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Argentina is known for having amazing meat and WINE! It´s something like the second biggest exporter in the wine industry! After trying their wine, i can see why! It´s yumiiii!! Mendoza is the place to go for the traveller who wants to see some beautiful vineyards, mountains and taste some INCREDIBLE wine!
Our bus journey wasn´t as great as previous, mainly due to the fact that we have all come down with horrendous colds! We even upgraded our selves to the better buses in the hope of a more comfortable journey and food...but surprise surprise, all the food was with meat so i couldn´t eat any of it anyway! Feeling as rough as i did i actually got really upset about the food situation, apparently in Argentina vegetarians eat chicken, ham and bacon! seriously...vegie option doesn´t exist here! Beginining to struggle with the whole food thing, rather fed up of cheese, bread and pizza! anywayyyy lol!!
So we arrived to Mendoza early in the morning,and after sleeping 3 nights on the floor in BA and a night in the bus i was very happy to see a bed! :)
We did what we always do when we arrive in a new place on the first day...we mooched into town and took a wonder round! The town centre is full of huge piaza and lots of statues and fountains, very picturesque! The town´s back drop is on the mountains...some of which are full of snow, which i found very strange as it was soo lovely and hot in Mendoza, not a cloud in the sky! bright blue sky...which was a nice change as it rained in BA a lot....!!
Our hostel, Mendoza-Inn had a little pool so after booking a tour for the following day we decided it was high time to top up the tans because people...I DO HAVE A TAN! yup...and i love it a lot! People are even telling me how tanned i am when they meet me which has never happened before so i am loving it!
So we were in mendoza for st patricks day and o wow, they really got into it! They transformed a bar into a leprochaurns paradise! They hired in a little irish band, flags were up everywhere and of course we dressed up! We made the most of our clothes and dressed up as the flag, was pretty impressive i think! It was a fun night!
Mendoza has a lot to offer travellers, from bike tours of the city, rafting, skiing to wine tasting! We got booked onto a bike tour of the vineyards...our tour included bike hire, entrance to 3 wineries, 1 olive oil factory, 1 chocolate factory (which was not fun considering the whole giving up chocolate for lent thing) and lunch!! Was a great deal!
The tour started at 9am...and once we got to the first winery we knew we were going to be in for a funny day! Our guide Marcelo was a legend and when allocating the bikes managed to give kate one without pedles which i loved...but in the end she got a different one! hmmf!
We got to see where they crush the grapes, where the wine is kept in barrels and then to taste 3 types of wine in the first place! We even got shown how to swirl the wine and how to know what it tastes good with! was great learning! Each Winery got better and better, the vineyards were just beyond beautiful! Cycling from one to the other was great, bumpy but great! At one point it felt like my arms were going to snap off from how bumpy the road was! Dad and Kieran, you would have really enjoyed the day...but don´t worry i drank enough wine for us all! Each winery gave us 3 glasses of wine, the last one (after cycling on the flippin motorway which was uber scary) had the most unbelieable wine i tell you! It was just so good! They had a special edition wine that had only started selling 3 months ago, there is only 12,000 bottles avaliable, and they havent even made the labels yet! So instead they have numbered each bottle and the owner has signed them! They were so rustic looking! Kieran i did really want to get you some, especially as it was a collectors item basically (thinkin ahead to your bday - check me and my memory out, planning all the way ha) but i can´t carry around a bottle of collectors wine for the next yr, so sorry! but know that the thought was there bro!! thats what counts!!
In conclusion, the day was great fun and i forgot how much fun riding a bike was!! Took me right back in time! I would highly recomend to everyone cycling through vineyards and drinking wine as you go, it´s a day of giggles that everyone should experience! :)
We rewarded ourselves after the tour with a pizzaparty that was taking place at our sister hostel...it was all you can eat! And lucky for me it was mainly veggie option pizzas so i was a very happy girl! wooop!!
Can´t believe it´s been 7 wks since we left home, and Lorna is leaving us so soon! For those that don´t know, Lorna was travelling for the first two months and then me and kate are continuing on! So anyway....from mendoza, our next stop has to be Chile as Lorna is flying home from Santiago! So, after a very unsuccessful morning trapsing around town to find the bus company that is meant to give us a discount with a card we have, we didn´t remove ourselves from the pool area all afternoon! I´m not gonna lie, i am absolutely exhausted! So needed the afternoon to find some energy as yet again...over night bus journey ahead of us! The journey to Chile is not long...well relatively short in comparison to some of our other journeys, took us about 8hours including the funniest stop over at passport control!!
The journey was round and through mountains...so we were being thrown about all over the show so really didn´t get any sleep, so when we had to get off the bus into the freezing cold at 2am we were very disorientated and extremley over tired so we made quite the impression at the border crossing! We in our usual fashion named all those helping us out, so we had Christof the bus driver showing us where to go, then George and dog who scanned our bags after our camp our in the passport control office where we decided we were too tired to stand so sat down on the floor! People find us very funny to watch, we belong in a zoo! haha!! Now George who was in charge of scanning to make sure we had no apples, oranges, pieces of steak or cheese, we asked him the name of his dog and he replied, ´dog´ very fitting name we thought!
anyway...after our hour at passport control where i did infact shout at the man on the chilean border for stamping over my stamps! I´m sorry but i have a gazillion free pages but no, brazil argentina and mexico are on one page and now chile and canada on another - why squeeze them all in and make such a mess, just give me a stamp on a clean page! it´s easily done! no!? grrrr to passport control!!
So we have made it across south america...for those who had no faith in us, ha! we did it baby! woop!! Let the games begin in Chile!! :)
Missing you all - will write about our adventures in Chile soon, we are planning to go south to Pucon, climb a Volcano and get involved with some hot springs, then back to Santiago for friday when Lorna leaves us, which i am very sad about! I will also upload photos soon i promise, i dont know why the lasts ones didnt work properly, but these computers won´t let us upload photos or videos which is sad for everyone!
I love you all, and miss you immensly! Kissesss all round
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