Mendoza

I think I've gone on about this Inca Trail situation far too long without explaining, so, at last, here is the explanation:

The Inca Trail is a very very popular trek. It is recommended that you book your trek and pay your deposit at least 3 months prior to the departure date, or if wanting to go in May, at least 6 months. Naturally, we were planning to go in May, and found all this out from an Australian in Uruguay in March.

We checked availability for the trek immediately and found out, unsurprisingly, that all of May and June were booked up. There were a couple of dates free in the rainy season at the beginning of April, or loads of places free in the dry but cold season of late July/early August. That gave us two choices; rush through Argentina and Patagonia to make the April date, or spend several hundreds of pounds on plane flights to/from Peru in July/August (but at least we wouldn't have to rush) ...

I finally convinced Liz to rush, and we booked the Inca Trail for April 11th. Unfortunately that meant we had much less time in Patagonia that we wanted at every destination, and even had to miss out a few places. It also meant that we had to spend almost half our time there on incredibly long bus journeys, cursing the Inca Trail all the way.

Nowhere did we feel the impact of these two consequences more than in Mendoza. Mendoza is a wonderful city - it is located in an oasis in the middle of a desert, right in the middle of prime wine country, surrounded by vineyards and the 6000m peaks of the Andes. The climate was very pleasant, and a welcome break from the chill of southern Patagonia. The city itself was all but destroyed in an earthquake in 1861, and so the town planners decided to rebuild in anticipation of another earthquake, by building wide tree lined avenues (for the rubble to fall into) and many spacious parks and plazas (to use as evacuation points). The result is a city that is 90% leafy suburb, and a great place to relax and saunter around in.

Unfortunately, because of the Inca Trail, we had just 2 days there.

One of the highlights of Mendoza is to visit the vineyards just outside the city and sample their produce ... repeatedly. We decided to make things a little more interesting by renting bicycles, hoping to weave ever more erratically between tasting sessions at the abundant local wineries in the area.

According to the Lonely Planet, and I quote: "all winery tours and tastings are free". Apparently, not any more. Having caught on to the fact that they can make some money out of this racket, all tours and tastings are overpriced and of poor quality. A tiny taste of mediocre wine costs around 2GBP, when you can buy a very good bottle of a rival vintage for around 1GBP back in the city. Excessive tourism certainly has its downside.

Unfortunately, since we had already spent half our daily budget renting the bikes we could only afford one tasting session! We made the most of it though, as you can see from the above pictures. Cycling around the vineyards was fun, even without the added challenge of being off our faces while doing so. What really saved the day however was a chocolate and liquor distillery that we found, offering a tour and very potent tastings for under a pound. The chocolate mint vodka literally left me speechless.

We then returned to Mendoza, bought a bottle of very good (and cheap!) wine, and then did our best tramp impressions by opening it and drinking it in one of the parks! Reminded me of being 16. Oh happy days ...

Then we ran out of time, and had to arrange our longest bus ride yet - a three day marathon up to Cuzco in Peru for the Inca Trail ... oh dear.