We`re finally catching upon the last few weeks blogs. BTW i`ve added some pics to the Salta blog foranyone who wants to see.
So...here goes. Our next stop after Cordoba was Mendoza in Argentina, our third city in a row and responsible for making 70% ofwine from the region. Feeling ready to be educated on wines but alsofeeling my parents should be here too (there`s a deep love for allthings alcohol!) we arrive at 7:30am in the pretty city of wide treelined streets and an abundance of plazas everywhere. According to ourtravel bible The Lonely Planet this is due to a massive earthquake in1861. The rebuild designed wide streets for the rubble to fall into andplazas for people to gather in incase of evacuations, but has alsocreated a really beautiful city as a result.
We arrive at hostel Conflencia feeling dazed andRich wanting a little snooze. In another shared dorm that looked likethe three bears bedroom, he rested while we laid out inthe living room. We met an English guy there who was travelling alonecalled Anthony. He was a white 35yr old with dreads that were fallingout as he receded, but seemed very friendly and wanted to meet us laterfor drinks. We headed out for brunch to a street cafe where we satin the sun and ordered toasted sardines, OJ and coffee, which turned out to be teeny toast and butter. Note to self...must take phrase book out more! Feeling a bit more awakeit was now midday, we decided to book the wine tour. We'd read about afew companies and ended up going with Ampour. It was our most expensiveday trip so far so were hopeful it would be good.
Pleased with our limited productivity for the day we retired on themassive concrete roof terrace we had discovered earlier at the hostel. A massivebonus for £15 a night! Armed with Tia Maria and beers (Malibu is scarcein SA!) we sat in the sun and played cards. After a while we gotchatting about the next step of our trip. It was a cross roads where weneeded to decide how much time we wanted to spend in each place. Pen andpaper out and a few drinks down Nikki and I get plotting while the boyscontinued with cards and a second beer run. A zillion bus journeycalculations later, some home made calendars and pro / con debates, wehad an outline of the rest of our journey. It was looking good andpacked with so many amazing places still to see, but Mike wasdisappointed we had abandoned Santiago in the decision process, as hestill had Chilean Pesos to spend! Plan sorted we had a few more drinksas the sun went down and quick showers, then Anthony came to meet us onthe roof. The boys had spotted an `Asado` type BBQ (the Argentinian meatfeast) down the road so we planned to head there. We then found out ournew friend was a veggie..eek! Mike and Rich not impressed at thethought of missing the all you can eat we went anyway, Anthony reassuredus it was fine and it was YUM! We got veggies we'd been craving as veghas been scarce so far, and they did a delicious roasted squash withcheese. Nik also had her aubergine fix and the lads OD'd on cow,chicken, blaackpudding sausages, trout (which is on every menu in SA)pork......etc etc! Rich won the record with five plates, Mike a closesecond and I won the desserts as usual, with two helpings of crepes conDulce de Leche and ice cream. Truly delicious, though I made everyoneshare the second helping to ease my miss piggy guilt. Loaded with food,beers and anthony full on his plate of veggies, we finish the night inhysterics at our flashing light bulb in the bedroom. Mike unscrewed itto stop the flashing, only for the flash to transfer into the next bulb,and the next. To our amusement but slight worry at the electrics, weclose our eyes and left the disco going.
Nextdaywe had an early start with the pick up for our wine tasting tour. Aquick breakie down (and finally I found some form of tea bags! Hurrah!)we were on the mini bus heading out. Our tour was in the Mai Pu regionstarting at the first winery Palo Alto. A beautiful family run winerywhere we had our first glass of Malbec at 9:40am. On our tour were twoCanadians and two New Yorkers Joe and Pamela..a writer and lecturer.We've since googled them and found out on Wikipedia they are famous NewYork academics! Our next winery was Flinca Flinchman (you may see thelogo in Tesco) which was a more industrial and mass scale vineyard. Theoldest bottle of wine was from 1947! We didn't get to taste it. Thelastplace we visited was where we were going for lunch. We didn`t knowmuch about what was planned but it turned out to be an 18centuryArgentinian home called Luis Segundo Correa. It was stunning and wereshown around by the grand daughter of the current owner. We learnt overthe next few hours it was a very famous house and family in the region.When we got there we had more wine of course, feeling pretty pissednow,and they were preparing to serve us lunch on the porch of this houseoverlooking the gardens. It was beautiful. Out came a massive platterof meats, cheese, breads, olives etc. We were then shown a hugebeautifully set table and given a plate to take to the BBQ. We walkedthrough part of the garden to find a man cooking a massive array ofmeats. Another Asado but this time is was a real one at a family homecooked exactly as Argentinans eat it (well done). This was it. Finally the Argentinian steak we'd been dreaming of and itdidn't disappoint. It melted in the mouth and we all went back formore, washed down with more Malbec and our most expensive wine of theday at $189. It poured freely and they only made 3000 bottles!
Laterback at the hostel feeling sleepy we got the last bit of sun on theterrace. We went out with Anthony again later that night as he hadstayed the day especially. We wandered to the markets we'd read aboutbut they were closing up so we headed to a taco bar for some light bitesand beers. Early hours we ended the night back on the roof whereAnthony opened up about his end of the world 2012 predictions and hisspiritual guide called Yummi, plus his 11:11 phenomena he was a part(google it!). Slightly weirder out and trying to count exactly how manybeers we had drank, we got to bed to the disco lights about 4am.
Thirdday after a slight lie in and recounting the previous nights strangeconversation, we decided to chill out today. We walked to the bus asusual to get tickets for our next journey and had lunch in a busy streetlined with cafes where we ate toasties and Rich caught up with hisfolks on Skype. Heading home we decided to cook our own steaks andsalads after the success we had in Cordoba. They were delicious againand finished with a mc flurry and watched Anchor Man at the hostel. Aslow day but was nice to recharge.
For our last day wedecided to go get supplies to make lunch for the pending 20hr busjourney down to Barriloche. We found an indoor food market which wasbuzzing with locals and served us loads of treats including honeypeanuts, meats, cheeses, and breads. For our sarnies Nikki and Richopting for a floury bap while Mike and I opt for a crusty roll. Wewalked to the park in the afternoon which was massive, had a huge lakethrough the middle and really nice roses everywhere plus a family fiestathat was banging out the tunes all day. It wasn't long before we'd allfallen asleep then played a bit of frisbee, had ice creams and slowlywandered back later in the afternoon. We had a quick tea stop before wegot our night bus. Nikki and Rich were served up the worlds biggestburgers while mike and I shared a well below average pizza. Food envyaside we headed back to the hostel to make our sardines for the bus.Unfortunately Rich discovered there bread was covered in mould spots,which later led to some teasing about our beautiful crusty rolls,evening out the food envy scales again.
All in allMendoza was lovely, slow, relaxing, laid back with the definitehighlight being the wine tour and the roof terrace that was home to manycard games during our stay.
Next stop..the lake district!
Love Caz xx
So...here goes. Our next stop after Cordoba was Mendoza in Argentina, our third city in a row and responsible for making 70% ofwine from the region. Feeling ready to be educated on wines but alsofeeling my parents should be here too (there`s a deep love for allthings alcohol!) we arrive at 7:30am in the pretty city of wide treelined streets and an abundance of plazas everywhere. According to ourtravel bible The Lonely Planet this is due to a massive earthquake in1861. The rebuild designed wide streets for the rubble to fall into andplazas for people to gather in incase of evacuations, but has alsocreated a really beautiful city as a result.
We arrive at hostel Conflencia feeling dazed andRich wanting a little snooze. In another shared dorm that looked likethe three bears bedroom, he rested while we laid out inthe living room. We met an English guy there who was travelling alonecalled Anthony. He was a white 35yr old with dreads that were fallingout as he receded, but seemed very friendly and wanted to meet us laterfor drinks. We headed out for brunch to a street cafe where we satin the sun and ordered toasted sardines, OJ and coffee, which turned out to be teeny toast and butter. Note to self...must take phrase book out more! Feeling a bit more awakeit was now midday, we decided to book the wine tour. We'd read about afew companies and ended up going with Ampour. It was our most expensiveday trip so far so were hopeful it would be good.
Pleased with our limited productivity for the day we retired on themassive concrete roof terrace we had discovered earlier at the hostel. A massivebonus for £15 a night! Armed with Tia Maria and beers (Malibu is scarcein SA!) we sat in the sun and played cards. After a while we gotchatting about the next step of our trip. It was a cross roads where weneeded to decide how much time we wanted to spend in each place. Pen andpaper out and a few drinks down Nikki and I get plotting while the boyscontinued with cards and a second beer run. A zillion bus journeycalculations later, some home made calendars and pro / con debates, wehad an outline of the rest of our journey. It was looking good andpacked with so many amazing places still to see, but Mike wasdisappointed we had abandoned Santiago in the decision process, as hestill had Chilean Pesos to spend! Plan sorted we had a few more drinksas the sun went down and quick showers, then Anthony came to meet us onthe roof. The boys had spotted an `Asado` type BBQ (the Argentinian meatfeast) down the road so we planned to head there. We then found out ournew friend was a veggie..eek! Mike and Rich not impressed at thethought of missing the all you can eat we went anyway, Anthony reassuredus it was fine and it was YUM! We got veggies we'd been craving as veghas been scarce so far, and they did a delicious roasted squash withcheese. Nik also had her aubergine fix and the lads OD'd on cow,chicken, blaackpudding sausages, trout (which is on every menu in SA)pork......etc etc! Rich won the record with five plates, Mike a closesecond and I won the desserts as usual, with two helpings of crepes conDulce de Leche and ice cream. Truly delicious, though I made everyoneshare the second helping to ease my miss piggy guilt. Loaded with food,beers and anthony full on his plate of veggies, we finish the night inhysterics at our flashing light bulb in the bedroom. Mike unscrewed itto stop the flashing, only for the flash to transfer into the next bulb,and the next. To our amusement but slight worry at the electrics, weclose our eyes and left the disco going.
Nextdaywe had an early start with the pick up for our wine tasting tour. Aquick breakie down (and finally I found some form of tea bags! Hurrah!)we were on the mini bus heading out. Our tour was in the Mai Pu regionstarting at the first winery Palo Alto. A beautiful family run winerywhere we had our first glass of Malbec at 9:40am. On our tour were twoCanadians and two New Yorkers Joe and Pamela..a writer and lecturer.We've since googled them and found out on Wikipedia they are famous NewYork academics! Our next winery was Flinca Flinchman (you may see thelogo in Tesco) which was a more industrial and mass scale vineyard. Theoldest bottle of wine was from 1947! We didn't get to taste it. Thelastplace we visited was where we were going for lunch. We didn`t knowmuch about what was planned but it turned out to be an 18centuryArgentinian home called Luis Segundo Correa. It was stunning and wereshown around by the grand daughter of the current owner. We learnt overthe next few hours it was a very famous house and family in the region.When we got there we had more wine of course, feeling pretty pissednow,and they were preparing to serve us lunch on the porch of this houseoverlooking the gardens. It was beautiful. Out came a massive platterof meats, cheese, breads, olives etc. We were then shown a hugebeautifully set table and given a plate to take to the BBQ. We walkedthrough part of the garden to find a man cooking a massive array ofmeats. Another Asado but this time is was a real one at a family homecooked exactly as Argentinans eat it (well done). This was it. Finally the Argentinian steak we'd been dreaming of and itdidn't disappoint. It melted in the mouth and we all went back formore, washed down with more Malbec and our most expensive wine of theday at $189. It poured freely and they only made 3000 bottles!
Laterback at the hostel feeling sleepy we got the last bit of sun on theterrace. We went out with Anthony again later that night as he hadstayed the day especially. We wandered to the markets we'd read aboutbut they were closing up so we headed to a taco bar for some light bitesand beers. Early hours we ended the night back on the roof whereAnthony opened up about his end of the world 2012 predictions and hisspiritual guide called Yummi, plus his 11:11 phenomena he was a part(google it!). Slightly weirder out and trying to count exactly how manybeers we had drank, we got to bed to the disco lights about 4am.
Thirdday after a slight lie in and recounting the previous nights strangeconversation, we decided to chill out today. We walked to the bus asusual to get tickets for our next journey and had lunch in a busy streetlined with cafes where we ate toasties and Rich caught up with hisfolks on Skype. Heading home we decided to cook our own steaks andsalads after the success we had in Cordoba. They were delicious againand finished with a mc flurry and watched Anchor Man at the hostel. Aslow day but was nice to recharge.
For our last day wedecided to go get supplies to make lunch for the pending 20hr busjourney down to Barriloche. We found an indoor food market which wasbuzzing with locals and served us loads of treats including honeypeanuts, meats, cheeses, and breads. For our sarnies Nikki and Richopting for a floury bap while Mike and I opt for a crusty roll. Wewalked to the park in the afternoon which was massive, had a huge lakethrough the middle and really nice roses everywhere plus a family fiestathat was banging out the tunes all day. It wasn't long before we'd allfallen asleep then played a bit of frisbee, had ice creams and slowlywandered back later in the afternoon. We had a quick tea stop before wegot our night bus. Nikki and Rich were served up the worlds biggestburgers while mike and I shared a well below average pizza. Food envyaside we headed back to the hostel to make our sardines for the bus.Unfortunately Rich discovered there bread was covered in mould spots,which later led to some teasing about our beautiful crusty rolls,evening out the food envy scales again.
All in allMendoza was lovely, slow, relaxing, laid back with the definitehighlight being the wine tour and the roof terrace that was home to manycard games during our stay.
Next stop..the lake district!
Love Caz xx
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| White bod catching rays on roof terrace |
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| All you can eat Asado |
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| Us and our veggie mate Antony |
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| Winery number one |
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| Add caption |
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| First glass of the day!! |
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| Our first sit down tasting..gran reserva was delicious! |
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| beautiful house for lunch |
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| starter platter |
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| Just finioshed our lovely lunch and have very full bellies. |
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| Mendoza park |
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| Leaving Mendoza on ANOTHER bus! |
Can see a theme emerging here - eating and drinking and more eating !! Have wine envy after reading all that ! Photos are great and your adventures continue ! Can't wait for next episode.xxx
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