En la Tierra del Vino

Thursday night, on the 6th of October, I left with two friends for La Tierra del Vino (or the land of wine) AKA Mendoza, Argentina. We were taking an overnight bus to the city so that we could optimize our time in the wine capital of Argentina. The ride there was actually the most comfortable bus ride of my entire abroad travelings. The bus was pretty empty, so we each ended up getting a row of seats to ourselves. Also, to start the journey off, we shared a bottle of Cuban rum, which gave us sweet dreams and a deep sleep.

DAY 1

When we finally arrived to our hostel on Friday, I go to the front desk to check-in since I had made all the reservations. The woman working there was taking a little long to pull up our info, and we all took a couple of nervous looks around. Then we find out, that (in true "Nora" style) that I had made the reservations for the following week! Luckily they had one room available for that night, but we'd have to find a different place for the rest of our trip. Too bad, because that hostel was really nice, and the people were super friendly. This first day, we just walked around the city of Mendoza, bought groceries, and grilled out at the hostel. This was the very first night I tried Argentine steak... it was okay. Steak, as it turns out, just really isn't my thing.

DAY 2

First thing Saturday, we moved to our new hostel, which turned out to only be a convenient block away. Then we took a bus out to the wine district, which so happened to be called Maipu (pronounced "My poo") so you can only imagine the fun we had with that. When we got to Maipu, it was freeeezing cold and really windy. To make matters worse, the bike shop that we were told to rent bikes from was closed. Since we had made it all the way out there, we were determined to at least see one vineyard. Finally we found a wine museum/bodega (bodega is where wine is made). We got a brief explanation (in Spanish) of how the wine is produced, and then finally got to taste authentic Argentine wine. It was delicious.

After the museum, we found a little shop where you could sample a bunch of different homemade dips, jams, cheeses, and olive oils as well as delicious liquors. After some sampling and purchasing, we headed back outside. We were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful weather that had developed while we were inside! Perfect for riding bikes! So we decided that we'd eat first, and then find someplace to rent bikes and continue exploring the vineyards.

Lunch was awful. But after that we found a cute bike rental place owned by this nice old lady. My friend Dan and I fulfilled my lifelong dream of riding a tandem bike!! It was the most laughing I'd done in a looong time. Pretty tricky to get the hang of at first, but afterwards we just cruised along. We spent the rest of the day biking around the vineyards and stopped by a glorious establishment named the Beer Gardens. They only served three different home-brewed beers, but they were delicious and the place itself was so quirky and adorable. I could have spent hours there in the sunshine. Aside from the places we stopped, the scenery itself was absolutely amazing. The contrast of the bright green vineyards with the blue sky, and then topped off with the backdrop of the Andes mountains, it was just unreal.

We eventually left Maipu, and had a quiet night in the hostel, where I got my first opportunity to cook since I had been in South America. I made pasta, it was just okay (I blame the available ingredients) but finally being able to cook my own meal was very enjoyable.

DAY3

Sunday was our first day of adventure. We got picked up early to go white water rafting in the Andes. The car ride there alone resulted in an excessive number of mountain pictures. I couldn't help it though; I never get to see mountains! When we got to the river, we find out that they scheduled too many people for the time slot, so they told us that we would have to wait about 2 hours... but on the bright side, they would take us on a hike and let us go zip-lining for free. The zip-line was pretty weak, but better than just sitting around. The hike wasn't too incredible either, but we got some exercise and great photo ops. Then it was finally time to raft. They gave us “waterproof” outfits to wear, and off we went to learn the commands (in Spanish mind you). The rafting was fun, the water was frigid, and the views were fantastic.

DAY4

Monday was our last day there (and no we didn’t miss school, it was a holiday). We decided to go paragliding. I was super excited since it was another adventure to check off of my to-dos. We took the drive back out to the edge of the Andes to the base camp for the paragliders. It was a neat place, middle of nowhere, abandoned building… if it wasn’t such an exciting atmosphere, it would probably be the great setting for a horror movie. We then took a ride up the side of a mountain on this zigzagged trail in a rickety truck. The ride up was almost as exciting as the glide down haha. Skip to take off: we were attached to another (professional) glider. As the wind caught the parachute (or kite… whatever you call it) they yell for you to run. You literally run straight off the side of the mountain… super fun! From there on out we just floated along, every once in a while catching a fast burst of wind. The most exhilarating part was the landing. We did this downward spiral thing and the force of our wind speed was so strong I couldn’t really feel my face anymore haha. After I landed I took a tiger snooze in the sun while I waited for my friends to land. This resulted in the notorious shin tan (I was wearing cropped pants) that lasted through the rest of my trip.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Mendoza, seeing the parks, eating ice cream, and doing some last minute shopping. We then caught an over-night bus out of the city to make it back to Buenos Aires just in time to catch our Tuesday morning classes.

Well until next time, (which is hopefully soon since I’m totally slacking on my catch-up blogs)… Chau!