Mendoza

With the 'O trek' our only booked activity of the trip not until March, time was on our side so we decided to make a detour to Mendoza
to meet Sheila and her friend Megan. We decided to go by bus to avoid lengthy driving for Joe and save on some van mileage. The bus journey was incredibly scenic with a very impressive corkscrew road. It took an age to pass through border control and we arrived at koala hostel 8 hours after departure.

-Day one, Joe, Sheila and I wasted no time and went straight for steak at El Asadito. We ordered a BBQ platter that came with Argentinian black pudding, short ribs, pork and steak. This was all washed down with incredible Malbec. It was a complete treat to start off the trip and cost less that €10pp.
-Day two, we started the day with our Western Union trip to get some argentinian pesos at blue dollar rate. This was followed by coffee to plan out our day. We headed to the wine area of Lujan de Cuyo to rent some bikes and cycle between vineyards. We had lunch at Bodega Gieco. We sat in a beautiful garden and the atmosphere and service was so lovely. We had a huge meat and cheese platter and, of course, Malbec. We cycled onto the vineyard Via Monte where we had a 4pm tasting booked. It was concluded that we all have kind of cheap pallets and the really expensive stuff is more or less wasted on us.
-Day three. We had breakfast and then headed to explore Parque General San Martin. We chilled by the lake, read our books, stumbled across a vintage car show (to Joe's delight) and also the Chilean Mustang Club. After a few happy hour cocktails we had a very lovely and fancy dinner at Anna's Bistro.
-Day four, needing to have another vineyard fix to went to Roberto Bonfanti winery for lunch. Again it was a platter of meats and cheese but our favourite was still Bodega Gieco. We had a few more happy hour cocktails before we had to say our goodbyes to Sheila and Megan and head back to Santiago on our night bus.

Recommendations:
Explore the vineyards by bike
Bodega Gieco (our favourite)
Via Montie winery
Bonfanti winery
El Asadito for steak. 5⭐
Anna's Bistro for dinner. It's French.
White Shark coffee
Parque San Martin

13/01-16/01

*Footprint credit to Sheila ScottRead more