Vino and Cordoba

The Italians have everything, the weather, fast cars, great food and the best wine. Not only were they happy with keeping it in Italy they came to Argentina to boast some more. Most of the established vineyards in Mendoza were started by Italians and French in the 40s and rival what Europe puts out nowadays.

We rose at the ungodly hour of 8am. Our first experience of the local buses was far from straightforward but we eventually made it to the small town on the edge of Mendoza to rent our bikes; Karen with the girly red one with girly basket, me with the manly one with the manly gears. After about 400m I realised Karen wasn't saying much and looked back to see she was a dot in the distance. Either the lack of gears or extra weight of the plastic basket meant a swap was in order if we were going to make it to the first vineyard before dark. In the end, we reached it around 11am. A suprisingly modern building that looked more like a drug-dealers hideaway sat alongside endless rows of vines 1 month away from harvest. We were greeted with kisses and hugs at the door by the animated owner Christian. He guided us around, told us about his love for the Beatles and urged us to sit and select wines for tasting. After trying 3 of the best wines I've ever tasted we said goodbye and cycled off to visit 3 more vineyards and an olive growing farm. Olives are boring.

By the end of the day we were tired and drunk (well I was, Karen is not a fan of wine and I felt it would seem rude if we didn't polish everything we were offered) and hopped on our Number 10 bus back to the hostel. For some reason, we never figured out, the bus back took twice as long to get back (along a completely different route) that it did getting out but eventually we got back to grab the bags to get our next overnight bus to Cordoba.

Cordoba is boring. Maybe they make olives here, I'm not sure. After struggling around the city centre for 2 hours in the 38C and finding nothing of interest at all we scurried back to the hostel to plan our exit. Some quick internet work allowed us to book a hostel in our next destination a day earlier than planned.

Yesterday was one of the hottest I have ever experienced. The sheer draining relentless-ness of the sun will have you fantasizing about rainy miserable days in Dublin. Its hard to describe how disabling and inescapable the heat can get. A decision was made to do absolutely nothing today and act like vampires not coming out until it was dark. Luckily the Irish gods must have been watching as they sent a spectaular thunderstorm overnight that has knocked temperature down to perfectly chilly 26c, hurray!

Enough waffling, we have a film to watch tonight (The Changeling) and I have more steak to eat.....

EDIT: ok, for some reason the time here is not the same as it is in Mendoza. We've been here 2 days now with our watches set 1 hour behind, wrongly. This all became evident when we walked into a perfectly silent cinema halfway through the film. hmmm. A quick Spanglish discussion with the popcorn boy informed us we were living in the wrong timezone and the film was halfway through. D'oh.
Scurrying away escaping the sniggers behind us we hopped into a lift and punched a random floor. Trying to figure out what to do what to with the rest of our night, the lift doors opened directly into a pub. Ye gotta love those Irish gods....

Karen is glad they never found a way to turn water into wine.

All the grapes are still hand picked. No fancy machinery is used until fermentation. Area52 niche here? :)

nyom nyom nyom! Right, next vineyard please!