Mendoza: Wine & Waves

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Three hours late and after a four hour, 2am Chilean/Argentinian border crossing we finally arrived in Mendoza to to blues skies and beautiful scenic landscape. Once settled into our new temporary home, we headed off to book and organise the next couple of days.

The next morning, with bus passes at the ready we hoped aboard a local bus and headed off to visit a few of the many wineries in this famous wine region...a kind of winery crawl I guess. 45 minutes later we reached our stop, jumped off and headed for Mr Hugo's bike hire. Map in hand and bike between our thighs, off we peddled to our first winery of the day; Rutini. After parking up outside we strolled through a room with enormous barrels of wine into a small rustic museum which was complete with historic wine making artefacts. With the aforementioned sights coupled with the incredibly pungent smell off red wine, we really did feel like we had arrived in wine country. Despite being 10am, we were already chomping at the bit, ready to get necking some lovely vino. Following a brief browse of the tasting options, we picked one out and waited for them to be poured. Expectant of three small quarter filled glasses, it came as some surprise when we were greeted with three full large glasses and a pack of breadsticks each. With the equivalent of a bottle of wine each (both red and white) in front of us, we were a little shocked. In true binge drinking style, we puffed out our chests and got cracking. Doing our best 'Masterchef style' impressions we briefly discussed the fine nose, eloquent flavours and admired the beautiful legs appearing on the glass after a quick swirl...more like we toasted to Britain (Scotland, Gemma would say) and swigged away! One down, three to go...

Our next stop was a larger winery called Trapiche a mile or so down the road. After passing through the main gate, we cycled through rows of vines up to the reception area of the main building and embarked upon a guided tour of the winery to see how wines are produced now and how that differs from techniques used many years ago. With relics such as the decommissioned railway line and trains which were used to transport wines to destinations far away in Buenos Aires and beyond, and the the numerous pieces of machinery used for cultivating the untold number of wines. The tour was rounded up with the usual tastings of a number of the winery's different wines.

All this cycling and wine drinking had got our bellies rumbling, so we switched our brains into food mode and searched for a winery where we could grab a bite to eat. A good few miles later and we arrived at our final winery of the day called Mavi. Here we stuck to just the one glass of wine and tucked into a board of cheese, salami, olives and bread. Together with stunning views of olive trees in the foreground, rows upon rows of vines next and finished with the Andes in the far distance, it really was a lunch to remember.

With Mendoza also being famous for producing many different types of olive oils, we made the final stop on our wine tour at a small family run business which produced many olive oils, chutneys, olive pastes and chocolate! Even though it was only half an hour or so after our lunch, we felt obliged to sample some of their produce, so went for yet another platter. This time it was filled with chocolates, chutneys, pastes and accompanied by a hazelnut liquor. Feeling as though we were about to burst, we hoped back on our bikes for the final time and headed back to Mr Hugo's to drop of our bikes. No more wine for a while!!!

That evening we had an early night to sleep off all the wine, as we had to be up early the next day for our second activity of our stay...river boarding. In most simplistic form, it consists of body boarding down grade 3+ white water rapids. Following a scenic one hour ride up into the foot of the Andes, we arrived at the base for all the water sports on the river. Not too long after arriving, we were introduced to our guide for the morning (a scraggy haired yank) and were fully kitted out; rubber booties, flippers, full wet suit, life jacket, helmet and of course our own river board. All set, we we driven about 15 minutes up river to our launch spot. A few photos and a short briefing and next thing you know we were bobbing in a tranquil spot of the raging river. A quick practice in the calmer part of the river and we were off. No more than a minute after hitting out first major rapid and Gem was smashed from her board, contact lenses all over the place and was yelping like a drowning kitten. We quickly swam over to the river bank to catch our breath, re-align contacts and to reassure Gem that she wasn't going to die. With five more rapids to negotiate Gem had a look of pure terror on her face, but we cracked on nonetheless. With warnings of numerous 'holes' (areas of water which suck you in, flip of you over, spin you about and then spit you out) and waves ahead, it was going to be a rocky ride.

Without too many more major dramas we had both successfully(ish) managed to make our way down river through all that the river had to throw at us. Safely back ashore, Gem was happy to still be breathing and vowed to never do it ever again.

With a 3pm departure back to town, we still had time to have a nice lunch, sunbath and enjoy the spectacular mountain, river and lake views.

Next stop Salta.

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Comments

[Natalie]

Scary
Urgh, brown water and looks very scary!! Don't think I could have handled that! Good work gem!!!! ;)