After Chile, we headed to Mendoza on Monday where we spent 3 days. Mendoza is the fourth largest city in Argentina, and famous for it's production of wine, making 70 percent of the bottles in the country. Mendoza is also well known for its very modern infrastructure with its wide avenues and spacious plazas, this being due to huge earthquake in 1861 which destroyed the entire city thus resulting it having to be completely rebuilt.
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| Parque General San Martín |
After a day of getting our bearings and wandering round the beautiful tree lined avenues and parks of the city, 3 notable things came to light about the people of Mendoza:
1. Haircuts - despite an abundance of hair salons on every street corner, Mullets are very much the height of fashion. For all ages. We found this both quite amusing and slightly disconcerting!
2. Fashion - Trying to buy a plain pair of shorts and vest top in a city full of hot pants and leopard print is quite a challenge.
3. The men - judging by the gawps, wolf whistling and bum touching, it seems that either we have become Gisele like goddesses overnight, or that men here are just not used to pasty Brits.
A classic incident highlights this last point perfectly. Whilst minding our own business waiting to cross a road, the driver of a passing car was hanging his head out of his window and drooling over us so much that he didn't realise the motorbike in front of him had stopped. This resulted in a minor collision, a very angry bike owner and a rather embarrassed driver. Evidence that beauty really can stop traffic!
The prime attraction of Mendoza is the wine tastings and vineyard tours. We decided the best and most entertaining way to achieve this was to embark on a wine and bike tour in the Maipu region, with the infamous Mr Hugo, whose reputation clearly precedes him as we first heard about him from fellow travellers back in Santiago. To further elaborate, a bike and wine tour consists of hiring a bike, being given a map of various vineyards within about a 12km radius, and spending the afternoon cycling from one to the other to sample their wines.
As soon as we arrived, Mr Hugo greeted us warmly with his big toothy grin and a rather large glass of his home brewed red wine (which was much needed after a hair raising taxi journey there).
Once feeling slightly calmer we soon set on our way to the first vineyard. This sentiment didn't last for long, as Hannah soon realised the brakes on her bike were non existent! But this was only the start of what would be a hilarious booze filled and somewhat unexpectedly challenging adventure.
Our idyllic illusions of beautiful tranquil country roads were soon shattered, when we came across what can only be described as a bomb site. Dirt, mud and clouds of dust along with accompanying diggers and drills, stretched as far as the eye could see. The photo below captures the scenery perfectly!
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| Enough said! |
Taking this on board, we nobly continued the rocky ride, splashing through pools of mud, avoiding dirty ditches, and desperately wondering whether to laugh or cry. It was no surprise that by the time we reached the vineyard we were literally caked in dirt from head to toe. The only thing to do was to console ourselves with copious quantities of wine, and an enormous juicy steak, as you can see below.
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| The first of our wine tastings at Tempus Alto vineyard |
That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day. After two more wine fuelled pit stops, we finally felt ready to face the arduous journey back to dear old Mr Hugo. The positive effect of the wine was that it gave us renewed confidence to tackle the testing terrain, so much so that we sailed past our final destination for a further 2km, only to be stopped by a kind policeman who informed us that we'd overshot our mark and set us going in the right direction. The not so good effect of the wine was our decreased sense of balance. This manifested itself when Hannah misjudged a turning and was flung off her bike, narrowly avoiding the main road but unfortunately not avoiding huge embarrassment! Luckily she only suffered a few minor scrapes.
Due to these events, we were the last people back to Mr Hugo's that evening. After yet another home grown glass of wine we decided we'd had enough alcoholic adventures for one day.
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| Mr Hugo rewards us with a warm hug on our return! |
Our next visit to a vineyard, the following day, was slightly more sophisticated. We chose to visit the Norton winery in the Lujan de Cuyo region just outside of the city - another popular wine region.
Norton was founded in 1895 by an English engineer, Mr. Edmund James Palmer Norton. It is now owned by the Swarovski family. In 2006 it was voted one of the top 20 wineries in the world.
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| Norton winery |
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| Touring the vineyard |
We then progressed indoors to the fermentation area, where we sampled a wine that had been aged in a steel tank, and a wine that had been aged in a barrel.
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| Fermentation area |
The final part of the tour was a visit to the wine cellars, where some of the oldest wines were made almost 100 years ago.
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| Wine cellar |
The perfect ending was an amazing lunch of meats and cheeses, accompanied by one of their gran reservas. Definitely a brand we will look for back at home.
After 3 thoroughly enjoyable and wine infused days in Mendoza we decided it was time to move on to our next destination, Cordoba. Having become very well accustomed with the semi-cama day buses over the last couple of weeks we thought we'd splash out and treat ourselves to a cama suite overnight bus for only an extra £5. Not only would this involve a fully reclining chair into a bed, we would also be served with hot meals and champagne!
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| Travelling in style! |
On arrival to our hostel in Cordoba we were greeted by a hyperactive collie called Jaime, and a rather battered old cat called Jueves. These became our best friends over the next few days. The hostel was probably one of the most challenging environments we have stayed in so far not helped by the fact that we were informed almost the second we arrived that Jaime often suffers from diahorrea, and uses the communal shower to relieve himself, much to our horror! Rubber flip flops became a bathroom necessity during our stay. But we loved Jaime all the same, and made sure to buy him a couple of presents on our departure.
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| The happy couple |
The highlight of our stay in Cordoba was our outing to Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito, located about 2 hours out of the city centre. Although the landscape isn´t as stunning as some other places in Argentina, the main reason people hike the rocky terrain is to catch a glimpse of the condors, the largest flying land birds in the western hemisphere.
Our day did not get off to the best start when the local bus broke down leaving us stranded for an hour, it was bound to happen at some point during our travels of South America! When we eventually arrived at the park, we embarked on our 2 hour hike to the edge of the canyon to where the condors live. Along the way, we were befriended by two Argentians, who after 5 minutes of introductions proceeded to invite us out for a folklore evening in some remote suburb of the city. Whilst we appreciated their kind invitation, we politely declined as we could not wait to get back to our luxurious hostel for a much needed shower, despite the earlier warning!
We were lucky enough to spot 3 condors which we´ve heard is quite rare. Sadly we were not quick enough to capture the birds, so we hope the photo of the two beautiful birds below will do instead!
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| Not looking too bad after a 2 hour hike! |
We power walked the hike back in order to make the 5pm bus home. After making it to the bus stop with seconds to spare and feeling rather exhausted and sweaty we collapsed in a heap and waited......and waited...........and waited some more. Two hours later we were still there, starting to shiver and with darkness descending. The realisation dawned on us that a bus may never come at all. At this point we were feeling slightly delirious and a little bit desperate. We had to resort to desperate measures - hitch hiking. Hannah donned her fetching and rather oversized baby doll pink jacket and stuck her thumb out hopefully whilst I looked on laughing, and decided it was the perfect picture opportunity.
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| Pretty in pink! |
After a few minutes the jacket worked its magic and a white van pulled over, with a kind Argentinian man offering us a lift back to the city. After basic introductions we learnt his name was Alejandro, a shoemaker on his way back to his family home for the weekend. Hannah and I thought the long journey home would be the perfect opportunity to practice our somewhat rusty Spanish by engaging Alejandro in conversations on a variety of topics ranging from the Royal family to Katie Price´s new Argentian toyboy - much to his amusement and bafflement. After 2 hours we bade him farewell, but not before he took a photo of us on his phone to remember us by, we must have made a good impression!
