Mendoza, Argentina

Mendoza is located at the base of the Andes mountains and is the home to wine country and outdoor adventure. It took us 18 hours via bus to get from Buenos Aires. We left Buenos Aires at 2:40pm and arrived Mendoza at 8:30am the following day (June 10th). The ride was very comfortable, with big seats that reclined with a foot rest. The bus was fairly empty and we enjoyed our upper decker seats in the back of the bus without people around. They played older Disney movies, but they were dubbed in Spanish so no luck for us. The journey was only supposed to take 17 hours, but the truck drivers in Argentina are striking. They are parked along the freeways and burning fires on the side of the road to keep them warm and we had to take detours.

Upon arrival in Mendoza, we were greeted with a name sign and walked to our hostel very close to the bus station. We got a great rate on a private double room with a bathroom ensuite which is perfect to settle down in for the next 6 nights. We showered and set off to explore the new city. We walked to the main square for a lunch and beer in an outside cafe and made our plans for the coming days.

After a good night´s rest, we woke early the next day for our first activity in Mendoza, the bicycle wine tour. We were picked up and driven outside of town to wine country. Here we collected our bikes and set out for an all day ride through multiple bodegas for sampling of Argentina´s finest wines. The day was beautiful and the ride was lovely, set against the vineyards and snow capped Andes range in the distance. We made our way to the furthest bodega first (about 5 miles away), knowing after the day´s tastings we would want the easiest return route. We met a lovely couple from San Francisco, Judith and Brian, and enjoyed some of the tastings and tours with them. After our third bodega, we decided to purchase a bottle of Torrantes white wine to enjoy with our lunch. We took our chilled bottle deep into a vineyard and settled in the grass for a picnic of sandwiches, fruit and wine. We laid down and enjoyed our surroundings before getting back on the bikes and further down the road. We made a pit stop at a mini-market for a cerveza between bodegas to quench our thirst (and keep our buzz going). We made it to the last bodega and wine museum for a quick tour while enjoying a nice Cabernet. The wines best known in this region are the red Malbec and the white Torrentes and we were sure to sample many of these two wines. We carried on with our wine tasting back at the hostel as we enjoyed a bottle of Malbec from our tour with a pasta dinner. We set out on foot after dinner to meet our new-found friends from the day, but missed them at the bar they were at for the night. Oh well, at least we got to walk off our dinner!







The next day was spent sleeping in (recovering from our wine tour the day before) and wandering around the city of Mendoza. We explored different areas of the city and stopped to enjoy empanadas yet again (we still haven´t found any that compare to Buenos Aires though). We also spent some time figuring out our remaining days in Argentina. On Friday the 13th, we intended to hike in the Andes but in true ¨Freaky Friday¨ fashion we had to change all of our arrangements made the day before. Not only did we miss the bus for hiking, but we also realized our plans for skiing in Chile were not jiving with our flight time out of Santiago to the States. So, the day was spent changing our previously booked plans but we also found time to walk up to the local park. The park was about a 45 minute walk from our area of town but well worth the small trek. We walked to the park and then made our way around the small lake to watch the locals row, kayak and ride bikes while enjoying our sandwiches in the sun. We walked back to the hostel for a nice bangers and mash with another Malbec wine before getting a good night´s sleep for our trek the next day.

On the 14th, we headed out early in the morning for an all day hike in the Andes. We took an 8:25am local bus out of Mendoza to El Salto, an hour and a half bus ride to a small village nestled at the base of the Andes. The bus dropped us at the end of a dirt road and we had to crawl underneath a ¨DO NOT ENTER¨ fence that only the locals know of for a full day trek. We did our best to follow the unmarked path and got a little turned around with the trail crossing a small river. After the first hour, we finally figured the tricks of the hike. We had to switchback over several rocky river beds to stay on the trail. The plan was to hike 3 hours to a waterfall, have lunch and immediately turn around for the 3 hour return hike, but this had to be exactly on schedule in order to catch the last bus back to Mendoza at 5:00pm. With our confusion in the beginning of the trek, we decided to hike the beautiful 3 hours in and have lunch at whatever point we reached before turning back again. The hike was amazing as we trekked through a valley along the rushing water. We came across several wild horses, most in the distance on the hills, but some were grazing along our trekking path. They didn´t seem phased by us and let us approach them before they non-chalantly turned the other direction. After three hours on our up-mountain trek, we found a nice rock amongst the snow covered mountains to enjoy our picnic. We felt we were so close to our destination of the falls, but our fear of being stranded in the mountains overruled and we decided to turn back. The day was beautiful and even without reaching the waterfall the hike was well worth the journey. We caught the one and a half hour bus ride back to Mendoza and settled back into city life with another Malbec wine and another of Jacques´ tasty meals.









This morning we woke early again for our horseback riding trip in Mendoza. Our driver picked us up late and drove us to a stable just outside the city at the foothills of the Andes. We saddled up and set out on our 2 hour journey. It was a little chillier than it has been but the sun was shining and turned out to be yet another beautiful day. The experience was very different from the one we had a few weeks ago in Chile. The terrain was rockier and rougher and we could really only walk and sometimes trot with the horses. We had the bug to run from our last experience and took every small chance we could to try and get these horses up to a gallop. Finally at one point on the excursion, the road opened and flattened out and we kicked our horses into a full gallop for a few minutes. My white (almost albino looking) horse had been taking ¨snack¨ breaks along the way and the payout was great as she flew down the road leaving Jacques´ horse to bring up the rear. Such a great rush! At the end of the road we turned onto another rocky trail and slower pace. The white horse was such a piggy and constantly stopping to snack and Jacques´ horse decided to join in the feeding frenzy. So our trip was combined with walking, trotting, a little galloping and a lot grazing along the way. We feel our horse riding days have only just begun and even though we are leaving South America soon, we hope to ride again the countries to come! Tomorrow, we head out early on a bus to Los Penitentes, a ski resort in the Andes on the Argentina side for 2 days and a night then heading over the mountains back to Santiago for our last day skiing Valle Nevado on the Chile side. Many more fun and wintery days ahead...