#Worldtour: Mendoza, Andes and vineyards

After a 21-hour bus journey from Salta, including a 3-hour wait at the side of the road because of a burst tyre, we arrived in Mendoza, a land of vineyards at the foot of the Andes.

Visiting the city of Mendoza in Argentina
 

It's a fairly large city, but it's a nice one that we quickly got round to visiting: a few streets, Plaza Independencia and, of course, its huge General San Martin park, where there's a small lake and facilities for playing sport or sunbathing on the lawn.

But what we really couldn't miss was a tour of the wine cellars (bodegas) in the Maipú district. This district is a long way from the city centre, and it took us 40 minutes by bus to get there. At 11am, we set off for a short bike ride in the 35-degree heat and beautiful sunshine.

A tour of Mendoza's bodegas

We started at the Tempus Alba bodega: a very modern building (lacking charm in my opinion) in the middle of vineyards. We took a super-quick self-guided tour that wasn't very informative, as there was really no one there to greet us or tell us more. We left quickly!

Second stop at Viña El Cerno, a family-run bodega (they all are, in fact) where we were welcomed by the owners' daughter, Carla Petrus, a singer in her spare time, who was very friendly. Among other things, we tasted Malbec, a grape variety well known in Argentina.

We then happily got back on our bikes and headed for the last bodega we wanted to see: Mevi. We settled in for another tasting of three red wines and had a bite to eat afterwards. On the programme: a Malbec, a Cabernet-Sauvignon and a Syrah.

It's worth noting that European grape varieties arrived in the 19th century, particularly French varieties, thanks to the fact that the President of Argentina hired a Frenchman to develop the Argentine vineyards. The Mendoza region was chosen because it offered a number of advantages in terms of climate and soil. The Italians and Spaniards also planted their grape varieties later on.

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A walk in the Parque Nacional del Aconcagua

Up at 5am, we set off on a 4-hour bus journey towards the Chilean border to go for a walk in the Aconcagua National Park. This is America's highest peak, rising to 7000m (or 6962m to be precise, but they round it off here).

Once again, we drove along a superb mountain road full of colours, canyons and impressive rock formations before arriving at the ski resorts and finally at the park entrance.

The walk was shorter than we wanted because of the time we had to get back by bus, but we still managed to enjoy it and it was superb.

We did a short walk called the Sendero de la Laguna, which took us to a bridge where we could admire the famous Aconcagua along the way.

After leaving the park, we reached the village at the bottom called Puente del Inca because there is a naturally formed bridge that would have been used by the Incas a long time ago. To get there and avoid the road, we followed a disused railway line (as many are here): we felt like we were travelling back in time and it was a bit like the Wild West.

Anne & Olivier

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