Mendoza

Mendoza barrels

After our harrowing salt flats experience, the nineteen hour overnight bus ride from Salta to Mendoza seemed like a breeze. We actually got a pretty good sleep on the bus, and I cried watching The Fault In Our Stars even though movies almost never get me going. Maybe I was extra emotional from our crazy adventure, or maybe the movie really is that sad… who knows. We’d gotten the lowest ticket class for that trip because we were trying to save money after our delay at the salt flats had made us miss our scheduled bus departure, but the ride was much better than I expected.

Maria Antonieta salad

When we arrived in Mendoza, we were both pretty hungry as the food on the bus was virtually inedible (by far the worst part of the experience). It would have been better had they told us there wouldn’t be any food so that we could have brought our own. Once we’d lugged our bags a couple kilometres from the bus station to our hostel, we went out in search of some lunch. Our trusty Trip Advisor app pointed us in the direction of Maria Antonieta, where we sat outside on a beautiful sidewalk patio and had one of the best meals of our trip. Well, mine was incredible – Zevi’s may not have been anything to write home about. I ordered a giant salad with pears, arugula, prosciutto, and burrata, and the combination of the sweet fruit, the peppery greens, the salty meat, and the creamy cheese was pretty darn close to heaven on a plate. Good quality meal sized salads had been hard to come by up to that point on our trip, which made this one extra amazing. I love the meat and carb thing that Argentina does so well, but sometimes a big pile of veggies really hit the spot (with some meat and cheese in the mix of course ;)).

The hostel that we stayed in in Mendoza was up there with the best that we stayed at. Although the room and bathrooms were nothing special, perhaps even on the shabby side, it had the elements that we’d come to realize were most important. The breakfasts were delicious and plentiful, including your choice of crepes or fried eggs and a variety of pastries and fruit. Our favourite hostels all had something that brought people together, and Square Independencia facilitated that in the form of free wine for two hours every evening. On the first night that we were there, we sat outside on their enclosed patio and drank wine with a bunch of fellow travellers. It was a great way to get people mingling (what backpacker can resist a free drink?), and we connected with a girl from Italy and a guy from Washington who we ended up going on a wine tour with the next day.

Carmelo PiatiAlta Vista barrels Pulmary cave

As most people know, Mendoza is famous for its wineries and is probably one of the most well known wine growing regions in the world. There are a few wine growing areas within a reasonable distance of the city, and we decided to take the bus out to an area called Lujan de Cuyo and do a bike tour. Getting our tour set up was a breeze – we showed up at Baccus Bikes in Chacras de Coria in the late morning, and they recommended four different wineries, making reservations where necessary. The bikes were great and the service was excellent! It couldn’t have been a more beautiful day for a bike ride – the sun was shining and the air was pleasantly warm but not stifling.

Wine at PulmaryAlta Vista tasting

We made four stops on our tour, and each was very different from the last. Carmelo Piatti is a relatively small operation that only advertises through word of mouth, and we got to hear about the wine making process from Carmelo himself. Pulmary is an organic winery where we got to stand in what used to be giant underground vats for storing table wine, as Argentinians used to drink that stuff like juice. We also ate a great lunch outside on the patio at Pulmary, complete with a visit from their two dogs who may have been getting a few too many scraps from tourists. From there we went to Alta Vista, by far the fanciest stop on our itinerary, and tasted wines in the French consulate, which is attached to the winery. Our final destination was a little store where we got the opportunity to taste a bunch of different dips and spreads as well as some sweet treats. We also got to try two different types of liquor, and both Zevi and I chose to test out the Absinthe. Our curiosity has now been satisfied, and I don’t think we’ll be going for that again any time soon.

Concepto Oliva Mendoza wine tasting

The next day was my birthday, and it ended up being one of my favourite days of our entire trip. We were a little disappointed when our plan to head out to the Uco Valley for some wine tasting was foiled because we couldn’t rent a car, but we ended up doing some things around the city that were just as good, if not better! The night before, we’d had the opportunity to do an olive oil tasting with a local farmer at our hostel, and we liked the oil so much that we decided to go and try out his restaurant in a nearby town. Concepto Oliva is in Maipu, which is easily accessible by train from Mendoza. The restaurant had just opened shortly before we visited, so they were still getting the word out, and we had the place to ourselves! Our food was amazing, and we were presented with complimentary olive oil ice cream to top it all off, which was out of this world delicious. We couldn’t resist doing another olive oil tasting before our meal because the oils are amazing! We were very stingy with what we bought as we had limited space in our backpack, but we knew we had to bring home one of the olive oils. We carried it around for the rest of our trip and we’re still enjoying it now. That afternoon we headed to a tasting room called Vines of Mendoza for a little wine sampling without the commute. We shared one of the higher end flights and a flight of the younger wines, and found some real gems. It was great to be able to taste so many different types of wine in one spot. I love going to wineries for tastings, but this was an awesome experience in a different way!

We left Mendoza wishing we could have stayed a couple more days. On the night we had to catch our bus, we had one last glass of free wine on the patio with our new friends, and lamented the fact that we couldn’t stay and party with them a little bit longer. There are so many more wine growing valleys in the Mendoza area that we didn’t explore, so I guess we’ll just have to go back!

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