Wining and Biking dont mix

After quite a long bus ride over the Andes and into our last country of Argentina, we stopped in Mendoza...the city of wine!

We only had about 48 hours in Mendoza because we wanted more time to spend in Buenos Aires... so we arrived at 2am and got up at 10 am to hit the road on some bikes. We ran into some other Americans (we have met verrrrrryy few on our trip) and we all decide to take a biking wine tour together. When we showed up to the bike store at the beginning of wine valley, we were a little nervous as to what the day would bring.
First stop went smoothly, a short bike ride over to the wine museum, tasted some wines, saw some HUGE barrels instead of steel vats, and got a mini tour. SInce this was our first winery, we did not buy any wine but we knew right away it was to be a long day, the portions were not of ẗasting" sizes, rather, as almost half glasses! Yay for Argentinian portions!

We continued on our bikes up the main road where many vineyards are stationed. However, we came to find very few vineyards growing wine, mostly it was just the wineries. I guess I expected to be biking up and down vineyards like Napa Valley but instead we were biking on a main road and had to swerve a few times to save myself. YOu would think that if they are going to have tipsy bike riders, they would make a specific path for them OR not have them bike on a main road with truckers!

As we biked from winery to winery, the portions got bigger, my bike got harder to ride, and it got hotter. So after 20 minute bike ride in between wineries, we stopped for lunch, ordered a bottle of wine (so unnecessary) and I had some great Argentinan chicken dish. It was delicious and hit the spot. We had a nice tour of this winery, Familia Di Tommaso, and they showed us old family pictures, the wine aging inside of huge brick cellars in shapes of vats. This is the oldest winery in Mendoza so I guess it makes sense for them to keep their old ways in tact. Their wine was pretty good, even though I am not much of a connoisseur and I Just made up words that sounded classy to describe the wines..... future reference, use the word Oakey, works every time!
We tasted about 5 wines here, after drinking a bottle for lunch (shared with Kevin of course... not by myself!) so we were feeling good in the blustering heat of Argentinas summer. We biked for our next vineyard and this was on so modern it was interesting to see it right after we saw the oldest winery.
This winery, Thelmus Alba (cant remember if that was the name), was a glass, stone, winery with a few pictures but a beautiful rooftop for drinks and food. ALthough we definitely did not need anymore wine, we decided to spend the afternoon at this winery, I am thinking we decided that because we did not want to bike anymore, but alas, we ordered some tasters, half glasses AGAIN, and then we all thought it would be fun to order bottles. What were we thinking? We ordered 3 more bottles for 5 of us, and we sat on this terrace overlooking their vineyard (one of the few wineries with a vineyard there) and we just enjoyed the rest of the day.
At 6pm our bikes were supposed to be back but because of some swerving on the road, we got back a little after and the little old lady running the place thought it would be a nice gesture to give us more wine while we waited for cabs! Unluckily for me, i had to wait for the 2nd cab and by that time she was bringing out a 3rd glass!

We finally made it back to our hostel in one piece and we decided to check out the town! Feeling pretty good, we went to the park, where i showed kevin how to ballet dance haha, and then we went in search of food. I am not sure why we could not find a place to eat, but we did find 2 local Argentinans playing some music. SO of course we stopped to listen and then we started talking to them. THey invited us to what we thought (obviously our spanish is off ) was another bar where they were going to play some music but alas, we ended up at their apartment. It sounds a little sketchy but they were so nice, our age, and just enjoyed playing music. They made us pizza, I played with their little cat in which I called "mi gato", which means "my cat", and it was the size of my 2 hands...soo precious!
We had a great night hanging out with some locals, speaking broken spanish and english, eating home-made pizza, and I learned how to play the harmonica...sort of.

The next day, we were lazy so we just found a place to sit outside, enjoy some argentinian meat, which everyone raves about, and just hung around the town. Although we did not get much time in Mendoza, I thought it was a beautiful, and very wealthy city with a lot of old people. I guess its a good place to retire!

And finally..... we were off to our last stop.. Buenos Aires...
We decided to make our last long bus ride (15 hours) a good one so we bought Executive class with leather seats that turn into almost full beds... it was amazing. They also brought us 2 meals in which were served on trays on our laps and they kept pouring us water, soda, coffee... anything we needed. Quite a wonderful journey and well worth the money!
So here we are in Buenos Aires just living it up....