrounding gardens, we couldn't help but notice that it was quite a romantic setting. We swiftly found a venue by the lake and ordered a couple of manly beers and talked about girls, just to quell the budding bro-mance! When we set off again, Tobes decided to take his barely-there bicycle 'off road' and instantaneously found himself with a flat tyre, much to my amusement. This was a sign that we should head back to the centre of Mendoza and drink our complementary wine at the hostel before searching for somewhere to have dinner. We tried to find somewhere that didn't have pumping house music, which, after forty or so minutes we eventually found. At the precise moment when we finished placing our order, a DJ arrived and blasted us with some tacky tunes. With the faulty wiring that connected his laptop to his speakers, the jarring soft/loud dynamic over the next couple of hours provided a challenging aural backdrop!

The following day we set out to do what we were really in Mendoza for: cycling around the wineries and partaking in many a tasting session. After catching a local bus out to Maipu, we hired some bikes around noon and set off in search of our first bodega. It was a small family run bodega that suited our purposes perfectly, in that we paid a pittance for two different varieties of wine and enjoyed them under the shade of a tree in the garden. From there we headed to an olive farm and over indulged on their local produce, ranging from olive oil to all manner of antipasto delights. To finish off the visit, we drank a couple of liqueurs for good measure.

Upon leaving the olive farm, the sun decided to show its full force and we had to seek respite at a winery prior to our intended destination. Naturally, we ordered some wine, this time also accompanied by a bite to eat. After we had stopped displaying our best impersonation of melting wax, we braved the summer sun again and pedalled a few metres up the road to the impressive Trapiche winery. This is one of the major Argentinian wineries and it really needs to be visited in order to do it the justice that my words never could. It is an expansive, old and superbly maintained estate and the tour was enlightening. In fact, I finally learnt what all that swishing, sniffing and spitting is for when tasting a wine. Whilst I would still feel like a pretentious moron if I did it back at home, it was fun nonetheless. After tasting a few of their expensive wines, our host then gave Tobias and I one of their rarely opened premium wines that we had tasted, as he didn’t want it to spoil now that it had been opened. Of course, we couldn’t turn down such an offer, so we removed ourselves to their balcony that overlooks the vineyards and polished off the bottle in the shade whilst being baked by the heat emanating from the bricks behind us.

Around the corner was a beer garden, so we thought we’d best pay that a visit too. This was a mistake, as we both agreed that the ‘beer’ we ordered was the foulest tasting ale that had ever passed our lips. It was akin to what I would imagine urine would taste like with a spoon full of honey stirred through it. We decided to leave these beverages unfinished and left our transvestite waiter/waitress to his/her other customers.

Thinking it was probably time to head back to Mendoza, we returned our bikes and as we turned to leave, we heard the question, ‘Vino?’ uttered in our direction. The owner of the bike shop then poured two glasses for us, which was most welcome to the palate after the brewing experiment we had just fled from. At our hostel, we were then handed some more free wine, which we were obviously in need of before heading out for dinner. We met up with a local that Tobias had befriended on his flight to Argentina from Australia. It was a great night of conversation and laughter, but when we realised that it was 2am and that three empty bottles of wine had been cleared from our table, it was decided that a return to the hostel was probably a good idea considering we had to catch a bus to Chile the following day.

P.S. Noticing that I obviously hadn’t consumed enough wine during my visit, when I checked out of the hostel this morning, the girl working at reception gave me a free bottle of wine for the journey. Now, who’s up for some vino?

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