Mendoza Part II & Salta la Linda

Mendoza Part II is slightly more relaxed and refined than part I and takes us to the Bodega Séptima vineyard. By this point, I've been offered a new job in Dublin, so we celebrate with a five-course meal, including champagne and more varieties of wines than I could have dreamed of. 

My impressive beef main at Bodega Séptima

We were under the impression that our package at Bodega Séptima included a tour of the vineyards, but it turns out it's just a couple of hours of pure eating and drinking in the restaurant before we're shuffled out, so we make the most of the spectacular vista over the vineyard and eat til our hearts' content.

Vineyard view from Bodega Séptima

We stumble out of the restaurant, tipsy and half-comatose from the five courses by about 3pm but we just about manage to visit a second, much smaller, winery, in Luján de Cuyo, called CarinaE. It turns out to be worth staying awake for, as we get a proper tour of the small vineyard and a full explanation about the place's history by its French owner. We only just manage to fit in another glass of wine, though...

CarinaE Vineyard

On Tuesday, we take a flight to Salta, further north, and stay at Hotel La Candela, a charming and very friendly little place with a courtyard, garden and swimming pool out the back. It's raining when we arrive on Tuesday afternoon but we still manage to get a cable-car trip up to the top of Cerro San Bernardo, which offers great views over the top of the whole city, and a Submarino hot chocolate in the café at the top.

View from the cable car to Cerro San Bernardo

I'm seriously impressed with Salta - it's a beautiful, colourful little town that reminds me of Oaxaca in Mexico. It has bags of character and I could spend hours just wandering around the little colonial streets and sifting through all the silver trinkets for sale.

Wednesday, we take a fairly ambitious full-day coach trip that takes in the Cerro de los 7 Colores, the salt plains of Salinas Grandes and the cute little village of Purmamarca.

The coach journey takes us through every type of terrain imaginable - one minute we're up a mountain, surrounded by rocks, the next minute we're surrounded by rainforest and after that we see cacti and desert. It's truly an all-season day trip. The first quick stop is to take a photo of the very colourful Cerro de los 7 Colores, seen below:

Cerro de los 7 Colores

A couple of hours later, we arrive at the salt plains, which look like huge lakes. It's pouring with rain and feels freezing cold when we arrive, so unfortunately the photo opportunities are limited, but when the sun comes out a little later, the whole landscape is impressive.

Salt plains

Finally, we stop in Purmamarca and have a traditional Salta lunch of empanadas salteñas (the Salta variety of the traditional Argentine pasties, with the inclusion of potato), followed by braised lamb and potatoes.  

Empanadas salteñas

On Thursday, Mum and my godmother fly off to Iguaçu Falls and I'm heading back to Buenos Aires, so I spend my last day whiling the time in the garden of La Candela. It's boiling hot again and I'm aware that I'm moving to Ireland in two weeks and need all the sun I can get! After three weeks of visitors, I'm at my absolute happiest just absorbing the sun and silence, sipping coffee and making the most of my last days of Argentina...

La Candela garden

Horseriding in Tupungato

Friday night, I get the Andesmar overnight bingo bus back to Mendoza with my Mum and Godmother and the three of us are picked up on arrival Saturday morning by the owners of Rancho 'e Cuero, an estancia about 100km from Mendoza city.

As we pull up in a jeep along the rocky pathway to the ranch, I realise I have no mobile-phone reception. Agustina, one of the five beautiful daughters of the Palma family who own the ranch, is quick to inform me there's no internet reception either. In fact, we're not far away from civilization but we might as well be out in the middle of nowhere, for all the contact we have with the outside world. 24 hours with no internet or phone - what bliss!

Rancho 'e Cuero main house and terrace

We have half-planned to eat a light lunch and jump on some horses for a bit of riding in the mountains that surround us, but Agustina and family have other ideas. Pedro, the gaucho guide who works at the ranch, is already hard at work over a large cylindrical stone barbecue, cooking through enormous rows of beef ribs and the biggest chorizo sausages I've ever seen. Grey smoke billows away towards the valley and I see Pedro's sweating face through the smoky haze as the fire crackles and pops.

Pedro cooks the best meat on earth

“Take a seat,” said Agustina, as she pulls up a metal chair on the wooden decking outside the main house and gestures for me to sit.

Five hours later, we're still taking in the fresh mountain air and hot sunshine and basking in the complete absence of mobile-phone and internet coverage as we polish off the last glass of Malbec and a simply superb poached-pear dessert in sweet red-wine syrup.

Try and resist this dessert...

And then Pedro expects us to get on a horse!
 
As soon as we're able to adjust our belts enough to stand, he summons us to the small fenced area and helps us put on brown leather chaps and mount the most gentle of his horses. Leading us on horseback across the long, sun-scorched grass, he points out guanacos, an Andean species similar to the llama, camouflaged against the mountainside high above us. At the top of the lowest peak, huge black condors soar overhead as the sun begins to set and the air grows cooler.

 

Horseriding in the mountains

 

Two hours of relaxation in our luxurious lodges later, we're sitting on the black-and-white cowhide sofas, nibbling on pre-dinner canapés of fried quail’s eggs on toast before making room for homemade gnocchi, prepared by Pedro's wife, Roxana.

 

The following morning, Agustina and her boyfriend drive us out of the secluded ranch towards Mendoza in the jeep in which we arrived, stopping only to point out the snow-capped Tupungato volcano. At US$450 per head, Rancho ’e Cuero wasn’t cheap, but the welcoming family atmosphere and home-cooked food made it well worth the money. This is not a place I'm going to forget in a hurry.

 

Guanacos in the mountains

The Overnight Bingo Bus to Mendoza

Coach travel in Argentina is simply genius.

After a few days at work after the Uruguay trip, B and I head off on another long weekend bank-holiday trip to wine heaven, aka Mendoza. Instead of getting the plane, we get a coach with Andesmar for about half the price. We opt for the most expensive first class tickets at about £75 return, still much cheaper than flying and well worth it for the dinner, wine (!), breakfast and entertainment.

I've been on overnight buses in Brazil before, but the Argie experience is second to none. You get a fully reclining, huge comfy seat with a curtain for privacy from your neighbours, a full, hot dinner (ours is roast chicken) with a glass of wine and/or champagne, and a very simple breakfast (of mostly biscuits and coffee with disgusting powdered milk). But the best bit is that each coach trip launches off with a game of bingo in which the entire coach participates - simply genius! Our wannabe compere-come-comedian bus entertainer/waiter etc reads out little jokes with every number as B and I try to recognise and scratch off all the numbers on our little card. We don't win, but we do have a hilarious old time in the process and it certainly makes the first half hour of the 13-hour trip go faster!

We just about manage to get a good night's sleep in our comfy coach seats and arrive in Mendoza bus station at 08:45 on the dot - Andesmar coaches are certainly more punctual than BQB Lineas Aereas.

We stay at Hostel Lao, a lovely, friendly little hostel with a fantastic outdoor pool area.

The pool at Hostel Lao

Our double room has a big bathroom and plenty of space and the hostel feels very safe and secure. The owners Mike and Celeste and the rest of the staff are super-helpful with their tourist recommendations, even drawing some directions onto a map for us to follow. 

For our first day, we take a bicycle wine tour around some of the main wineries, including the small and friendly Pulmary and the much larger Alta Vista. Lunch is a huge plate of antipasti with wine tasting at Pulmary as we slowly work ourselves into a lunchtime drunken stupor.

Antipasti at Pulmary

We just about manage to ride our bikes after lunch to get ourselves to Chocolateria A La Antigua, where the hostess is hell-bent on making us try every chutney in the shop. The place makes homemade chocolate liqueurs of every single variety, and jars of dulce de leche with whisky and hazelnut. Ordinarily I would jump at the chance to try everything in sight, but we're still so full from lunch that we can only manage a few mouthfuls of dulce de leche, a chocolate-cherry liqueur each and some flavoured artisan dark chocolate. (So, actually, quite a lot, then...) 

Dulce de leche at Chocolateria A La Antigua

The hostess is so friendly and insists on us leaving without even paying the full amount for the tasting, despite our total willingness to pay in full. 

Finally we go to Alta Vista, the biggest of the wineries, and take a tour of the huge vats of wine and the cellars stocked with hundreds of bottles of Mendozan red. 

Grapes at Alta Vista

Our first night in Mendoza, we discover there's a wine festival in the centre, so we spend the evening trying out a few different types. I'm a little surprised to find there are some interesting bright pink bottles with phallic designs made specially for women at the festival - I can't imagine these selling all that well, although you never know, right?

Strange Mendoza women's wine

The pink wine bottles aren't the only strange thing about Mendoza. Dotted around the city, there are also fountains with deep red/pink water. I can only assume it's supposed to look like wine, but it ends up looking a lot more like blood and is a little freaky and tacky! 

A Mendoza wine fountain by night

We also try out Malbec and vanilla-flavoured ice cream, which is surprisingly good - creamy and rich like vanilla but with a bitter, alcoholic after-taste. Perfect for enjoying in the shade of the extremely hot sunshine with a mid-afternoon coffee!

Malbec and vanilla ice cream

We spend Friday and Saturday night at the lovely Hostel Lao and by Sunday evening we're back on the overnight bus, departing Mendoza station at 20:15 on the dot, just like clockwork. I must say, I'm pretty impressed with Andesmar and I will be travelling with them again very soon indeed!