Monday 4/13/15 -
We hopped on taxis to Hostel Empedrado, recommended personally by Stephanie, and planned to put our stuff down and go find the hot springs Mendoza had to offer. Soon enough though, we rulled that option out because the main hot springs seemed to be too touristy, far, and expensive (from what we heard), and the hidden hot springs was such a mystery that we couldn’t actually figure out where/what they were. So, we looked into other excursions and decided to do the horseback riding from 4pm-12midnight during the sunset and including an asado and unlimited wine. But, when the front desk hostel lady called to make our reservation, she said the excursion was unavailable. Apparently all of the horses had bed stolen. We laughed. The other horse riding company didn’t go on Mondays, so that was that, next option. This is kind of how traveling in South America works though. It’s really hard to plan ahead because you just never know when things like this are going to pop up. You have no choice but to be flexible and play things by ear.
So, we decided to have a chill day, walk around and check out Mendoza. We all kind of left the hostel on our own and picked a park and said to meet there at some point. Alie had to stay at a different hostel because she refuses to book things ahead of time, so when she arrived at the hostel, it was full, so she had to find a different one. I was lagging a little behind because it was this morning that I realized a good chunk of my cash was missing. So I spent a good amount of time and energy try to figure out what the hell happened to it. (As I type this, it is currently May 3rd, I am 2 days away from going home, and I still have zero idea as to what happened to that money, long story). Anyway, to cool down, I walked to the park, couldn’t find anyone, and parked on the grass and started to read and catch up on blogs. I ended up running into Martyn and Alie, but I hung at the park for a while, read a lot, and napped some. It was a very relaxing afternoon. Finally Martyn and I walked back to the hostel the long way, and then continued to relax at the hostel.
For dinner, Martyn, an austrailian guy (with a UT shirt on, he’s a good guy), and I split a few pizzas and a dozen empanadas for like $6 each, and we continued to chill at the hostel. I met and conversed with some Englishmen who had done the biking wine tour that day (we were going the next day) and got recommendations from them. This is kind of how we learned how to do every activity we did, talk to someone who has done it and hear their feedback. It is always so hard to know if the advice that the company offers is legit or not. We also hung out on the porch in a circle for a while as we shared wine and many different types of English speakers compared languages. It is crazy how different the English language can be. We had 2 couples from different parts of England, a Scottish girl, an Australian girl, Pat from Boston, and me from Texas, so I thoroughly enjoyed learning the different colloquialisms (of course I can’t remember specific ones now that I am thinking about it). It was also interesting because they all knew and/or had heard of any American colloquialism I had because they’re all featured in movies and music. I had virtually nothing new to share.
We hopped on taxis to Hostel Empedrado, recommended personally by Stephanie, and planned to put our stuff down and go find the hot springs Mendoza had to offer. Soon enough though, we rulled that option out because the main hot springs seemed to be too touristy, far, and expensive (from what we heard), and the hidden hot springs was such a mystery that we couldn’t actually figure out where/what they were. So, we looked into other excursions and decided to do the horseback riding from 4pm-12midnight during the sunset and including an asado and unlimited wine. But, when the front desk hostel lady called to make our reservation, she said the excursion was unavailable. Apparently all of the horses had bed stolen. We laughed. The other horse riding company didn’t go on Mondays, so that was that, next option. This is kind of how traveling in South America works though. It’s really hard to plan ahead because you just never know when things like this are going to pop up. You have no choice but to be flexible and play things by ear.
So, we decided to have a chill day, walk around and check out Mendoza. We all kind of left the hostel on our own and picked a park and said to meet there at some point. Alie had to stay at a different hostel because she refuses to book things ahead of time, so when she arrived at the hostel, it was full, so she had to find a different one. I was lagging a little behind because it was this morning that I realized a good chunk of my cash was missing. So I spent a good amount of time and energy try to figure out what the hell happened to it. (As I type this, it is currently May 3rd, I am 2 days away from going home, and I still have zero idea as to what happened to that money, long story). Anyway, to cool down, I walked to the park, couldn’t find anyone, and parked on the grass and started to read and catch up on blogs. I ended up running into Martyn and Alie, but I hung at the park for a while, read a lot, and napped some. It was a very relaxing afternoon. Finally Martyn and I walked back to the hostel the long way, and then continued to relax at the hostel.
For dinner, Martyn, an austrailian guy (with a UT shirt on, he’s a good guy), and I split a few pizzas and a dozen empanadas for like $6 each, and we continued to chill at the hostel. I met and conversed with some Englishmen who had done the biking wine tour that day (we were going the next day) and got recommendations from them. This is kind of how we learned how to do every activity we did, talk to someone who has done it and hear their feedback. It is always so hard to know if the advice that the company offers is legit or not. We also hung out on the porch in a circle for a while as we shared wine and many different types of English speakers compared languages. It is crazy how different the English language can be. We had 2 couples from different parts of England, a Scottish girl, an Australian girl, Pat from Boston, and me from Texas, so I thoroughly enjoyed learning the different colloquialisms (of course I can’t remember specific ones now that I am thinking about it). It was also interesting because they all knew and/or had heard of any American colloquialism I had because they’re all featured in movies and music. I had virtually nothing new to share.
Tuesday 4/14 -
Even though we were told to leave early, in the 9-9:30 range, for the bike tour, we ended up leaving around 10 because Noa had just arrived from Bariloche on an overnight bus that morning at 8:30, so she deserved time to clean up a bit. Noa, Pat, Martyn, Sam, and I walked, caught the bus, got off at Mr. Hugo’s, rented bikes, and we were off. Mr. Hugo was this 60 ish year old man that had a million bikes to rent to tour-ers like us, and he was the man. Super friendly and always smiling, personally shaking your hand and giving you your bike. He was great. We were recommended the night before to ride all the way down the road for about 30 minutes and start at the bodegas back there, then make our way slowly back to the town/bike shop. We did just that and it was a great call. It looked much more like wine country, and it was nice to get the long bike ride out of the way at the beginning. It wasn’t exactly simple riding either, we were riding on a 2-lane, 2-way road (again, just like the Circuto Chico in Bariloche), so cars were giving us some good breeze as they passed. We also ended up swiping up a solo rider named Katie from Australia on the way.
The first Bodega was great as we tasted their assortment of wines. I don’t really like wine, but this wine was fantastic. It didn’t taste like wine, it tasted like great juice with a hint of a wine flavor. We were immediately smiling and loving life. The second bodega was the best one. It offered sweeter and sparkling wines. We got 6 samples and all of them were just mind blowing. We would sip the glass, look at each other and share looks of disbelief. We bought a good amount of stuff from this bodega as well, including some wine alfajores (Argentinean snack/dessert), which were magical. Feeling great, we headed off to the next bodega.
At this one, we did the whole winery tour because we were recommended to do so, and it was a very rustic and vintage looking winery with large wooden barrels everywhere and a tight-quartered, downstairs area for wine-making. The tour was kind of underwhelming and the tastings were not as impressive as the previous bodegas, but the winery did have a very homey feel, as advertised. We then moved on to eat lunch at the next winery, which was a very nice, upscale place with an awesome second floor patio deck with waiter service for food. We split a bottle of rosé and I enjoyed an extremely tasty hamburger. We hung out there for a while. Afterwards, we were headed back to Mr. Hugo’s because it was 6:10 and we had to return the bikes by 6:30, but we ran into some new friends along the way and they recommended a last stop (semi) on the way. So we followed them and ended up at a liquor tasting run by a very friendly middle aged man from Switzerland (I think), and he had a lot of great flavored alcohols ranging in all kinds of percentages. We each chose 3 or 4 of the countless options to try. The lemon liquor option was great but the Dulce de Leche flavored viscous shot took the cake.
Since everyone seems to know everyone, Ruus (the Swiss liquor guy) assured us that Mr. Hugo would not get mad if we were late, and he was right as we pulled up just before 7 and Mr. Hugo didn’t break his smile. Via public transportation, we got back to the hostel just before 9pm, just in time to clean up and rest a bit before the asado dinner at the hostel. It was 120 pesos for “endless” meat and a fun, friendly dinner with other hostel inhabitants. I enjoyed catching up with the same English friends from the night before and meeting others over the tremendous meat that seemed to keep coming. Asados never get old, and being that this was my last meal in Argentina, it was only fitting. After dinner, Noa, Martyn, and I decided to take the 10:30am bus to Santiago the next morning.
Even though we were told to leave early, in the 9-9:30 range, for the bike tour, we ended up leaving around 10 because Noa had just arrived from Bariloche on an overnight bus that morning at 8:30, so she deserved time to clean up a bit. Noa, Pat, Martyn, Sam, and I walked, caught the bus, got off at Mr. Hugo’s, rented bikes, and we were off. Mr. Hugo was this 60 ish year old man that had a million bikes to rent to tour-ers like us, and he was the man. Super friendly and always smiling, personally shaking your hand and giving you your bike. He was great. We were recommended the night before to ride all the way down the road for about 30 minutes and start at the bodegas back there, then make our way slowly back to the town/bike shop. We did just that and it was a great call. It looked much more like wine country, and it was nice to get the long bike ride out of the way at the beginning. It wasn’t exactly simple riding either, we were riding on a 2-lane, 2-way road (again, just like the Circuto Chico in Bariloche), so cars were giving us some good breeze as they passed. We also ended up swiping up a solo rider named Katie from Australia on the way.
The first Bodega was great as we tasted their assortment of wines. I don’t really like wine, but this wine was fantastic. It didn’t taste like wine, it tasted like great juice with a hint of a wine flavor. We were immediately smiling and loving life. The second bodega was the best one. It offered sweeter and sparkling wines. We got 6 samples and all of them were just mind blowing. We would sip the glass, look at each other and share looks of disbelief. We bought a good amount of stuff from this bodega as well, including some wine alfajores (Argentinean snack/dessert), which were magical. Feeling great, we headed off to the next bodega.
At this one, we did the whole winery tour because we were recommended to do so, and it was a very rustic and vintage looking winery with large wooden barrels everywhere and a tight-quartered, downstairs area for wine-making. The tour was kind of underwhelming and the tastings were not as impressive as the previous bodegas, but the winery did have a very homey feel, as advertised. We then moved on to eat lunch at the next winery, which was a very nice, upscale place with an awesome second floor patio deck with waiter service for food. We split a bottle of rosé and I enjoyed an extremely tasty hamburger. We hung out there for a while. Afterwards, we were headed back to Mr. Hugo’s because it was 6:10 and we had to return the bikes by 6:30, but we ran into some new friends along the way and they recommended a last stop (semi) on the way. So we followed them and ended up at a liquor tasting run by a very friendly middle aged man from Switzerland (I think), and he had a lot of great flavored alcohols ranging in all kinds of percentages. We each chose 3 or 4 of the countless options to try. The lemon liquor option was great but the Dulce de Leche flavored viscous shot took the cake.
Since everyone seems to know everyone, Ruus (the Swiss liquor guy) assured us that Mr. Hugo would not get mad if we were late, and he was right as we pulled up just before 7 and Mr. Hugo didn’t break his smile. Via public transportation, we got back to the hostel just before 9pm, just in time to clean up and rest a bit before the asado dinner at the hostel. It was 120 pesos for “endless” meat and a fun, friendly dinner with other hostel inhabitants. I enjoyed catching up with the same English friends from the night before and meeting others over the tremendous meat that seemed to keep coming. Asados never get old, and being that this was my last meal in Argentina, it was only fitting. After dinner, Noa, Martyn, and I decided to take the 10:30am bus to Santiago the next morning.