Mendoza - Horse riding, wine tasting, lots of chocolate!

Leigh keeping his horse in line
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Thursday 12th July – Mendoza (Dee's Birthday!)

We arrived in Mendoza around 7.45am, gathered the directions to our hostel (Leigh had to boot some guy off the only interenet in the bus station who was looking at porn for ages so we could get the address) and walked to our hostel. Our place here is lovely, it is the home of a lawyer who runs it as a hostel.  We checked in a little tired and headed for town. Our two major “to do's” in mendoza is a house back trek up in the mountains (Leigh) and wine tasting (Jo). We worked out how to do both, booking the horse trek for the afternoon and then headed back home. We booked a ½ day trek that takes you about 1500 ft into the surrounding mountains of Mendoza.

Jo with white beauty
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We got collected by the tour company and headed off there. We were taken to a ranch after driving up a very bumpy dirt track in an old broken down Jeep and saddled up. Jo, after having never really horse rided before asked for the slowest horse and mounted the gray beauty while Leigh jumped up on the more restless brown Cabello.  We were stoked as it was just the two of us and our 10 year old guide.  He looked so tiny on his massive horse but controlled him and the tour beautifully. We honestly thought the trek would be a few km's around the ranch be we embarked on about a 17km trek. Leigh was laughing at Jo as she would not kick the horse to make him start as she didn't want to hurt him, while Leigh was whipping his trying to make it go faster. After a few km's Jo's horse decided to have Lunch and Jo thought he was hungry so let him munch along. However el nino (the kid) came along and kicked grey beauty a few times to get him going again. At this point grey beauty overtook Leigh's horse who was not happy about being at the back and got the hump at several points of the tour. But Leigh not afraid to tell his horse off did so and got him moving pretty quickly. We went along quite challenging terain, with rocks, snow, ice, water all the way, which made it quite fun.

mmm drinking our favourite red wine in Mendoza
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The scenery was beautiful with snow capped mountains everywhere and the sun was casting shadows across the hills. El nino was pointing something out to us and when we turned our heads, we realised it was a massive bull standing right next to us! Very calmly we continued our journey across lakes and up steep hills. El nino stopped on several occassions to show off, climbing up rocks then jumping onto his horse. He was so cute, half the time he was lying back on his horse, with his feet out of the sturrups. After over an hour we turned back and made a steep ascent up the hill we so slowly came down. Obviously the horses knew that they were on the home stretch and decided to pick up the pace a bit. We ended up back at the ranch with the horses near galloping and Jo laughing as she was finding it difficult to control grey beauty, while Leigh was like Billy the Kid (without the weapons) full steam ahead. We both enjoyed it so much, just not the after effects of riding on a horse for a few hours. We got dropped back at our hostel then spent the night talking to an American couple and cooking dinner.

Leigh, down the hatch
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Friday 13th July – Mendoza

After a little lie in, we had toast for breakfast – yummy. The only funny thing was the spread was dulce de leche which is sooo popular here. It is like caramelised condensed milk... we say how much Dee would love it! Today we decided to hire some bikes and go for a cycle around the vineyards which are about a 40min bus ride from where we are staying.

After asking our bus driver to drop us off at a bike hire place, he gave us a different pamphlet, obviously for his mates company and dropped us right outside there and received a special handshake from the owner Mr Hugo (money exchanged!) Anyway it worked out in our favour as although no helmets, high vis gear or swanky bikes were provided, they were much cheaper and a little bit more adventourus trying to keep the peddle on the bike while cycling! We skipped the wine museum and went straight to our first vineyard – Tempus Alba after about a 5km cycle along a very straight road! It was a very posh establishment, minimalistic and pretty funky. We decided to taste 3 different red wines (at a cost of around 2 quid). The first wine we sampled was amazing! It was called Temranillo and was so smooth and easy to drink. To buy from the vineyard was 30 pesos (5 quid a bottle). We asked about shipping to NZ but it was going to be too expensive, so he suggested to pick some up in the States. We really wanted everyone to have a taste of it! We were saying how Dad, Rich and Jeremy would be in heaven! We then tried a Syrah and a Malbec which is popular within the Mendoza area. Both nice but not compared to the Temranillo. We then headed for our next vineyard but it was very busy and full of people that actually looked like they would make a purchase. So we jumped on our bike stopped in a local store and bought some lunch. We couldn't believe how much we got for under 2 quid... rolls, salami, cheese, yoghurt, fruit, olives, treats, drink etc... so we sat outside and had a mini picnic.

Our next destination was a vineyard named Carinae. This was a new rejuvenated establishment and had been around for only 4 years and prior to that was desolate for about 20 years. We decided to do the tour of the vineyard with the owner who was French. He was very lovely and passionate about his new found career. He was also very keen in astronomy so all the wine was named appropriately and designs with stars etc. After the tour we were allowed to sample 3 wines. They were very unique and this vineyards main purpose was to produce good quality wine, not too much (around 70,000 bottles a year). We tried the Malbec Rose, unlike any Rose we have tried before and although it was pink in colour it seemed very much like a red wine. We then tried a different Malbec and a Malbec/Sav. Again very unique and one quite peppery but the colour was lovely and deep red. It was quite interesting as they use new barrels from France for their top quality wine and I was saying to him how I was under the impression that you used old barrels to give it that extra flavour. But he is being advised by a top wine maker from France, so obviously takes his advice over mine (he he)! We were thinking we couldn't really afford to purchase any wine, but I asked if we would get a discount if we purchased some. Turns out the tour price we paid – 10 pesos each, covered the cost of a bottle, so we got one free to have with dinner... result! Across the road from this vineyard was an Olive Oil factory. Unforutnately they did not do the tour in English so we had a guided Spanish tour. I think we got the jist of what she was trying to say! At the end we tasted some lovely olive oil and sundried tomatoes on bread and olives – mmm! At this point we were both feeling quite full and a bit tipsy so decided to head to the chocolate place. This was a bit of a cycle back, but Jo knowing what was at the end of the cycle i.e. Chocolate made short work of the trip. Again we had a tour in Spanish, but picked up quite a bit before sampling some choclate liquers. They were so yummy – Leigh had Chocolate con Cafe and Jo Coco con Ron (coconut and rum). The tour and the taste was free, so we decided to splash out and spend less than 2 quid on some beautiful white and milk chocolates for the bus ride home. We dropped our bikes off with Mr Hugo (a very lovely Senor) and jumped on the bus back to Mendoza city. We decided that since our hostel has such a lovely kitchen we would again cook dinner so got some groceries, stopped off at a little vege shop with a lovely old lady then whopped up a storm at home and enjoyed our bottle of red with a couple of Americans that we met at the Hostel.