16th-18th OCT 2010
So let me run this by you, if there's a person holding a smoking gun, standing over the body of someone that has just at that moment, coincidentally, been shot and killed, then could you reasonably deduce that the person holding the gun, with a vortex of smoke rising from their outstretched hand and now invading the inner sanctum of their nasal cavity, is in fact the guilty party? Circumstantial evidence would in fact allow you to make a strong case in that situation. It may not be correct but deductive reasoning would make for a pretty damn good guess I'd say. In much the same manner, the hostel that D and I were staying at in Mendoza was in the middle of Argentinian wine country. An area that in fact produces 75% of all wine in this country, and one that has a climate that's just perfect for producing an elegant, complex and wonderous malbec. Now just to provide a little more detail. The kitchen of the hostel was occupied with the carcasses of many empty wine bottles and thus my reasonable conclusion was that it was 101% certain that there was a bottle opener hiding somewhere within a 3.5 metre radius of where we were standing. It was only about an hour later that we realised that the smoking gun was in fact just a damn fancy lighter, so no bottle opener to be found in the heartland of Argentinian wine country my friends! It would be like going to Amsterdam and not finding a single backpacker in your hostel that had a bit of the 'ole domestic Don Juan stashed in their pockets.
Ciudad de Mendoza - Argentina
I think it translates to something close to, 'and still they continue to suck' - Mendoza - Argentina
Mendoza - Argentina
Two bottles of malbec in our hands, hours to kill and a collective stubbornness borne out of alcoholic unity, we ripped into the plastic cork with any utensil we could find. Forks, spoons and knives at the ready as we poked, prodded and carved our way further into the brick wall that was preventing us from having a chilled evening in Mendoza.
Now I'm sure there are successful methods that you can readily utilise in order to remove the cork from a bottle without having a bottle opener at your disposal. Ways that have been shown on YouTube for centuries no doubt, but methodologies we were completely oblivious to. With our worldly sensibilities we decided that cutting into the cork and then pushing it back into the bottle would eventually serve us well. Dina also suggested that we hold a plastic bag over the bottle, just in case the pressure of the event manifested into some type of UB40 red wine explosion. So as I forced the cork down with the back end of a fork something miraculous happened, the room was instantaneously painted red. The explosion had caught the both of us off guard and placed us directly in the middle of a red wine shower that would have done any splatter house production proud. With the hostel kitchen now playing host to the final scenes of the movie by the same name (please see Hostel (2005) written and directed by Eli Roth), we were forced to clean up rather quickly or be put in the position where Aldo, the hostel owner, would more than likely have suffered a heart attack if he were to walk in at that instant.
Tango on the streets - Mendoza - Argentina
This guy had the moves
Rolling back a day, we had met Aldo, the owner of the Oasis hostel, approximately 15 mins after we arrived in Mendoza on an overnight bus from Buenos Aires. I use the word overnight extremely loosely as the whole ride was in the 18hr range and being on a bus for that amount of time is never pleasant. So walking into the hostel, eyelids drooping, faculties lost and the comfortable oasis of an Oasis hostel bed only steps away, the last thing that we needed to listen to was Aldo tell us in minute detail of all the tours, restaurants, extra-activities that he could hook us up with at that very moment. Aldo couldn't resist the temptation to provide us with a blow by blow account or process methodology of how we should walk from his establishment to the city centre of his fabulous city, going into such insignificant detail that he even recommended the best side of the street that we should walk on.
Aldo didn't know it at the time but he was lucky to have survived a lynching right there and then. A little part of me actually wishes that he had walked into the hostel kitchen once we had destroyed it, just for the sake of a little pay back. Aldo, I hated you with all of my being at that moment!
As for Mendoza itself? It's nice enough but not a place that you would stay in just for the sake of visiting the city itself. It's distinctly used as a launching point for attacking the bodegas (wineries) that make their residence a few kilometres out of town. Something that we intended to do whilst in Mendoza and had in actual fact lined up for our last day. I was also kind of hoping that this would turn out to be half decent as our escapade to Montevideo had been made on a whim, my own unfortunately, and Mendoza had been shaping up us a little bittle of a fail also. I was sincerely hoping that the wine could pull us out of the mire.
Somehow the advice that we'd received regarding wine tours in Mendoza, received through the friends of friends directory, had placed Mr Hugo's Wineries and Bikes (Mr Hugo's W&B) at the top of the list of things to do whilst in the town of Maipu, the gateway to the wine region just outside of Mendoza. Now, for the few of you that may have done the maths already, whilst the concept of visiting wineries and riding push bikes might sound ever so quaint, even if it's undertaken within the shadows of those mountainous marvels called the Andes, you don't have to be a genious to at least figure out the potential consequences when you get the point where you're biking under the influence. So hold that thought for a few paragraphs.
Mr Hugo - Wineries and Bikes is a family run business located in the center of Los Caminos del Vino (The roads of the wine), and the crux of happens is that you walk in, get yourself a map, have a bike thrust into your hands and then you get sent away with waves and Argentinian smiles bidding you a buenos dias, or a buenas tardes, as the case may be when we actually started our Los Caminos del Vino adventure.
Somehow Dina and I missed the traditional cellars when we commenced our ride and took a dusty side trip down calle Montecaseros to a place that was termed on our guide map as a high quality olive oil and chocolate manufacturer. In actual fact it looked like someone had just set up olive oil production facilities in their back yard and you could see the confusion on peoples faces as they departed the place, just like they had paid someone the pleasure of having their wallet stolen. I know, doesn't make sense right? Thus the sense of confusion. It was at this point that I had it my head that the very next stop for us was going to be a winery and that we were going to be drinking, no matter what eventuated.
View of the Andes - over Bodega Trapiche - Maipu - Argentina
Malbec in hand, bike parked out front - Trapiche vineyard - Maipu - Argentina
Our first stop was Bodega Trapiche , apparently one of the largest vineyards in the world, something that I'd heard on the grapevine (oooh, crowd groans). We rolled into the car park of Trapiche on our pimped out Mr.Hugo rides, a little hot and bothered from the heat and in desperate need of a drink. We stole ourselves a bottle of malbec and enjoyed the environment of the back deck of the bodega with it's outlook onto the vineyard and its wonderful views of the Andes. It took a little while to get our groove on but three quarters of the way through the bottle we were feeling a lot better for our biking cause and beginning to think that our afternoon in Maipu might not suck that hard after all.
JJ, guest book bombed once again - this time in Argentina!
Trapiche vineyard - Maipu - Argentina
Trapiche vineyard - Maipu - Argentina
As we headed out back into the afternoon sun we rode for about 30 mins before finally settling onto a wonderful tree lined road that took us to the Bodega Familia de Tomaso. Now that was a cool place. D and I took up residence at one of several tables that fronted the vineyards and settled into a late afternoon antipasto lunch with a couple of additional bottles of wine to accompany the food. By the third bottle of the day even the irritating Australians sitting at the table next to us couldn't dampen our spirits. In fact the afternoon turned out to be a real highlight, probably not too surprising with a few bottles of red under the belt but sometimes that's all it takes. Now however came the dose of reality, the ride back to base camp!
Bodega Familia de Tomaso - bikes parked out front - Maipu - Argentina
Bodega Familia de Tomaso - Maipu - Argentina
We were anything from 6-8kms from Mr Hugo's and as the bodega's started closing down on sunset, around 6pm, we had it in our minds that Mr Hugo would be shutting up shop somewhere close to 6:30pm. Now I don't know if you've ever biked under the influence, but riding at a rate of knots on a particularly average bike and trying to cover that distance in what felt like 20 mins was just a little bit of a challenge. Thankfully we did make it back to Hugo's in time only to find Mr.Hugo was in the process of cheerfully filling up the glasses of the riding masses with wonderful red wine, free of charge. Something that apparently Mr Hugo did everyday for the riders as part of his service and something which of course made him extremely popular with all visitors, thus the recommendation that we had initially received. So what to do? In situations such as these you can't very well be rude can you? D and I just had to accept several glasses of wine for the sake of being well mannered and also thanking Mr Hugo for his quality bikes before leaving Maipu territory.
An hour or so later, feeling particularly cheery and in high spirits after what had turned out to be a fantastic day, I ran into a strange sort of feeling, I couldn't quite pinpoint it but it was like I somehow was on the brink of forgetting to do something quite important...oh yeah, then I kind of remembered, something about a bus to Bariloche...something about it being booked for later that evening? I walked over to D and asked, 'You know that bus that we're meant to be catching tonight, what time is it leaving?', '8:45pm' came the response. 'Aha, so is it a problem that it's now 7:30!?'. You don't even have to know the answer to that other than IT WAS a problem. So we scrambled!
Somehow we managed to jump a taxi that Mr.Hugo had called in for our immediate assistance, quite fortunate actually because every backpacker in the joint (20-30 of them) realised at the same moment (or so it seemed) that they needed to be somewhere else at that very instant also. With some skillful driving we made it back to the Oasis hostel at 8:15pm, dodged Aldo successfully, picked up our bags and hailed another cab down all within a 10min turn around time! Now that really was very skillful. I really don't know how we even managed it so successfully, especially on the back of several litres of wine, but we virtually walked straight onto a waiting bus once we made it to the bus station. I'd say we wouldn't have waited any more than 7-8 minutes and the bus was on its way, bound south on a 16hr journey to Bariloche.
