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Published: June 27th 2012
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Mendoza is Argentina’s answer to wine heaven and after our trip to the wine region in New Zealand I was really looking forward to another stop on the wine trail! We arrived tired to the bus terminal with no Argentinian pesos and a rough idea of how to get to the hostel we had booked. Somehow we ended up communicating to a man where we were staying and the next thing you know we are waiting on the side of the road for a free transfer to our hostel. At this point, standing with a young man waiting for our lift we were wondering if we were being scammed. We tried to ask how far the hostel was, offered to walk (to be sure) but next thing we were in a car on the way. Luckily humanity didn’t let us down this time and we were in the right place!
We got settled in and had showers before heading out to find some cash (it was difficult to find an atm that worked, we needed dollars to pay for hostel, we went illegal and bough some black market dollars – totally John’s idea). We then went for what can only
be described as a feast. A restaurant mentioned to us by the hostel owner didn’t disappoint….. All you can eat. With everything. I mean salad stations, potato stations, all sort of veg, fresh pastas, fresh pizzas, fish, meats cooked in front of your eyes on the grill and of course the best –the dessert station with every cake possible, fresh crepes with ice-cream and dulce du leche (best dessert I’ve ever had). You get the picture. Of course we had to have some amazing red wine from the region (called Malbec) to go with it. There literally was too much choice and we didn’t get to taste a quarter of it! It was what we needed though.
The next day we were up to explore the city more. Only problem with Sundays here, everything is shut!! At least til late afternoon. As we walked around it was like a ghost town. Similar to Ireland years ago (I imagine) people take Sunday as a day of rest. So we took in some of the plazas, had a steak lunch (the steak here is AMAZING), saw some markets setting up, did some general people watching and made the most of what
we could. We also booked our tour for the next day to visit some wineries, an olive oil place and a chocolate factory with the hostel.
After we booked the tour I decided to check up the hostel on Trip Advisor (sometimes I do this after rather than before because we have more time or internet connections are better). The reasons I did it was that we found the owner and his two sons to be nothing more than helpful, a bit of a laugh and they gave us great advice about Mendoza and the tour sounded good for the price. I shouldn’t have looked it up. There were horrendous reviews about the sons stealing food of guests from the fridge, the owner shouting at people, a hidden camera that was found in one of the bathrooms, overcharging people and the like. I immediately went into overdrive, analysing every little detail – what if we go on the tour and we are left in the middle of nowhere, will we leave our bags here when we are off on the tour, what if they take us to the worst wineries, what if there was a camera in the shower.
John was having a great laugh at me.
The next morning we were up and off on the tour (all valuables with us, only clothes left in backpacks behind). But I really shouldn’t have doubted them cos my first impressions were good and the wine tour turned out to be just brilliant. We visited a very industrial bodega (winery) first and had a tour of the factory with its large oak casks, the industrial processes and the amazing packing machines followed by some wine tasting. John could join in this time so it was great. The wine here is just divine and of course we had to buy a bottle here! Next we visited an organic vineyard and had an extremely interesting tour with the most enthusiastic guide. He really wanted us to understand about the organic process and how any addition of chemicals makes a wine not 100% organic. The operation here was much more compact with no industrial equipment really, packaging by hand and a slower turnaround time. The wine tasting here really opened my eyes to the difference in the wines and we got to taste a totally organic wine with absolutely no chemicals. Of course
we had to buy a bottle of that stuff; it was divine and another bottle of different stuff for good measure. The olive oil place was closing for siesta so we just had a lovely snack tasting different oils with bread and pastes!
Our final stop was at the chocolate factory. Had we any Spanish this tour would have been a lot longer but the girl could only point and look at us to give us the idea of how things were run. In fact it was the part of the Cadburys tour that was missing in New Zealand so we were happy! They also made MASSIVE Easter eggs there; it was cool to see that!
So after our tour we were able to hang out in the hostel til our overnight sleeper bus for Buenos Aires was due to leave – again the owner was so nice to us. Ok, in the past there may have been dodgy dealings or something but overall we either had a lucky experience or they have upped their standards!
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