After a wonderful week in Santiago, filled with incredible hospitality and an at-our-sides tour guide, we were ready to be back on our own. I hadn’t really realized how much of a routine Ryan and I have gotten into on the road, and although it’s nice to switch that up once in a while, it’s also comforting to get back to that.
We headed to the bus station early on Sunday morning, and after confirming that we were in fact in the right place, we bid farewell to Karin and boarded our bus to Mendoza. It had been rumoured that this is one of the most beautiful bus rides in South America, and it certainly did not disappoint. After leaving smoggy Santiago behind, we began to climb through the majestic, snow covered Andes. It was a beautiful day for a bus ride through the mountains, and I was reminded of driving through the Rocky’s back home. We made the incredibly steep and windy decent to the top, before crossing the border from Chile to Argentina. Being that we had done this before, I wasn’t too stressed – crossing into Chile had been much more of a hassle in the past than crossing to Argentina. However, because the pass had been closed in the previous days due to snow, there was a massive line at the border, and we were the last of 4 buses in this line. Fortunately, they let us off the bus to stretch our legs and grab a coffee and a snack. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the border crossing couldn’t have been located in a prettier area, with mountains surrounding us every which way. On top of that, our bus was full of fellow gringos and we quickly made friends with 2 fellow Canadians (Calgarians at that) who are nearing the end of a year long trip around the world. I couldn’t resist peppering them with questions about their travels, mentally adding destinations to my already long list of places I still want to travel.
Three hours later, our entire bus had received an exit stamp from Chile, an entry stamp into Argentina and had all bags checked. The entire process is a bit ridiculous, but I was happy to be on our way. We continued on, winding through the mountains, and as we made our descent to Mendoza, the landscape changed from white capped mountains, to earthy mountains with reddish tinges. It was beautiful, especially as the sun began to set, turning the tips of the mountains a pinkish hue. The entire scenery was enchanting.
After a few more hours, we arrived in Mendoza, which was much more bustling than I had expected. The city has a population of nearly 1 million people (which I didn’t know), so it makes sense that the city would be much more like an urban city than the small town I had expected. Mendoza is famous for wine, in particular the Argentinian Malbec, so after checking into our hostel, we booked our wine tour for the following day, and then headed out for dinner with a few of our new friends from our bus ride. Of course, we sampled some of the cheap Argentinian Malbec with dinner!
The following day, our tour picked us up at 10am and we began our wine tour. The tour consisted of 9 people, all of which were close to our age. We took a van 45 minutes outside of the city and made our first stop at Tapiz winery, where we were toured around, and explained the unique wine process in Mendoza. The city is actually located in a desert, so trees have been built in the area to provide the necessary shade for growing grapes. As well, the city of Mendoza has an aquaduct type system, made up of deep trenches on either side of the street to collect water. Collecting water when it rains helps to keep the desert moist and fertile for the grapes in the area to grow. Learning about the process, and seeing the winery was great, and on top of that, we got to sample unfinished wines from the barrels and then taste the difference in the finished wines. After finishing up at Tapiz, we hopped on bikes and rode 8 km to Norton winery, which is pretty famous in Mendoza. It is also massive. The winery holds hundreds of massive storage tanks and barrels, which stretch as far as the eye can see in the building.
Upon arriving at Norton, we had a nice lunch and then took a tour around the building, samplig a ton of wine. We must have been given at least 5 samples one after the other, and all of us were feeling it a bit by the time we headed to our final winery. The last winery contrasted nicely with Norton, as it was a smaller, family run business. On top of that, they store their wine in old fashioned vats, similiar to pools built into the building. We took a tour of the winery before having our last 3 wine samples, all of which were delicious. We arrived back at the hostel with some time to spare before free wine hour. We met up with our new friends to compare days, and enjoy some low quality free wine, before heading out to grab some dinner. By about 10pm, I was ready for bed!
The following morning, we slept in a bit, grabbed breakfast, and checked out of our hostel. From there, we headed out to explore the town. After a few minutes of walking around, we became very aware that people don’t come to Mendoza for the city. Nevertheless, we explored Plaza Independencia, Plaza Espana, walked to the top of a look out in the city hall building, and grabbed lunch at a cute cafe near to the main plaza. We arrived back at our hostel in the afternoon only to find our Canadian friends enjoying some wine on the patio at our hostel. What a better way to spend a Tuesday aftenoon than sipping wine with new friends on a patio? Unfortunately, they had a flight to catch at 3, so we had to entertaini ourselves for a few hours before our nice bus up to Salta. As always, the time flew by quickly, and before I knew it, we were boarding a bus to Salta. Adios, Mendoza!