Semana Santa! AKA Easter is a massive holiday in Argentina, especially as the new pope is Argentine. We really wanted to spend the time in Mendoza as we heard great things about it. With a huge national holiday and lots of wine, surely this was the place to go to.
The issue was the Argentines were vacationing on mass!! No accomodation anywhere!!
Eventually we found somewhere eventually and after the ¨stress¨ we throughly deserved a glass or two of wine... Sign us up for a wine tour! We met up with some old and new friends and jumped on the bus to Señor Hugo bike emporium.
What a lovely guy. We did not risk the tandum, but after Sarah's excapades during her South African wine tour she decided to always wear her helmet... even when drinking wine...
The Mendoza wine region is crazy, so many winaries/vineyards! On the map it all looks so close, one block here, one block there. We must have ended up cycling 10 miles... Well, you have to see as many as possible.
The roads to the vineyards were just beautiful.
First vineyard was a small family run set up where we got to try a selection of wines. Wine count: 4.
The next was a much smaller set up although still had 21 hectares of vines. Wine count: 9
Then some of the party were getting tired of all the wine, so we decided to try something different.
Sarah with her helmet on - even when stationary, she is that much of a liability on a bike
Off to the absinthe, jam and chocolate tasting. Why not!
"please don't taste the absinthe before you actually drink it, otherwise you won't want to finish it, did I mention that it is 85% proof..."
He was not lying, estuvo mal! wine count: 9, absinthe count: 1.
So that was the "end" of the offical wine tasting, but when tourists abroad, you cannot help but make things last a bit longer.
Drinks at the back of the bus? Por que no. Wine Count: 9, Absinthe count: 1, Liquor Count: 17
Then to finsh off the day, an asado. Great first day in Mendoza.
We slept in the following day but deicided to try to party the Argentinian way that night. Eat at midnight and then go out. We slept in again the following day.
We only had the first two days in our hostel and our next two days were in a prebooked one round the corner. However they double booked us and without as much as a "sorry" we were sent packing to a nearby hostel, which might have a room.
The door had a lot to be desired. Although we were given a key for the lock, we never worked out why...
Then the rain came! Luckily the door stood up to the pressure. So we drank more wine, cooked a lot of food and relaxed. We even went to the cinema.
With only two days before our flight to the wedding we needed to get back to Buenos Aires, so back onto the bus...
