Mendoza to Cafayete - October 15 to 22

After flying into Buenos Aires and spending a few days hobbling around the major attractions a second time with Susan for a few days, I decided it was time to get back into action and progress my trip. I have been looking forward to getting into Central and Northern Argentina and experiencing scenery that is totally different to New Zealand. While I really enjoyed Patagonia very much, the landscape of Mendoza and further north looks amazing with incredible contrasts of red rocks, green fields and blue skies.

My bus trip from BA could not have gone better. I opted for a semi cama bus to save on the pesos so wasn´t expecting a whole lot but I understood from the chap at the counter we would get fed so that was a bonus. We got a nice hot mean of mashed potatoe with a chicken melanase, salad and a few bread sticks, as well as coke and vino. The bus also screened a great move, Norbit, which is pretty much a Big Mammas House jobbie with Eddie Murphy playing a number of character, but it was in English and very entertaining. They beauty of traveling in off season is that even with a semi cama bus one is invariably guaranteed a free seat next adjacent (or one can simply change seats to achieve this) so sleeping is not that bad. I got a few hours sleep after the movie stopped and pulled into Mendoza around 1020.

After a little walking around in circles and asking taxi drivers for directions, I found the hostel close to the hostel and set about relaxing in the court yard area with a coffee. I met an Aussie couple and after a bit of talking and a very cold dip in the pool, I was joining them for a half day wine tour covering 2 vineyards, an olive oil factory and a chocolate factory. For 45 pesos (22 nzd) which is pretty good value considering the distance to the vineyards and the 4 hours we would spend out and about.

We first visted a very large vineyard, Wineret, completing a pretty extensive tour and a wine tasting. This vineyard had the 4th largest barrel in Argentina and the largest currently in use, some 445hlitres (44,000 litres) full of wine! We next visited a different style of vineyard on the other side of the town, renowned for being one of only organic vineyard in Mendoza so it was interesting to see the different style of production and growing methods. The grap vines, despite being some 40 years old, stand only a couple of feet tall. Apparently this is to ensure a great concentration of foliage closer to the grown which increases exposure to nutrients and minerals as well as insects and companion planting which are essential in organic vineyards given there is no use of artificial chemicals.

We or final stop in the immediate areas of Maipu was an olive oil factory, Laur. The smell even upon entering the front gates was delicious! We were shown around the orchard and were told about the different types of olives and the production process. I didn´t know this but green olives and black olives come from the same tree but are just picked at a different time, the black olives being more ripe. Also, for an olive oil to be classes as virgin, the acidity content has to be less than 1%, and even less for extra virgin. Black olives have a higher acidity and are thus only used (by this place at least) for eating. After a tour though the factory and a great deal of restraint exercised around the large vats of olives awaiting the press, we headed to the tasting room where breads and oils were waiting with sun dried tomato. Super stuff!


I decided to head back out to Maipu the next day to complete another circuit, but this time by bike. My wine tour of the Maipu region was amazing...truly a wonderful afternoon out. I hired a bike for the afternoon and rode myself around 4 vineyards and another chocolate shop. Given I had visited the olive oil factory the day before, I skipped that on the bike. My first vineyard, or bodega, was one of the larger ones and also had a museum attached which was very interesting. I had the misfortune of being grouped with an older couple from the Napa Valley in California, which was both amusing and tiring and constantly reminded me why so many Americans are disliked outside their own borders. The old chap took a liking to the sweet girl giving the tour, making terrible jokes, taking photos of her name badge, photos of himself with her and even giving her a gangster like closed fist high five sort of thing when he ´got a connection´ with the language barrier. The tour dragged on for ages on account of his many questions and explanations about what happens back home!!

I had a packed lunch at the museum and then headed down the very rural roads on the bike, stopping in at other bodegas en route. I had 4 tasting and tours at various vineyards and learned a lot about the local wines and the process to make them (wines in general). The local wine in a malbec which seems to be a lot more fruity (plum, berries etc) than say a Cabernet sauvignon and less peppery so is pretty nice. I finished the tour by going to the chocolate factory which makes chocolate, liquors, some chutneys and dulce delece (a caramel spread popular over here). A group of older people from Mendoza also on the tour kindly invited me to join them at the testing tables, which was great because it gave all of us a better selection to share around and an opportunity for me to try a bit of Spanish.

Upon arriving back at the hire place there were other tourists hanging around drinking wine in the front yard, provided by the hire chap, Mr Hugo. Mr Hugo kept bringing out bottles and bottles of wine for ages!! It was fantastic. He did, however, have a rather disturbing talking parrot in the tree which not only said hello etc but also laughed along with us when a joke was cracked, in a sort of ´chucky wants to play´ kind of way. Mr Hugo then took us all to the bus stop and paid for our bus ride back into Mendoza, about 45 minutes away. I spent the next day just pottering around the hostel, relaxing by the pool and back yard so very nice. I also did a walk with a chap from Montana around the central area. It is a nice place and pretty relaxed, although it was a tiring walk getting up the main view point in the city, requring one to walk a full completing around the zoo at the base of the mountain.

After hearing the Montana chap´s idea about heading into the Andes near the Argentina-Chile border, I decided to do a similar thing, although a day earlier. I made a reservation for a hostel at Los Cuevas, which is a little mountain village at 3200m. The bus ride was spectacular, heading into the mountains on a terrific road similar to Milford sound, with tunnels and all. When I arrived at the Hostel Los Cuevas, it was closed for the season! So much for a reservation and small deposit. It worked out well because I got on the bus and headed back down the hill about 15km to Puertas de Inca (literally bridge of Inca, or Inca Bridge), which is a small settlement in the middle of nowhere offering very little except the historic Inca Bridge and the sale or small rocks! It also is, more importantly for me, the launching pad for trips to Aconcagua, which is the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas. I found a very basic hostel, which was very cute and had everything I needed. My foot was pretty sore so I didnt´get out much that day so relaxed with my book.

That night I met an American chap, Bill, and shared a box or wine (yep, box, not bottle!). The hostel owners were off the next day so just gave us keys to the place but no idea when they were to return. I headed up to the park the next morning, getting a ride up the 2km stretch with a Dutch couple which was good. I spent the day walking around with not much pain which was good, having lunch at a superb lookout spot an hour or so off the tourist route, getting sun burned in the process given I had my top off relaxing. Spectacular indeed! We had a great night in the hostel with an old French Canadian couple and a young angry French guy. The older couple had a lot to drink and after a while the man, Pierre (obviously), got onto politics, which was pretty interesting given Bill was a politics major from New York. It was classic when the young French guy and the Pierre would discuss something in French in a heated fashion, ending with Pierre saying ´he is calling me stupid, but that´s okay´! The young French chap had a bottle of chocolate with banana liquore from the same chocolate shop I had visited, which we polished off.

Our dorm beds, for whatever reason, seemed to generate a lot of static electricity. Just lying on top reading I could feel my hairs on my arms standing up the crackle of the generation occuring as I rolled over to get comfortable. It was a bit of a problem getting down of the bunks, where had metal frames. At nights, when I flicked my headlamp off after reading, just rolling around in my bed would produce enough static discharges to create quite a bit of light. Pretty weird indeed! I managed to off-load my large book to Bill, which lightened my load considerably!

The next morning we were all having coffee with the older french chap looking pretty worse for wear. Pierre would, on a number of occasions, excuse himself from the table to have a loud talk on the big white phone, returning to the table looking even worse than before haha. Later that morning I boarded my bus the next day with Bill heading back to Mendoza. We never did meet the guy from Montana (assumed he would end up at our hostel given it was the only inexpensive option open). Bill, was off to Bariloche in the south (where I went earlier) and I decided to go straight up north that afternoon. We arrived at the bus station around 4 and both got tickets out that evening, mine leaving at 5pm so no great wait around but enough time to get dinner. I bought a ticket to Tucuman around 15 hours north of Mendoza.

Not being in the mood for big cities, when I arrived at the bus station in Tucuman around 8am, I bought an outbound ticket to Cafayate, which is 5 hours north west of Tucuman. Lots of bus hours but I have arrived in Cafayate with 23 hours on the bus with around 4 hours break. I almost missed my bus from Tucuman because their time seems to be an hour faster than everywhere else, cause now in Cafayate the time is the same as it was in Mendoza! Had I not returned to the bus station an hour earlier to check my emails, I would have missed it for sure.

The journey from Tucuman to Cafayete was spectacular, climbing high into the hills on a narrow windy road. On most of the corners, the bus would start the corner by swinging as far over onto the other side as possible before putting full steering lock on just to make it around in one hit! An hour or so out from Cafayete, more and more vineyards (bodegas) started popping up and the hills started to take on multiple colours. A nice welcome into the town. I settled into my hostel and made a trip to the super market for dinner supplies and food for my cycle ride into the valley the next morning.

A chap from Paraguay who was sharing my dorm room was keen to join me on the bike ride. To avoid the hot afternoon sun, we took the hostel owner recommendation to get the first bus out towards Salta, leaving Cafayete at 5am! Alarms set we headed to bed. I awoke the next morning and collected my food from the fridge and packed the maintenance kit into my bag. Bill, the American chap from Aconcagua had stayed at a different hostel and was not given any spare tyres or anything, which turned out to be quite a problem when he got a puncture 10km into the 50km ride, so I was relieved he had the right gear.

We piled our bikes into the luggage holds of the bus and set off. We reached the drop off point at the Devil´s Throat after around 45 minutes. We certainly avoided the hot sun, given we had wait around at the road side for over an hour just for the sun to come up! It was a pretty cloudy start to the day which didn´t reveal the full colours of the rock, however it did burn off around half way into the ride. I had forgotten how hard it is to ride 50km on a mountain bike with big knobby tyres, something I was reminded of when a young chap effortlessly sped past me on a road bike. It was a great day out, and has left the rest of the afternoon to update my blog and photo etc. I had tossed up the idea of heading to Salta this afternoon but given my bus travels the last few days I decided to stay around and head off first thing in the morning.