Julia and I set out in late February for a trip to Mendoza, the center of wine country in west Argentina, about 120 miles northeast from Santiago. The trip takes about 7 hours by bus, including a one to two-hour stop at the customs office at the border, deep within the mountains.
Our trip started out at 10 pm on Friday night in the bus station in Santiago. We rolled out shortly after, making our way toward the mountains. The clear, starry sky could be seen from the bus windown in-between light segments of sleep. At about 2 am the bus slowed after the steepest climb of the trip -- nearly 30 back-and-forth switchbacks that brought us up to the Chile-Argentina customs office. After standing in line in the chilly air, getting our passports stamped and processed we made our way back to the bus which finally took us to Mendoza by about 5 am.
Julia and I slept on the uncomfortable bus station benches until the station coffee shop opened and we could get some authentic café con leche and medialunas (pastries). We then made our way to Hostal Lao, whose #1 rating (in South America) wasn't hard to believe -- we were greeted courteously and found the place to be clean and stylish.
I had contacted a fellow Ohio State Alum who had given us some advice for Mendoza -- namely, to take a bike tour of the wineries and to attend the evening wine festival in the center of town. Taking Leti's advice, Julia and I finally were able to grab a bus for the 45-minute bus ride to the south of town where we connected with Bicicletas Baccus (Baccus meaning the God of the Grape Harvest), picked up our two-wheeled rides, and cruised the lazy, rocky streets to two wineries. At the first, Nieto Senetiner, we experienced the typical tour and wine tasting. At the second we just had a simple lunch and glass of wine. Personally the experience was fun (riding bikes, seeing the city), but the specific wine tour I could take or leave (IMO -- once you've seen one of 'em, you've seen 'em all).
In the evening Julia and I shared a 1 kilogram steak at the stylish Florentino Café Bistro in Mendoza, then made our way to the wine festival where we met up with Leti (and thanked her for all her good advice), cruised the booths, and drank a few glasses of the area wines.
The trip was capped off with the busride back through the mountains on Sunday afternoon. The views are breathtaking and the switchbacks were relentless (about 30 hair-pin turns in total).
 |
| A wait in the wine cellar signing paperwork for our rental bikes. |
 |
| Cruising the tree-lined streets in south Mendoza. |
 |
| Our first winery. |
 |
| Rows of grapes next to one of the winery buildings. |
 |
| Streets of Mendoza. Large trees run down just about every street. |
 |
| Saturday night wine festival. |
 |
| Hostal Lao backyard. |
 |
| Back to Chile over the Andes. |
 |
| Rolling past deserted ski lodges and tiny villages. |
No comments:
Post a Comment