Vickis winery - Mendoza

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14/1/2017
Today we got up super early (7.45am) as we were told the winery that vicki sorted out for us was really far from the city of Mendoza. We had to catch a bus to a town called Lujan Du Cuyo. The buses don't have timetables here so we were waiting for a while. We got to Lujan Du Cuyo at around 10.40am and our tour was starting at 11am. The guy at reception in our hostel told us that we could get a taxi from the town to the vineyard, however, when we got there there were no taxis!! A guy offered to take us which was nice and we were only 5 mins late in the end. He charged us 170 pesos which was a bit steep but we just wanted to get there so it was fine!
The scenery surrounding the vineyard was so amazing. You could see the mountains with snow on the tops and it was truly spectacular!! We did the tour with an gay American couple who were lovely. We knew once we got there we were definitely out of the place as this didn't seem like a vineyard that backpackers went to but more for serious wine buyers and connoisseurs! The company was called Achaval-Ferrer and the reason we went was because the wine company vicki works for (Corney and Barrow) are one of their main exporters so she contacted them to get us a tour! He told us that a bottle usually costs around $165 US dollars so we knew this was good wine. The wine was really good and we even got to try some straight from the barrel! At the end we had a glass overlooking the mountains and the scenery and it was so so good! After yesterday's little cry I definitely felt 100x better. The place called us a taxi back to the town and we had lunch at a buffet. We got to bus back to Mendoza and headed back to the hostel.
When we got to our room Erin would we were with Buenos Aires and who I was speaking to before I came was in our room! We knew she was in Mendoza but didn't expect her to be there. It was really nice to catch up and see what she had been up to. We went for a walk around the big park at the top of city and there was a really nice lake and you could see the mountains in the background. It was still so so hot (35 degrees) so we didn't stay long.
Erin told us about a sunset horse riding trip she had done when she got here so we decided to book it for the following day. It was quite pricey (£40) but it was 6 hour thing and at the end you went to a ranch where there was a swimming pool, BBQ and lots of wine!
As it was peak season in Argentina at the moment due to it being there summer, we had to go to the bus terminal to book our bus to bariloche. We booked it for the evening of the 17th (Tuesday) to arrive on the 18th. All the hostels were also mostly fully booked so we had to book one asap!
We made pasta and just chilled out at the hostel with Nadine and Jason who we had met the previous night.

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