A Trip to Mendoza
- Danielle
- May 30, 2016
- 5 min read
Even though the summer program in Buenos Aires is only 2 months, we do have some breaks to travel. Our first break of the summer was this past weekend because of the national Argentine holiday. I decided to spend my break in Mendoza with two friends, Amber and Chike. Mendoza is best known as Argentina's wine country, on the western border right along the Andes. The trip was slightly different than what we expected to say the least, but an adventure nonetheless!
DAY 1: THE HOLIDAY
We decided to make the cross-country trip on an overnight charter bus. It was a 14-hour ride, but thankfully I slept most of the way. Our chairs reclined into beds and we were served a hot dinner and breakfast - possibly my new favorite way to travel! We arrived in Mendoza in the morning and caught a micro to our hostel. After getting all settled into our room, we headed out to explore the town of Mendoza. Unfortunately just about everything was closed because of the national holiday. We still made our way to Plaza Independence (a popular park in the area) and to a small fair.
DAY 2: WINE TASTINGS
On our first full day there, it was raining. We had planned to go bike riding, but they weren't doing rentals in the rain. All of the other activities we wanted to do were also outside, so the weather really put a damper on our plans. Our hostel was offering a bus tour to some local wineries, which was perfect for our rainy day. First, we visited an olive oil vineyard where we got to see the olive trees, learn about the process, and have a delicious tasting. We went to 3 different wineries after that around the area known as Maipu. Two of them were boutique wineries, meaning that they produce less than 100,000 bottles of wine per year. At each of them, we got to learn about the vineyards and taste a variety of their wines. Usually you can see the Andes Mountains from the vineyards, but the rain and the overcast made that impossible. Despite being the best wine in Argentina (and despite what the picture shows) I actually came to the conclusion that I am not a wine person. Jokes on me for going to wine country.
DAY 3: THE ADVENTURE THAT WAS USPALLATA
Because the weather was so darn crappy, we wanted to get to a place where it wasn't raining and where we could hopefully see the mountains. Our hostel manager recommended going to a town called Uspallata. Uspallata is the western-most town in Argentina, right at the base of the Andes and just a few miles from Chile. He said it was far away and high up enough that we would escape the bad weather. Desperate to see the mountains, we decided to go.
(WARNING: This is where the story could potentially be very, very long but I am going to shorten it to the best of my ability while still trying to make sense of things). When I researched things to do in Uspallata, all of these hikes and parks came up that gave beautiful views of the Andes. We bought our bus tickets to Uspallata, but when we got there we realized there were actually more bus stops even farther into the mountains and that was where we needed to go. Unfortunately the town is so small that only one bus passes through per day, so we had missed our shot. We took a small hike to a lookout point over the town and were able to get a good view of the mountains, but some lingering clouds made it a little difficult. Wanting to see more of the Andes, we decided to take a taxi a little farther west to get a better view. Our taxi driver was giving off strange vibes, so we cut the ride short and asked him to drop us off about 15 minutes in. We decided to walk back to town on our own. We were right along the Andes and it was nice day, so the view for the walk was beautiful. He told us the walk would only take an hour or so, but about 2 hours in there was no town in sight. About 3 hours in, the sun went down. We walked for another hour in the dark but by the time 4 hours hit, we panicked a little. There were no street lights, we didn't have cell service, and we had no idea how far the town was let alone if we would be back in time to catch our return bus. We resort to hitchhiking and finally get a car to stop, but only because we were flailing our arms in the middle of the road. It was a family who had just crossed the Andes from Chile and we begged them to give us a ride back to Uspallata. They were hesitant, but because of my crying and our clear desperation, they offered us a ride. The mother gave us all a big hug and kiss when they dropped us off at the bus terminal and we couldn't thank them enough. They're ike mystery angels of the Andes. When we got back and looked at a map, we saw we walked somewhere between 14 and 15 miles. Our bodies ached and we were past the point of exhaustion, but boy were we thankful to be heading back to our hostel.
DAY 4: FAREWELL MENDOZA
Even though we were tired and sore from the day before, we didn't want to waste our last day in Mendoza. The skies were still overcast, but we were determined to get our bike rides in. We went back to Maipu, grabbed a map, and peddled our way to the vineyards. Before we even started this trip, Amber found a winery called Traipiche that had some resident animals - specifically llamas - that hung out around the vineyards. We were determined to snap some pictures with the llamas (because if you don't have a selfie with a llama, did you even go to South America?). During our ride, we found some ADORABLE stray puppies and just couldn't resist giving them some love.
Like I said before - dogs everywhere. After the cuteness detour, we finally found Traipiche and VICTORY! WE SPOTTED THE LLAMAS! It took some begging of a few different security guards to let us into the winery without a scheduled tour, but we explained we just wanted the animals. They let us see the sheep and the cows, but the llamas were on the other side of the property. So naturally, we made a mad dash across the vineyards to get to them. It was worth everything. We still had some time to kill before our bus back home, so we went to another popular park in Mendoza called Parque General San Martin. We made the trek up to Cerro de la Gloria, a famous statue of General San Martin that looked over all of Mendoza. By some miracle, the skies had cleared a bit so we could see the Andes from Mendoza like it's supposed to be all the time.
POR FIN
Needless to say, this trip was quite the adventure. Lots of hiccups and lots of curveballs, but we rolled with the punches the best we could. In the end, I had to keep telling myself this: Why did you go to Mendoza? To drink wine and see the Andes! What did you do? Drank wine and saw the Andes! By my standards, a mission accomplished.
This trip has let me cross many things off my bucket list, but boy am I glad to be back in Buenos Aires :)
Next stop... Iguazu Falls!
Still saw palm trees in Mendoza,
Danielle
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