Last week, we went to Mendoza, Argentina.  Mendoza is known for their tons of vineyards and wine making.  Of course this needed further exploration on our part.  We heard from some fellow travelers about a place to rents bikes in the Maipu wineries called Mr. Hugo´s.  I, Elisa, had to get the only bright green kids bike available.  I´m even to short in Argentina for adult sizes. 

Anyway, we went met a dutch couple and rode to a museum with them.  We got some free wine and the tour was boring.  We split up and rode about 6.5 kms to an olive oil factory thing, expecting lots of samples.  We were starving and there weren´t any.  Instead, I got a bag of dried tomatos and Kristen got pickles.  Things were not looking good.

We went to a vineyard after called Carnea.  The wine was ok.  Sidebar, Mendoza wineries makes mostly red wines, so I can´t say I was particularly impressed with any, but we tried a total of 7 or 8 all day.  We rode up the road to another vineyard, di Tomasso, and wisely skipped the tour and tasting, opting to just buy a bottle and drink it.  It was a lovely vineryard and winery, with cask tables set up out side.  We then road to a chocolate and liquor place.  We tried different liquors and chocolate and its too bad it wasn´t later int he trip, because then I might have had something to bring home for my mom.

We returned our bikes to Mr. Hugo´s and ended up staying there talking with other travelers or 3 hours.  It shoudl be noted we went to Mr. Hugo´s because we had heard he gives you bottomless wine when you return the bikes.  This is not just myth, its a reality.

On Wednesday, we went on a trekking and rapelling excursion.  We have both come to the realisation that trekking is not fun at all and really hard.  Luckily, that part only lasted an hour.  We then rapelled from 3 heights of 7, 14 and 45 meters.  It wasn´t to scary, I don´t think becaus eI had to wait to go last all times and by the time it was my turn to go I was so bored from waiting that any fears up to that point had subsided.  It was a good day though.  We went to a thermal springs water park in the afternoon, which was really nice.

There were two american girls there, both blonde and from arizona.  One also shall we say was augmented.  They must never see blond people with plastic surgery in Mendoza often cause all the preteen girls in the pool surrounded the blondes for the whole time and taking pictures with them.  I think the Argentinians thought they were Hiltons.  They probably thought so a little bit too.

We are in Patagonia now.  More on that to come….

 

Elisa