Mendoza

Day 1

Roses and the rowing club in the background

We arrived in Mendoza in high spirits. The state of Mendoza, with about 1500 producers is the biggest wine region in Latin America and we were hoping to enjoy a lot of it. On the first day when we took our quarters, I resisted the urge to pick a DVD out of the huge selection of 600 they had at the hostel and we set off to discover the town. We first walked to the central market which unfortunately was half closed as it was lunch time. We nevertheless enjoyed a quick and plentiful lunch. Then we proceeded to the huge municipal park at the edge of town. It is an enormous park, built on the model of the “Parc de la  Tête D’Or” in Lyon. There is a lake and a rowing club inside the park. We walked a little under 15km that day in Mendoza moving from the super rich neighbouhoods with beautiful villas and top-end alarm systems to the more modest areas of the city.

Day 2



What a rush!

 We decided to take adrenaline shots on the second day by doing some rafting and zip lining. The tour bus picked us up at our hostel and after an hour’s drive we got to the rafting center. It was a beautifully built wood, steel and glass structure, perched high up and overlooking the whole valley. We were driven to the start of the course, given our briefing and put in the rafts. Diego was our instructor and he was fun. We particularly enjoyed the water fights with other crews when we caught up with them. The 6 man crew cooperated well and we swerved and dodged rocks and got through the 12km course without a scratch nor anyone being thrown overboard (as opposed to the other boats). When we got back to the center, we were cold, wet and starving. We were greeted by a sight from heaven : asado, gaucho (Gaucho) style!

For exciting pictures on Rafting...

That´s what I call a BBQ



That's my Kevin´s Special

 In the afternoon we geared up to do some zip lining. We climbed up to the first line and “zipped” away! There were 4 “warm up” lines and the last two lines were over 400m. When it came to it, I did my usual reverse flip. The instructors were surprised and one of them told me not to do it again! (They are definitely more strict on security in Argentina). Anyway I had some fun and showed them zip lining could be done another way.

And funny pictures of  Zip Lining

Day 3

Barely managing to bike after all the wine tasting!

On the third day we took a bus and went to Maipu to visit some wineries. We went there with François and Capucine who also stayed in our hostel. We got complementary bikes from Mr. Hugo. We started with a chocolate factory where we were given some liqueur to accompany our chocolates. Then we visited a couple of wineries. To be honest we were not too impressed by the wines. And at 20 Pesos per tasting (as compared to being free in Cafayate) I expected better quality.

When we arrived home late that day we only had time for a hot shower before dinner was served. We had signed up for the traditional Argentinian BBQ that our hostel organizes every Thursday. We put our feet under the table and let Javier and his team do their magic.

Javier in front of the Asado 

 

Day 4

Relaxing in a warm pool

On our last day we went to relax at thermal baths an hour away from Mendoza. We arrived there and entered the pools. There were big ones and small ones, cold ones, warm ones, with and without bubbles. We stayed there till mid afternoon and took a bus back in town just in time for the Argentina vs Bolivia game on TV. Now this is a sad story: Initially the Argentinian Football Federation had a disagreement with the River Plate Club in Buenos Aires and they announced that this game would be played in Mendoza, where we would surely have been in the stadium. But only a couple of weeks before the game, they announced that the game would be played in BA as they had reached an agreement with River Plate … bummer. In any case the game finished 1-1 and there is now some more pressure on Argentina as they lost the game before that away to Venezuela.

For more pictures of Mendoza

After these eventful days in Mendoza we took an early bus to Santiago de Chile.



Different liqueurs at the chocolate factory