Mendoza : a week of rest
We leave the excitement of Valparaiso to go to Mendoza with an 8 am bus (we booked the right bus this time).
We sleep a little in the bus and wake up in the middle of the mountains. And it is beautiful.
It is all white around us. We even drive by a ski resort and see some people on the slopes! We envy them a little… wish we were skiing too!
But we have to pass the boarder between Chili and Argentina, and we were a little anxious on how long it would take. We read that some people stayed over 5 hours at the boarder. Luckily we only waited 1h30. Good thing it wasn’t longer, indeed we were pretty high in altitude so it was really cold, and we were not dressed appropriately at all.
Once the customs cleared, our bus takes the road to Mendoza, and we drive by the beginning of the trail up to the Aconcagua, at 22,840 ft above sea level, the highest mountain in the Americas. From there, we only have 2 hours drive left. The multiple vineyards we cross tell us that we are getting closer and closer to Mendoza.
Indeed, the region of Mendoza represents 60% of all of Argentina’s wine production. Which could be one of the reasons we decided to stop here during our voyage across South America 😉 .
We arrive in Mendoza, it is sunny and warm, we are going to like it here!
We get to our Airbnb that we rented for 7 nights (by far the longest we have stayed at the same place since beginning this trip) and are super pleased to see that it is in the heart of the city center, and just a block away from a big supermarket.
We had already loved the apartment just by seeing the pictures online, but it is even better than what we expected.
It is a cute little studio, with a private balcony the size of the apartment! We love it.
And icing on the cake, our host left us a bottle of wine as a welcome present.
Without losing any time, we go to the supermarket to buy what we will have for diner to enjoy on our balcony. And a picture will speak louder than words :
We have an excellent Malbec, from Mendoza of course, and some cheese and charcuterie! A perfect ending to this day long bus ride.
In this post, we won’t describe our day by day like we usually do, because honestly we didn’t do much.
Indeed, even before leaving for our trip around the world, we knew we needed to take some time to rest once in a while. After reading a lot of blogs, and even after meeting other couples, also traveling for a year, we saw that a lot regretted not taking some time to rest and do nothing. And a lot feel some sort of boredom and great fatigue after a while. It might seem counter intuitive, but traveling for an entire year is tiresome, indeed, it means long bus rides, changing cities and places where you sleep every 3 or 4 days, constantly doing some research to organize the next couple of days, etc. We knew that psychologically and physically we needed this break. Our time in Peru and Bolivia was pretty intense with all this time spent in altitude (2 months constantly over 6,560 ft above sea level), the cold and all the hikes we did. Of course, we wouldn’t trade this life for anything else, but we have to learn to rest from time to time in order not to burn out, and continue to appreciate this amazing journey.
So it is in Mendoza that we decided to take some time off. And it was a great choice. We absolutely love the city. We spent afternoons just wandering in the streets.
We were charmed by all the nice outdoor cafés,
its pedestrian area,
all the small plazas,
and the huge park.
And of course by the vineyards.
Thanks to a relatively dry and very sunny weather, Mendoza is the main wine region in Argentina. And its most used grape is the Malbec.
We spent an entire day discovering the vineyards and a few wine producers. To do so, we rented bikes for the day. In total, we visited 4 different bodegas, an olive oil making company and a brewery (after a long day biking in the sun, there is nothing better than a cold beer… sorry wine!).
The first bodega we visited (at 10 am) was the Bodega Rural, that also is home to a museum around wine.
The company started back in the 18th century, and the museum has a lot of artifacts, that people used to make wine with back in the day.
The visit ends of course with a wine tasting.
The visit was really interesting, the guide really enthusiast and it was nice to see how wine was made back in the day. The entrance ticket to the tour and museum also serves as a voucher if you want to buy a bottle or do another tasting. Since we don’t have room in our backpacks, but plenty of room in our bellies, we decide to do a tasting of their premium wines instead of buying a bottle. But what we didn’t know was that here they don’t joke around on the serving sizes. We got served 3 full glasses of wine… it’s only 11 am and we still have to bike 10 miles and visit other wineries… the day is going to be long!
After that, we continue south to the Bodega Tempus Alba. Here the tour is self guided.
We end with a tasting on the rooftop with a great view on the vineyards.
A few yards away is the Bodega Mevi, a family owned bodega. We stop here for lunch, on their patio, with an amazing view on the vineyards, olive trees and the mountains in the background. Beautiful!
We tasted different wines again, and even had a description of each on our table mat.
And to go with all this wine, we had an excellent charcuterie and cheese board. Everything was delicious.
It is a little hard to go back on the bikes after this lunch break. Especially when Maider has the brilliant idea of wanting to go off the road and bike in the vineyards (even though the rental company told us to stay on the road…).
So of course we had to back track and Matt had to carry the bikes over fences since we were stuck in the middle of the vineyards…
The last bodega we go to is the Bodega Carinae, it is owned by a couple of French expats, Brigitte and Phillipe. They spend Argentinian winter in France so we weren’t able to meet them. The couple, from Toulouse, bought the property in 2003, and named it after the Carinae stars constellation. Indeed, Philippe is an astronomy enthusiast, and this particular constellation can only be seen in the southern hemisphere during the grape harvest season.
Here we tasted 6 different wines, all very very good, we even bought a bottle to take home 😉 .
Just across the street, there is the olive oil factory LAUR, founded in 1906, by another French dude! These French people are everywhere. We were not able to do the visit because the next one was 45 minutes later, but we could do the tasting. And the tasting was simply exceptional. We had olives of course, but also dried tomatoes and olive spread with bread.
They also made us taste different types of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Delicious! All that was missing was a little wine to go with all of this 😉 .
We had until 7 pm to drop off our bikes, so on our way back we decided to drop by a little patio we heard about, that served craft beer. Apparently we hadn’t had enough to drink already, and honestly wine is good, but nothing beats a cold craft beer after a day pedaling in the sun!
So we stop in this nice little patio in the middle of the vineyards and grab a beer with some popcorn before heading back to Mendoza.
And because we couldn’t just stop there and eat white rice at our Airbnb, we decided to end the day at a nice restaurant in Mendoza. We had some amazing grilled meats with wine from the Carinae Bodega we visited earlier. Of course we had to take the Cuvée Brigitte in honor of Maider’s mom.
The rest of the week was quiet and lived at the Argentinian rhythm, with the usual daily siesta (not as long as the Argentinian one from 1 pm to 5 pm),
lunch on our patio,
some sugary snacks (ice cream or Alfajores),
Skype with our friends and family,
reading in the sun,
some Netflix evenings,
drinks on the outdoor terraces of Mendoza
and a stop by the barber shop for Matt.
Without forgetting a Sunday homemade brunch with some French pastries found in a French bakery around the corner. Amazing!
This week in Mendoza was really resourceful, finally being able to unpack our bags and hang our clothes in a closet, cook our own meals everyday and simply have a space to ourselves for a “long” period of time.
Now the trip continues with the goal of heading East to Buenos Aires. Since the distances are pretty long we will stop in San Luis, to visit the national park of Las Sierras Quijadas, and in Cordoba along the way.
A short video of our few days in Mendoza: