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Mendoza
2nd December to 5th December (Day 273 - 276)
We arrived in Mendoza in the late afternoon after an epic 8 hour bus ride over the Andes from Chile to Argentina. Some of the scenery on the way was simply stunning. Once in Mendoza we checked into a cheap hotel where we had booked a family room for the night. For Tina this meant a night in a room with 3 smelly boys...she wasn´t exactly thrilled at the prospect!
After we had settled into our room, Pizz and Dan (who had already been to Mendoza on their holiday) took us to a really good restuarant to eat some famous Argentinian steak. The food was superb with some really good quality steak. We followed this up by heading to the ice cream shop across the road from the restuarant to enjoy to some Argentinian ice cream...Tina was in ice cream heaven. After we managed to drag Tina away from the ice cream shop we headed back to the hotel to chillout.
Mendoza and the area around the city is very famous for the wine it produces and exports across the world. Therefore we thought it would be rude not to sample some of the local produce. One of the best ways to do this is to get a bus 20kms outside of the city to Maipu, an area with many famous wineries. From here you can hire bikes and cycle round the wineries, sampling wine as you go. Pizz had already done this during his time in Argentina so he was our expert guide for the day.
We arrived in Maipu in the early afternoon and headed to Mr Hugos (the rental shop) to pick up some bikes and get our map of the local area. The day started well as we cycled up the road towards the first winery. After about 20 mins of cycling we had to go round some road works. As I turned the corner instead of seeing Dan who had previously been infront of me, I was greeted instead by a lot of dust....it was then I looked down and found Dan and his bike in a heap on the floor. He had managed to fall of his bike in spectacular fashion....a little worrying as this was before any wine had been consumed! Fortunately he wasn´t badly hurt and we were soon back on our way.
The first winery we visited was in a great setting, we sat up on a balcony surrounded by vineyards. We sampled 4 wines each, including Malbec, one of the wines which Argentina is famous for producing. It was a great experience and the winery had a lovely atmosphere. After the first winery we got back on our bikes and hit the road again. The next winery we planned to visit was unfortunately closed. However we did manage to find a small beer garden nearby where we thought we could stop for a while and chillout. Due to a combination of the relaxed setting of the beer garden and chilled beer on a blazing hot day....a while turned into all afternoon! We did plan to hit a few more wineries but we were having such a good time chilling out in the beer garden it seemed wrong to leave. We eventually headed back to the rental shop at around 7pm and jumped on the bus back to Mendoza.
On our final full day all together in Mendoza we took the opportunity to take it a little slower, especially after our biking exploits of the previous day. We took some time to wander round the city and enjoy its laid back atmosphere and taking in a few more ice creams (at Tina's request) . We then headed back to the hostel with a few beers to chillout in the hostel garden whilst listening to a few tunes and play cards. We finished the day with an all you can eat Pizza buffet in our hostel. Despite not quite being all you can eat and the pizzas having rather odd toppings ( mostly vegetables, very controversial) it was a good way to spend a relaxed evening.
The following evening Dan and Pizz were getting a bus back to Buenos Aires. We had had such a good time with them both we realised we hadn´t even thought about where we were going to go next.
After a really nice last meal together (steak followed ice cream again!!) walked with the lads to the bus station. We said our goodbyes and they headed of on their overnight bus to Buenos Aires. We then had to buy tickets to our next destination. In a bit of an eenie, meenie, miney mo moment we ended up on deciding to head to Salta in the north of Argentina. We booked bus tickets for the following day and began to brace ourselves for another epic 20 hour bus journey.
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Tina All this blog has done is make me feel hungry!! I want steak and ice cream too! Dinner of Kings!