Mendoza

I sat next to a young South American so got the chance to practise my Spanish on the way down South and he recommended a hostel in the centre of town. Obviously we ignored him and went with the first person touting at the bus station who offered us a free taxi ride.

Mendoza is another very western looking city. The first thing we did after getting clean was go into the supermarket nearby, a massive carefour(?) where I finally managed to buy a wash bag after 2 months of looking. On our first walk round town what did we find though was a MacDonalds, yes Rach´s eagle eyes spotted Ronald peaking out from the trees so a quick diversion was in order and the famine was broken with a couple of cheeky hamburgers (we didn´t want to ruin our appetite for dinner!)

Although a beautiful place there was little out of the ordinary again, although it was lovely to wander round the shopping centres. That night we ate in Macdonalds again before wandering off to bed.

Next day we went on a wine tasting tour where I got to see how the bodegas worked and got to taste a few glasses of the local wine (they were very very stingy). We also had a tour of the local chocolate factory. I didn´t know that red wine would be white unless they let it ferment with the skins in the mixture and also that most new wine as they call it never sees the inside of an oak barrel. Very eye opening for wine lovers like us

For dinner that evening the restaurant didn´t have a wine list. Instead you had to go into their wine cellar and choose straight from the racks! However they seem to insist on keeping red wine cold here to preserve the flavour, but to us it doesn´t taste as good unless it is warm.

Mendoza has a real cafe culture so the following day we hung around the cafes drinking reading and practising Spanish