Mendoza

Mendoza's famous for its wine.  Since I preferred pretty much anything to wine back in the northern hemisphere, thought maybe it'd switch it up down here.


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Turns out wine isn't so bad if you have someone telling you what to look for in broken English.  Absinthe might only make you see fairies if you're a bohemian writer, but it makes your chest burn regardless of who you are.  You don't have to live in an apartment in New York to have a pet duck.

I met a fellow American on the bus from Mendoza to Cordoba by the name of Tracy and we went to look for a hostel.  After the first one that I had scouted turned us away because of our shoddy apperance, we found one for 35 pesos a night.  Dropping off our bags, we went in search of breakfast and a plan to get to the bodegas.  Breakfast was good and we found flyers for bike rental places (the preferred method of wine tasting among backpackers without a refined palate) at the oficina de turismo, but not much help from the people there.  They pointed us in the direction of a bus stop and on our way there, a fellow with a thick English accent told us which bus to take.  It was a 40 minute bus ride, approximately, and around minute 38, a fellow with a scant knowledge of English, pointed at us and said, "bike rental.  aca."  He had a flyer in his hand which matched the one we got from the tourism office, so it seemed about right.  A few minutes and 25 pesos later we were on the road.

From Mendoza

That's me on the bike after the first winery.  Which was really just a museum of old winery tools and a place to get a free glass of tinto (red wine).  The wine tasted like wine and the tools were old.  The tour was in very fast spanish so we went to the next stop, which was a place that made chocolates, olive oil and liqueurs.  For 10 pesos, there was a tasting of all of them.  They offered the liqueurs last, there were a variety of sweet ones, then they offered Absinthe.  It was sort of a no-brainer, since I'd never had it before.

From Mendoza

She took a spoon of sugar, dipped it in the absinthe, lit the absinthe-soaked sugar on fire, blew it out, put the sugar in and down the hatch it went.  Didn't really get drunk or even buzzed, despite it being 75% alcohol, according to the label.  But it did burn.  And it didn't really stop for awhile.  Hopping back on a bike while your chest is burning from absinthe is not the smartest thing to do.  No ill-effects, just felt gross.  The next few bodegas were closed since it was Saturday and we came across one which offered a glass of wine with some barbecue for 40 pesos.  It wasn't that great and turned out to be overpriced and we commiserated about it with the Canadian couple next to us.  At this point, I was ready to give up on wine all together since it had been so far unspectacular and the bike seats were making my butt hurt.

With our new Canadian friends, we made it to the Di Tomasso winery.  They were friendly, the tour was informative and they had a big thing of bottles which looked really cool.

From Mendoza

Our guide lady explained how aging wine in an oak barrel effects the flavor and then gave us examples of it.  It was pretty clear.  Then we bought a bottle of the better wine, shared it between the four of us, and then when there's no comparison all wine just tastes like wine.

Upon returning to the bike rental place, they gave us some more wine which I can only assume is to thank us for not stealing the bikes.  There we met a couple from Belgium and a South African/Australian couple, had another free glass and made plans to have sushi for dinner.  After the bus ride back and a shower, we had sushi.  Sushi in a town which has a huge mountain range between itself and the nearest fish-bearing body of water is not good.  Not terrible and I didn't get sick, so that was good.

The next day, Tracy opted to go to a nicer hostel and took off pretty early in the morning.  Being Sunday, everything was closed except the main touristy area so I walked there.  I met the Lauren and MJ, the Aussie and the South African and had some wine with them.  While we were drinking, a fellow rode around with a platform on the front of his bike.  Fairly commonplace, except for the duck sitting on the platform.  The guy parked his bike and walked to a news stand.  The duck followed him and waited for him to finish.  The guy sat on the bench and the duck sat on the ground next to him.  He walked to a lamp post near us and the duck walked towards it.  Lauren, apparently an animal lover, called the duck over after talking with the guy, Lauren eventually ended up holding the duck.  I'm pretty sure she got hepatitis from it.

After the wine and duck encounter, I had a hot dog.  Took a nap and at dinner tried to order a rare steak.  The waiter seemed to speak english, so I said "rare".  He nodded and I said, "jugoso.  muy poco hecho, si?"  And he nodded.  I assumed I'd be getting a nice big thick rare Argentine steak.  To my dismay, it came out medium rare.  Tasty, but medium rare.

The next day, I walked to the big park on the other side of the city and up a road and to the cerro de la gloria, or something

From Mendoza

Walking back, I ran into Lauren and MJ and we had a bottle of wine.  Since this was our last night in Mendoza, we decided to go to a wine bar at the top of a building with a wine bar.  There was an amazing view of the city and we ordered one of the more expensive bottles of wine, which turned out to cost just a shade under 25 bucks.  We finished the bottle as the sunset, it was a pretty nice end to the evening.

From Mendoza

Then I had two hot dogs and a coke.  Gotta keep it real.