We spent a glorious few days in Mendoza which involved wandering around the city (which is adorable, and much more chill than Buenos Aires), operation bed bug extermination (cooking all of our belongings in black garbage bags in the very hot Mendoza sun), and washing all of our cloth belongings. Most importantly while we were in Mendoza, we took a public bus to outside the city where we rented bikes from 'Mr. Hugo', who sends you on your way with a bike and a map.
We first went to a wine museum and then to a place where they harvest olives (for oil and consumption), make chocolate, and various liquers. We did a tour/tasting there, which was all kinds of fabulous. Seriously. Shots of liquer at 11:00 am? Yes, please! Various forms of olives (oil, paste, whole, etc), chased by seventeen different kinds of homemade, flavoured chocolate, at 11:10 am? Pretty please! (There was a whole lot of apologizing to my dairy intolerant body...). We then got back on our bikes (which was much more difficult after said bread, olives, alcohol and chocolate), and took the trek to a small family vineyard. There was a lot of construction in the little town we were in so the riding was not always smooth. We did another tour at a beautiful vineyard, learned about wine and did a tasting. While we were eating lunch there, it downpoured. It stopped just in time for us to leave, but only after it had seriously soaked the dirt roads we had just biked. Thankfully the ride back seemed much shorter (perhaps on account of all the wine?), however, it was SO muddy. It was really just funny, mostly because our bikes had fenders on them, unlike the other travellers who were biking by us, who had rented from another company (seriously, you see your options, one of them is 'Mr. Hugo', how do you choose anyone else?), and they had no fenders. No fenders, and terribly muddy toushies. We did get really muddy legs and feet, but it was mostly just funny. When we brought our bikes back to Mr. Hugo, Mrs. Hugo was there to greet us with a glass of red wine in a tiny plastic cup.
We hopped back onto the bus to get back to the city, like regular Mendocinos (I think that is what they are called...). During the ride back a woman became enraged with the bus driver, and they engaged in a yelling match for about ten minutes. It was entertaining, though we weren't always sure what was being said. J is certain she heard her tell the driver that his head is 'full of shit'.
It was a pretty great day.
So, thank you, Mendoza, for confirming my love of bread, wine, olives and chocolate. And the Spanish language. Oh, and reggae music. So, so much loveliness.
I was in need of a little reminder.
Muchas gracias.
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