Mendoza is the 4th largest area in Argentina, and is commonly known as the wine country. After a very quick and stressful week, Jordin, Jess, Cally, Lauren and I took off for Mendoza on a Thursday night bus to arrive Friday morning. Elizabeth and Stacey had to work later so they met us there Friday afternoon.
The Omnibus is a popular mode of travel in Argentina, because for an affordable price you can essentially ride across the country. Especially with a ton of flights being cancelled due to volcanic ash from Patagonia and Chile, everyone takes the bus. Despite the fact that I got on the bus only receiving 4 hours of sleep in the 48 hours before that, I still couldn't fall asleep because we all moved seats and were having such a great time hanging out. There was a group of British girls and Yale students, so we even had some English speakers. The bus makes several stops close to Buenos Aires, and I finally had to move after one man insisted on taking his seat and awkwardly took over mine.
I woke up as the bus stopped at a cafe, which provided all riders with cafe con leche and medialunas!! What a great start to the morning. We got into Mendoza around noon and headed to the hostel.
Hostel Internacional advertises itself as a social youth hostel, a pro and a con. Pro: inexpensive and happy people, con: loud. Very loud. We had originally planned to stay at Hostel Lao with the other girls, and even had a reservation. In addition to two confirmation emails, I even got a message that says "Just in case there was any doubt in your mind, your booking is now absolutely confirmed!" This was followed up 24 hours later with this message:
I´m so sorry to have to do this but there has been an error, we do not have 4 beds for Saturday. Sorry for any inconvenience caused, I hope by letting you know now you still have enough time to make alternative plans. If you are ever in Mendoza again please feel free to contact us and I´ll find you some space and give you a discount.
Great. My life. I spend hours finding the best place, planning it, google maps-ing from location to location, and voila- we don't have a hostel. Studying abroad is God's way of teaching me that as much as you plan ahead, things will not always work out. I can book a plane tickets weeks ahead on Despegar but the flight will still be cancelled the day before for sketchy reasons. I found this hostel which happened to have space the day before on a whim, and it worked out. The desk staff was pretty nice, and gave us information about excursions and all.
Hostel Internacional Mendoza
Note: donkey drinking mate in the top right corner
Typically as an international tourist and student, my goal is to see as much as you can in the most efficient amount of time. The weekend "plan" with my roommates was essentially to go to wineries Friday, ski all day Saturday and swim in the hot springs on Sunday. The issues with this plan lie within the fact that all of these places are about two hours apart from each other, and from where we're staying. AND, on Friday, all the wineries closed at 6 p.m. and were an hour away. Jordin and I contemplated going ourselves but wanted to wait for our roommates, so we called them (after running out of Movistar minutes) to tell them to rush to the hostel, change and we would buy them lunch.
We went to a nearby fast food place and got some hamburguesas. The "mini" cost 12 pesos, and I bought that since I wasn't hungry. The woman tried convincing me it was really small, and I told her I'd be fine. This was a good decision, because Jordin & Stacey ordered the regular size which happened to be over 12 inches in diameter. Seriously. Look at the comparison!
Jordin's hamburger next to my "mini" hamburger
Who said the US had big portions?!
Stacey and Elizabeth were clearly overwhelmed after getting off a 14-hour bus ride and having us not only rush them, but drag them out to catch another bus. We sprinted 6 blocks to catch the 10 bus, which happened to have four different routes. Each time the 10 bus approached, we asked if it was the right one, and finally after the 4th time, it was! We were on a bus to the wineries and would arrive by 4 p.m. Two hours of winery time.
We got off the bus when the driver told us to and walked into the first bike rental place we saw, Mr. Hugo's. Jordin's friend Sam had used this company a few weeks ago, so we knew it was reputable. We were told it cost 40 pesos to rent a bike, but Mrs. Hugo told us it was only 20 since she had no confidence that we would get anywhere. Sweet! They literally just handed us a map and four bikes and we took off! Stacey and my bikes had seats that were so high up that neither of our feet could reach the ground, but we were on a mission. We needed to get to the wineries before 6 p.m. Safety put aside, we biked over 6 miles!
Me, my bike and the mountains in the wine country
Although it wasn't in season, it was still very pretty!
The first bodega we went to was called Familia de Tomasso, and it's the oldest winery in Mendoza opening in 1869. We stuck to the artisan winery area, with smaller more community-style areas rather than big warehouses. For only 20 pesos ($5 USD), we got a long tour and a stealthy tasting of four wines!
Red wine inside the cooling tank
The basement where the red wine sits for years
This was a cool tour because it was entirely in Spanish, and I feel like I really learned about the process of making wine. Everything from the plant, to the differences between the timing of red and white wines, to the curing. There were two other families on the tour- one engaged Brazilian couple with their parents, and two women. The Brazilians were pretty obnoxious and the father of the soon-to-be-newlyweds questioned the tour guide about just about everything she said, providing some entertainment.
We tried three Malbecs and a white dessert wine in a shot glass. I bought the first Malbec to take home, but the most popular wine was Familia de Tomasso's special 2004 wine. This is limited-time and is cool because not only is it only sold there, but the plant for the red wine was from 2004 and cured for a long time. During the tasting, the group started chanting DOS MIL CUATRO to try and get a tasting of it, but the guide didn't give in. After our respective purchases and tour, it was already 5:30, leaving us only 30 minutes to get to the next winery! Could we do it? Of course.
After four glasses of wine, we hopped on the bikes and booked it to the next winery, Tempus Alba. We liked it because it was very different from what we just saw; a lot more modern. For 25 pesos, they let us do another tasting and sit on their beautiful outdoor balcony! They even played American music- Hoobastank's The Reason, Dido's White Flag, it got us laughing.
Sunset mountain view from Tempus Alba
me, Jordin and Elizabeth with our Malbec, Tempranillo
and Cabernet Sauvignon
By the vineyard
We got out around 6:30 p.m., but the race of the day was not over yet. We still had to bike a few miles to Mr. Hugo's to return the bikes, and get to the ski equipment rental place by 9 p.m. in order to ski the next day. On our way out of Tempus Alba, a police officer stopped and asked where we were from. When Jordin said "Los Estados!" he responded, "Okay, I will follow you home." Sure enough, this is common. I asked our tour guide at the first winery "si hay muchos accidentes con la gente borracha en bicicletas y coches." (if there are a lot of problems with tipsy people getting hit by cars on their bikes). She responded, "Eh, no, pero la gente se cayó mucho." (No, but they fall off the bikes a lot.) Thus, it was nice of the policeman to follow us home and provided a lot of safety!
The policeman on his motorcycle in the front
Jordin (left), Elizabeth (right), Stacey (far right)
We gave our bikes to Mr. Hugo and he proceeded to give us all glasses of complimentary Malbec. We hung out there for awhile and played with his dogs and "charlar"'d un poco.
With Mr. Hugo
We caught the correct 10 bus back to Mendoza centro/capital, the main area of the city where we were staying. We managed to find the ski rental place at 8:50 p.m., try on all of our equipment and bag it all up for 7 a.m. the next morning! We found a nice restaurant for dinner with a great promoción- 2 meat empanadas, bife de lomo steak, vegetables, potatoes and an ice cream dessert for $10 USD. Yum!
One of the best meals I've had here
I'd say it was a day of accomplishments and increasing our love for wine!
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