Mendoza

Get ready for it...after another all night, 17 hour bus ride straight west to the foothills of the Andes, we arrived in Mendoza groggy and mistakenly went to the first hostel offered.  It was alright, but I think we could have done better.  The owner seemed a little slimy to me.  He did tell me that it was important for a man to always have the last word in a good relationship "yes dear, sure thing sweetie, right away my love".  Mendoza didn´t blow either of us away - some people had loved it, others had hated it, we were in the middle.  It´s best part are all the trees, lots of leafy trees everywhere.  We did three super dooper things when there:

1 - a wine tour to some of the nearby vineyards.  This was a dream of Elise´s so we splashed out some cash and visited three in the Uco Valley in one day.  Our guide was a young woman from Argentina who spoke great english and drank with us because we also had a driver.  We loved it, it was so fun being hoity toity for a day but also educational (well, up to a certain number of glasses anyway) and the scenery was gorgeous with the Andes in the background.  We visited two mid sized vineyards and one really small one.

Après avoir tant vénéré un vin de la région de Mendoza, il était temps que j'y visite les vignobles et que j'enquête sur la vraie réputation de la région. Nous avons donc fait des réservatiosn avec une des meilleures agences qui allait nous menés dans 3 différents vignobles dans une vallée moins connue mais où les vins sont exceptionnels. La Vallée d'Uco est plus près des montagnes et donc les raisins ont une peau plus robuste = plus de sucre = un % d'alcool plus élevé. Notre 1ère dégustation a débuté à 10h du matin et voyant Mike boire chaque verre jusqu'à la dernière goutte, je savais que ce serait toute une journée. Nous avons appris beaucoup et découvert des saveurs incroyables. Notre guide était charmante et tout aussi ricaneuse que nous à 13h, après 3 dégustations. Nous avons acheté 3 bouteilles pour nos hôtes de Buenos Aires et recueillis pleins d'infos pour pouvoir retrouver ces vins au Canada.

 

You can see the peak at the top of the shot./Les montagnes, arrière-plan des vignobles.

I had to get refills in order to take this shot - yup, 4 glasses with lunch.  The Malbecs are great, no surprise there./Dernier vignoble, repas 6 services, il est 13h. C'est beau la vie!!!

At the small winery.  They say Uco valley wines are high in alcohol content./Nous avons bu des vins directement sortis du barril.

2 - On the drive home from the tour our guide was talking about a concert going on that night, turned out to be Manu Chao, one of Elise and my fav´s from home.  So right after coming home we went straight to the stadium and it turned out we could buy tickets there.  Here we discovered something about Argentinians - they are never in a hurry and never seem to get annoyed with waiting.  We waited an hour to buy the tickets, then had to go into a line for 1.5 hours just to get in.  What amazed us was that all the people around were chatting and laughing the whole time.  We both agreed that if this had happened at home there´d be riots.  Good thing there were riot police all around.  We even got into the stadium after the show had started, with little apparent reason to do so.  Anyways, the show was great.  It was very neat seeing a spanish speaking performer in front of a spanish speaking audience.  They all knew the words and were right into it, pumping fists and smiling huge.  The concert was under a lightning storm but little rain, which also added to the night.  Unfortunately we didn´t have a camera on us.  I will never forget entering the stadium right as there was a lightning flash showing the entire crown of  7,000.

Durant le voyage du retour, notre guide nous informe que Manu Chao est en ville et qu'il donne un show le soir même. J'avais vraiment envie d'une sieste mais nous ne pouvions manqué une chance pareil. Par chance, nous avons eu des billets et le concert à eu lieu sous la pluie ce qui m'a pas mal réveillé.

3 - Next morning we groggily woke up and hopped on a bus to do some whitewater rafting on a proper Andean river.  By the time we got there we weren´t so enthused as it was grey and friggin´ cold.  However, we put on the crappy wetsuits and helmets and hoped in the boats.  Instant fun and adrenaline.  The river was running mostly 2 with the middle section about a 3.  Our guide made it a lot of fun though as he told us his job was to throw us into the water.  At one point our entire boat was under water.  We were only on the water for about 1.5 hours, which was fine with me because I was an ice cube when done but pretty pumped that we´d done it.  We figure it was a good way to get our groove and we´ll hit up some bigger rivers further south, maybe in Chile.  We bought a CD of photos and sent them home already.

Au même moment où nous avons réservé pour la visite des vignobles, nous avons acheté une excursion en rafting pour le jour suivant. Au réveil, les nuages et la pluie de la veille avaient persistés et la température avait diminué. Comme bons résidents nordiques, nous avons bravé le froid et l'eau glacée et survévus à 1h de rafting. J'avais négocié avec le guide une bière s'il s'assurait de ne pas me fais chavirer. Ça m'a coûté une bière!

Next day it was pouring so we went to the mall, played in the playland and watched a movie - The Changeup, which I thought was fantastic.  Then guess what we did.  Yup, back on the bus for 17 hours to Buenos Aires.