Mendoza

3/Sept

So Id already been to the biggest wine producing region, now I was in the second! I got in today at 4pm and I was wrecked. The whole point of taking night buses is that you save a day but by the time you do 21hours on a bus, even if it as night bus, your still too wrecked to do anything!!! So the rest of the day was basically a write off. I had dinner in the hostel, skyped some peops and went to bed.

4/Sept

So I waslked down to brekie today and whos sitting there but Simon and Jeeke! They hadnt liked where they stopped so they jumped on a bus to Mendoza... back together again! ah.
Ah SA Sundays, EVERYTHING shuts! EVERYTHING! Myself and Si went for a walk around but there was very little to do. We ended up in the supermarket and bought a shit load of food for what Si called his English fry up but I called my Irish fry up ha!
That afternoon we cooked up a storm and stank the hostel out of it with eggs, bacon and sausages yum! Not the same as my mammys fry up but it was an ok substitute! (by the way I really really miss baked beans, I cant get them here at all!)
After we had digested our food myself and Si decided to venture out again for a wander. So it turns out that Mendoza does liven up on Sunday afternoons. The main square was buzzing with locals having picnics and chilling out, it was a really nice scene! Walking around Mendoza you could be walking in any sunny Eurpoean city. Its modern, buzzing with coffee shops and has a serious Eurpoean feel to it. We ended up at the main square having a coffee. A pit stop was made on the way back to the hostel to stock up on wine..... of course.

5/Sept

Two years ago my lovely friend Siobhan went travelling through SA and when I said I was going she sent me many many lovely mails telling me the do's and dont's. One thing she told me about Mendoza was to do Mr Hugos wine tours and the name stuck with me ever since. Now it was not just Siobhan that told me about the famous Mr Hugo, all through SA whenever Mendoza was mentioned his name came up. And today was the day we were going to do the famous Mr Hugo's wine tour!

A good group of us, 7 in total, from the hostel all headed off to find Mr Hugo. After a short bus ride we found his digs. Basically you rent a bike of him and he gives you a map of all the vineyards in the area.... BUT he also gives you as much free wine before and after you head off on the bikes! So of course we had a few before we set off. We had our maps and we had decided what vineyards we would go to and what we would skip.

Our first stop was a gourmet liquor and condiment producer. Oh it was amazing, they had the weirdest combinations of liquor and we got to choose two each to try. I went for a pepper liquor and a Christmas flavoured one. After the liquor tasting was the olive oils and such. Well we showed no decorum what so ever! Every bit of food was devoured and the same went for the next tasting which was marmalade. We left full and happy!

Second stop of the day was one of the oldest wineries in the area. We did a tour which was informative and really good and then moved on for the tasting which was also pretty good ha! The winery was pretty impressive, set on old grounds in beautiful gardens.

At this stage we were all starving so our next stop was food at the beer garden! Empanedas and dark beer all around.
After this we headed back to Mr Hugos, the ride back was pretty funny!!!!
At Mr Hugos we had a few more glasses of wine before heading home time... stopping at Maccy D's on the way home :P

6/Sept

Ok so today we were meant to move on today however after yesterdays antics that didnt happen as no one made it out of bed till 1! So when we did rise the bus station though to book tickets to our next destination and then headed to the park to chill out. That evening I had one of the best meals since Iv been to SA, an authentic Indian curry cooked by Mythica. It was delicious and we all went to bed happy (except the rest of the hostel who were driven mad by the amazing smells but didnt get to have any!)