Since we last filled you in, we have been taking a little sojurn into Argnetina. It feels like a little light-relief break from our Chilean adventure, and we´d recommend Mendoza to anyone!
We left Pucon on Wednesday evening and travelled overnight back north to Santiago. After a couple of hours restbite at the Santiago bus station we picked up another 7 hour service across the border to Mendoza. The buses here are another level of comfort. Seats are huge and comfortable, and on our Mendoza service they even served lunch! On arrival we met a friendly chap called Florencio who was touting for business for his hotel. However, having pre-booked we made for our hostel. Sadly it turned out to be a bit of a hovel - small and dark and dirty. We had to stay one night to honour our booking, but went to check out Florencio´s place which was nice and the same price so moved there first thing in the morning! Meantime, we headed out to explore Mendoza and had our first steak and red wine dinner. Beautiful, and very cheap!
On Friday we set out to explore the Mendoza wine region. There is a great set-up in place whereby you take the bus to nearby Maipu and then rent a bike to cycle around wineries. After an initial 10km ride (this from a girl who hasn´t been on a bike for years - still feeling slightly tender now...), we started with a tour and tasting at an olive oil factory. Who knew that the same olive tree will bear fruit for up to 400 years? And that the green olives and black olives are picked from the same tree, just green ones are earlier than black? And that the oil is aged in a tank for 2 weeks when ready before bottling? We saw the machinery for oil production and sampled that and their olive pastes. Gorgeous. From that, across the road to a small winery owned by a French couple and a tour with a very friendly girl called Andrea. We sampled the malbec and the owner´s blend and settled on a purchase of one bottle of the house rose - a malbec and very dry compared to any other rose we ever tried, very nice and unusual.
Next stop, the winery of the Di Tommaso family. Here we had lunch - a lovely argentinian chicken dish - and some of their malbec, really good. Another long cycle later we visited a final winery with musuem, and then called in on a place that makes olive oil, pastes, chocolate, liquors and a whiskey (scottish recipe) - bizarre! After returning our bikes we made our way back to Mendoza and wandered through the town before tea. It´s a lovely place with a great feel about it, always buzzing. People here are very friendly, the city has everything you could need, and it´s very pretty with big open squares and parks. 
Today we visited the city museum and central park, as well as having another steak dinner! A wonderful place to spend time, we can´t recommend Mendoza highly enough. (Incidentally, the other day we went shoe shopping for Tom - never easy in UK where hardly anyone stocks size 13 - and found literally dozens of styles in the right size in just the second shop we entered - had a lot of fun choosing his fab new pair...another great reason to visit Mendoza if you´re tall!)On our way this evening to take a direct bus to La Serena, back in Chile, on the coast, where we will stop briefly before heading up into the Atacama Desert and San Pedro.
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