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Published: September 30th 2012
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Mendoza is one of the major wine producing areas in Argentina and so one of the main tourist attractions is going on a wine tour. Harriet was not in the slightest bit interested as she is too young to taste the wine. Toby and Fiona didn't like the thought of sitting on a bus for a whole day with other tourists on a guided tour. We therefore planned to do a different type of wine tour which we thought would be more fun.
Not far from Mendoza is a village called Maipu. There are several vineyards in the village and to help you reach them, there are several bike rental places. The village is an hour bus ride from Mendoza on the local buses. Like most local buses in Argentina, you need coins to pay for the journey. Unfortunately these are as rare as hen's teeth. Luckily in Mendoza you can also pay using a rechargeable card like a Myki or Oyster depending where you are from. The kiosco across the road from the hotel sold these cards, so after checking out and storing our bags we went to buy one. We could see the sign saying they had no
cards from across the road and spent the next 15 minutes looking for somewhere else to get one.
At the bus stop a bike rental rep. had a chat with us. He gave us a map, showed us where his store was and even had coins for the bus if we needed them. He made sure we were on the right bus and we were off.We knew we had to get off on the main street where all the bike rental places are. Our plan was to follow the journey on google maps and jump off when we were in the right place. Google maps didn't seem to match where we were so we gave up on that and jumped off when we saw the bike rental places. It didn't look like a main street and it was only down to Toby's eagle eyes that we managed to be in the right place.
We got a water and a helmet with our bikes and set off for the farthest vineyard. A neighbourhood dog decided to follow us. He wasn't biting or barking but he was determined not to go home when we told him. He mustn't have understood
our Spanish. He stayed with us for ages. Harriet was getting quite nervous about him but Fiona and Toby quite liked him being there as he kept all the other dogs away. He left us when we got to the railway tracks which seemed to be the end of the residential area.
The first vineyard was 10km away. Harriet spent the first 2 km worrying about the dog and the next 8km upset that we had to cycle. It was the first time she had really complained about anything we had done. It was quite hard to encourage her as the views weren't spectacular and we were heading to a vineyard where she couldn't taste the wine. The views would have been better in summer, but the vines were all bare and brown.
At the first vineyard, Carinae, we were given the best guided tour of the day. We were taught all about the wine making process and how the different wines in the range are produced. When it came time for tasting the guide was really helpful and explained how we could try every wine in the range for the cheapest price. We didn't end up buying
any as it was the first cab off the ranks for the day, but we did enjoy them.
The next stop was right across the road at the olive oil factory, Laur. The tour wasn't on as the staff were busy making a new path. They did let us have a tasting plate though and we soon realised we were starving. Harriet got to join in since it wasn't alcohol and started to cheer up. She loves olives. We bought some olives but not the oil and were soon back in the saddle. As we rode back down the road we had come on, we realised we had done 10km uphill. The ride back was much easier and with some food in her belly, Harriet seemed to have got over her slight hissy fit.
Next stop was Tomasso. They don't actually produce any wines at this location any more but there was an interesting tour through the old vats. They are now cleverly used for storage. We had a relaxing break in the sunshine drinking home made lemonade and eating brownies and then pushed on.
We stopped at a place called vino y cerno, but even when
we rang the bell, no one came to serve us. We gave up and went off the plan to visit a boutique vineyard called Mevi. It was the best decision we could have made. The vineyard buildings seemed brand new and the view from the terrace was amazing. It was too hot to sit on the sofas there though so we admired the view and then moved to sit on the shady side of the building. We shared a plate of cheese and olives whilst tasting the wine and meditating on how good life is.
All over Argentina we have seen police on almost every corner. In Maipu there seemed to be one policeman who was covering each corner by being on a motorbike. He had followed us into Vino y Cerno and he stopped us when we took a side road in search of ice cream. The shop we were looking for didn't seem to exist and the policeman seemed quite anxious we went no further off the main routes. We hadn't felt unsafe but we hadn't strayed from the main tourist paths until then either. We decided to follow his advise and keep our kidneys and had
to manage without ice cream.
Our final stop was Harriet's favourite. It was a jam and liqueur factory. We had a delicious tasting experience of jams and bread and also of the liqueurs. We must have been feeling pretty happy by this point as we purchased both jam and a bottle of liqueur to take home.
We took back the bikes and went to the bus stop followed by another of the towns dogs and with Harriet as nervous as ever. He didn't get on the bus with us though much to her relief. The ride home was a different route and we went through some pretty rough areas. We even saw some people being cuffed and stuffed. We still ended up at the bus stop we had got on at in the morning and immediately went back to our favourite ice cream shop. Toby and Harriet had been sorely let down by not finding ice cream in Maipu and had to be consoled as quickly as possible.
After a small dinner we picked up our bags, farewelled the amazing staff at the Modigliani Hotel and took a couple of taxis to the bus terminal. The terminal
was only a short walk away but not a very pleasant one late at night. We were off on a bus again but this time we were travelling in style. We were off to Cordoba on a Premiere bus which meant fully reclining seats, personal TVs with a choice of movies and hopefully a good nights sleep.
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