Mendoza, Argentina

Our bus trip to Mendoza started out a little strange. We got dropped off at the wrong bus station. Turns out the right bus station was only a block away, but poorly labeled and it took some time to find it lugging all our bags. Then our bus wasn't there. Turns out there was a mechanical problem and we were taking a different bus, which we then had to find on the far end of the terminal. The seat numbers had changed, so we didn't get the seats we wanted. Top it all off, the bus left late due to the whole swap thing, though that actually worked in our favor as we got there right when it was originally supposed to leave. It was an exhausting morning.

The bus ride was fairly uneventful. The highlight was perhaps the 30-turn switchback straight up the mountain pass near the Chile-Argentina border. We got some glimpses of glacier-capped mountains, though we weren't sure which one was Aconcagua.

We got to Mendoza and caught a taxi to our hostel: Hostel Alamo. We got dinner at a local place with fixed menu parilla dinners, but weren't too excited with the meal. The next day was New Year's Eve, so we stocked up on some food & wine before the holiday closures and attended the hostel bbq, complete with giant slabs of meat: beef ribs and lomo a la pizza. And of course there was wine, including our bottle from Rodrigo and some local sparkling. Turns out the hostel was full of not just Americans, but midwesterners, with a group from UW-Eau Claire and a woman from Minnesota. The meat was of rather low quality, however, and we ate a lot of the food we prepped ourselves.

New Year's Day was predictably slow. The streets were totally barren and everything was closed, so we spent some time walking around town. Mendoza has four smaller squares arranged around a central one in the downtown area. So we took the time to visit all 5 in one day, which really isn't much walking. However, it was really hot (almost 40 C) so it was more than enough walking to do in the middle of the day.

The next day it was also super hot, so instead of our intended transportation of bikes, we had to settle for a rented car to visit the finally open wineries (which all closed on the 31st and 1st). Our new Minnesota friend Heidi came with us to the wineries. We passed a lot of sweating, exhausted looking folks on bikes, so perhaps it's not so bad that we were forced to take a car. Our first winery visit, Trapiche, involved a long and lame tour for not such a small price. Truthfully the building was neat and included vintage rosewood ceilings and wood-block floors, but the tour was over long. The wine was ok. We did three more wineries and a stop for empanadas. One place had vintage hydrometers! The wineries were further apart than was convenient, despite the fact that we stayed in just one of the areas around Mendoza, Maipu. Overall the wine was ok to fairly good, but perhaps it was just our California-trained palates being prejudiced against Argentine wine.

The next day we stayed local, visiting Vines of Mendoza in town. We picked out a couple flights of wines and a plate of cheese and meat to snack on. The wines here were generally better than the ones that we tasted at the wineries, and the bottle prices startlingly low. We got dinner at a parilla, though were underwhelmed again by the Argentinian beef. Seems like folks don't expect you to order your meat anything but well done, and the cuts don't support any rareness at all. Serves us right for asking for medium? Visited the big park in town, full of locals running, biking, rollerblading, and swimming at the pool. Quite a nice park, too bad it was so frickin hot all the time.

Then it was our last day in Mendoza, and with Rachel. Checkout was super early, so we rushed to get out in time. Finished off the last of our food in the fridge, including a bottle of sparkling wine. Just after noon we had coffee with our Minnesota friend Heidi, and then we sent Rachel off to the airport. We went to the bus station soon after to catch our overnight to Buenos Aires.