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Published: December 22nd 2005
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7th December 2005
It was a flying visit to Santiago this time, we arranged accommodation for new year, booked a bus ticket to Mendoza and waited in a massive que in the post office for ages! I know it sounds silly but I forgot it was christmas, and the post office was very busy. After that it gave us little time to do anything else before our bus, so we grabbed a quick sandwich and headed to the bus station.
The bus journey to Mendoza was beautiful going over the high passes through the ski resorts which are all empty at the moment and past the Inca Bridge and further into towards Mendoza, past vineyards and bodegas.
On our way to Mendoza we worked out where else we would like to go and realised with Christmas and New Year taken out of our travelling time, we were not going to have enough time. Something had to give and we had to get South fast.
By the time we got to Mendoza there was little time to do anything that day, so we booked onto the wine tour the next day, and booked a flight down to Punta Arenas
in Southern Chile for the following day, treking on Torres del Paine is something we can´t miss out on.
The next day we were collected from our hostel and taken to the first Bodega of the day La Rural (Ruttini), as we were waiting to go in another minibus pulled up and our tour group was expanding fast. By the time we set off on our guided tour there must have been above 40 people in the group. We were taken to see some vines and then taken into a museum and shown the equipment that they used to use to make wine in colonial times and then the ´recent´past. The tour then moved into the winery and there was an explanation as to how the wine is made today. The winery was big with lots of what looked like new shiny stainless steel vessels. We then came to the bit we had come for the tasting!
We had previously been told by Tom whom we met in Bolivia not to go on a guided tour to the winerys and to go to a good restaurant and get the Somilier (Not sure how to spell it, the wine
expert!) to go to the vineyards with you and hire a car and a driver. However with us being so short of time we didnt do this and regretted it. Whilst we were given the bottom of the barrel to taste, two other women who had gone to the vineyard on their own and had openly admitted they were not buying there they were ´buying in Buenos Aires before they got their flight home´and were tasting everything. I asked to try two other wines and was told we couldn´t taste them even tho'we were planning on buying a few bottles. However we still bought a bottle of red and a bottle of 100% sparkling chardonnay and went off rather miffed that we didn´t do what Tom told us to do.
The next bodega was slightly better, we didn´t get to taste much wine again but we were given a talk on wine tasting. Something I have done before and know about but something Andrew hasn´t done before.
We were returning from the wine tour and had a suprise visit to a chocolate and confectionary factory. It was a fairly large ´craft´operation with little automation. Whilst walking along the
The ancient tools of wine making #2
This is a foot press, for squashing the grapes made from the skin of a whole cow! Guess where the juice came out when finally pressed. viewing gallery I couldn´t help but do a mental audit of the factory! There were so many foreign body risks, no control of allergens and it looked like little formal process control. This was evident in the factory shop, the same product looked visually different between different batches. But it was very tasty and I couldn´t resit buying some chocolate coated Almonds and Some Almond Nougat!
On the tour we got chatting to a German couple who were staying at the same hostel as us, both of which were in the restaurant trade, one a chef and one a wine specialist. They had spotted a restaurant they wanted to go to earlier that day and invited us along.
The restaurant Mi Tierra was one which in the UK would be very expensive, we were greeted at the door and given a tour of the restaurant. The restaurant has information and pictures about the vineyards and Bodegas of Mendoza and the tourist attractions. The wine specialist comes to your table and does a wine tasting with you if you request it. The food, wine and service were excellent and it was about 25 pound for the both of us
and that was for two courses each and a bottle of wine.
The next day we had the morning to fill before our flight to Punta Arenas, the choice of halfday morning activities were horse riding or parapenting. Given that all the activities were extremenly cheap compared to UK standards we decided to opt for the most expensive one parapenting. It cost us less than 25 pounds each and we were on tandems with some people competing in the Parepenting world championships later that afternoon!
The journey in a four wheel drive up the mountain track to the launch point was rough and bumpy and looked dangerously close to the cliff edge at points, but this took my mind of what was to come.
It was a little scary being strapped to someone and running off of the edge of a rather steep mountain with a kind of rectangular parachute attached to your back. However after the initial rush of adrenaline the ´flight´was very peaceful and quiet. The views were fantastic of the mountains and Mendoza (a city of about one million people) layed out below you.
As we neared out ´landing poing´I could see Andy
already going into land, he and his instructor were spiraling gently down to the ground doing loops and turns, something he thoroughly enjoyed. However as my instructior started to do the same I felt a lump come into my throat and my mouth start to water. I quickly shouted to the instructor in the few words I could get out ´I feel sick¨ and in a desire not to be covered in my vomit abstained from the twirly landing! Something I was glad off, it still took me about 20minutes after touching down for my stomach to feel right again. Note to self "next time I do anything like this I will make sure I take my motion sickness pills!" Despite the nauseous feeling at the end of the flight, it was an excellent experience not like I thought it was going to be. It is a smooth drifting feeling like a feather floating down on the thermals, not a feeling of the air rushing past you and the ground approaching fast which is what I expected.
We sat at the landing field and waited for the others in our group to come down, by this time there were
about 5 or 6 parapenters in the air practicing for the competitions later in the day. Some of them were doing amazing tricks and looked like they were completely upside down at one point. Apparently there were two categories in the competition, stunt and navigation.
We returned to the hostel to collect our things and caught our flight to Punta Arenas. Our visit to mendoza was short and it is definately somewhere I could spend some time. We have a lot of unfinished business with Argentina and it is somewhere we would love to return in the future for a holiday.
Following my note on the last blog I can gladly say that mum is now stable and recovering from her ordeal. They were unable to carry out her eye operation due to a reaction her heart had to the anaesthetic and she had to be brought around. What ensued was a week in hospital with numerous tests and a painful chest and ribs following the treatment she was given. Her heart has now been given the all clear and it was confirmed that it was an alergic reaction she suffered. She now has to wait again for the eye operation but has to proceed with a local anaesthetic.
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Jess
non-member comment
Happy Christmas
Hey Andy and Sue Thoroughly enjoyed reading your latest blogs...we are in Barriloche and heading to Mendoza tommorrow for xmas. I hope you have a fantastic xmas and new year...all the best Take care Jess