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Published: September 22nd 2007
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Here we are in Mendoza after yet another long overnight bus journey. There is a definite buzz with this city. It´s lively, chic, and full of heritage. We went through a desert to get to it, believe it or not before we got to it. Finally, we are in the home of wine in this part of the world! It also means more mountains ( we are still in the Andes ) and lots of activities! After all it is the home of Aconcagua the highest mountain in the whole America at 6962m.
Indeed, after getting to our next hostel " The Campo Base" by the Plaza Independencia, we organise our next three days here.
1st day: Wine tour around Mendoza, a Chocolate factory. Mmmmm!!! Renata's eyes are glowing with excitment and anticipation) and a distillery.
2nd Day: High Andes Tour! All day. Great!!! We will see Aconcagua
3rd day: Abseiling, Trekking and Hot Spa village. Fantastic
4th day: "On the roooad again"
We go to pay for our package which included all of the above plus the 4th night free when you stay for 3 nights
We are then told " Sorry no hot spa but mountain biking instead
"
Ok, no big deal.
" Oh, and it will be 120 pesos more each!" Suddenly, we are not excited anymore and ask explanations. Gaston who is actually very helpful tells us that there aren´t many people going to the spa so they had to change. but to a more expensive one. We started discussing it with Renata when he comes back and says "Ok, Ok it´s fine with the spa and you won´t have to pay extra. Finally!
When we come to pay, he says "Sorry, we got it wrong, you can´t have the 4th night for free." It just showed us that things weren´t very well organised here. But hey, after all, we are in South America, things are relaxed here and we like it. Nevermind , forget the 4th night we got to hit the road anyway...
So 1st day: 2.00pm: We are waiting in the hostel to take us to the bodega, it´s 15mins late. ok no problem. we go and pick other people from 2 other hostels and then we come back to our hostel to pick someone else up!!! it´s 3.30pm by then, still in the minibus. Not a bodega in sight.
We set
off, at last we go to the first bodega, supposed to be the smallest bodega in town, wine is ok, nothing to write home about , we do our tasting, move on to the next one, same thing, this time the wine is much better and the winery more interesting. Then we are off to the chocolate factory. Yeahh!!! says Renata, we get to the front door, they ask us who we are and , "sorry you are not on our list!" says one hostess. They didn´t know we were coming. Renata´s eyes and shoulders dropped. But here comes our tour guide, mumbles a few words of Spanish, and gets us through....Success!!! We get through the production area, a guy exlains in very fast spanish the process of making chocolate which half of us couldn´t understand what he was saying he was speaking so fast. Must´ve had some chocolate melting in a pot somewhere while he was doing the talk and had to go. That was it! The tour ended. Down we go to the gift shop, we are given a tiny sample sachet of chocolate bonbons ( 5 in total ) and they expect you to purchase everything from
Plaza Independencia
Concert taking place the shop. The whole visit lasted 7mins!!! I bought some chocolate to keep Renata´s palate buds satisfied otherwise it would´ve a disaster to have come all the way to a chocolate factory, look at it and nothing! It´s like giving someone and present and take it away from them.
Needless to say that we didn´t get to visit the distillery as there has been a mix up between the guides and the hostel. The thing is, here in Argentina, people don´t complain much, it´s part of the culture and you just accept it.
2nd day: The tour to the High Andes is supposed to start at 7.30am. So we are down for breakfast early enough at 7.00am(supposed to start at 6.00am). The guy at reception is lying on the sofa, he looks wrecked, says he has a headache and tells us the lady who gets the pastries ( that´s all you get here by the way in Argentina, pastries and coffee, they are not breakfast eaters) is usually 5-10mins late. Our minibus should leave in 10 mins, we have nothing to eat. Stomach is begging for food!!!
She makes it just in time for us to grab one or
two sweet rolls and we head towards other hostels to pick more people up. Same scenario as the previous day! We don´t leave Mendoza until 10.00am. The guide starts his talk and we wondered if we didn´t take the wrong tour. "Here you will find an oil refinery, the 4th in the country you know! and here is a typical Argentine bridge, yes ladiiiies and Gentlemen, mother nature has given us a yellow and blue bridge- Yeah the Boca Juniors briiiiidge!!!! ( Just a quick note for those who don´t know Boca Juniors, it is the biggest and probably the most successful football team in Argentina, a bit like Manchester United in the UK. It is a religion here.)
We thought the guy was just nuts. He was making up facts and figures as he went along, but in a strange way, he kept us very entertained all the way by his humour. The most important part was that we got to see a lot of mountains and nature. We went through Puente del Inca, "Inca´s Bridge", an ancient Inca spa resort where they used to bring ill people to experience its amazing healing properties. The bridge is still standing
amazingly, with lots of stalagmites and stalagtites. Do have a look at the pictures . It´s incredible. We also got to see Aconcagua fairly closely. We stopped in many villages on the way to Penitentes, the last point before Aconcagua and we actually managed to see an Andean Condor at the entrance of the village. Unheard of before! Our guide said he´d been doing this job for 20 years and never seen one that close before. We think it was one of his gripping lines again!The vulture was very close actually. We believed him. It was a fun day, we have to say. Unforgettable.
3rd day: Trekking, Abseiling and Hot Spa.
Probably the best organised trip. After walking up the steep hills and down trying to spot another Andean Condor in flight before our next activity but with no luck, Renata got to do her first abseiling and she loved it, me too. After lunch, we went to relax in hot pools in a village in the mountains. It was heaven.
4th day: Our bus is not leaving until 10.00pm, so we have the whole day to ourselves to discover the city of Mendoza and its many squares.
Very relaxing.
10.00pm: "On the road again"
We should arrive in Cordoba tommorrow morning at 7.00am.
A new area, new city, a new adventure.
Will tell you all about it!
Bye!!!!!
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alan smith
non-member comment
yeeeee haaaaa
Superb, you guys. Quelle trip! Make sure you bring me a sample of chocolate back..... dans une grande valise!!! Le vin, aussi... take me home daddy!!! Much love. Alan, Pam, Ty and John