Mendoza

From Bariloche we spent a couple of uneventful days riding North to Mendoza. After the few days, Sara was also getting her confidence back in riding after the continuous string of problems we had had with he bike in the recent past. Her strength and determination to keep riding despite what she had been through impressed me more than I could have ever expressed to her. I think many people would have given in, particularly after her first crash outside of Perito Moreno.

We reached Mendoza and (after considerable effort) found ourselves a decent hostel with a small pool and some hammocks for chilling out and doing some reading. They were also kind enough to let us wheel our bikes through the reception and into the courtyard to keep them safe.

Our first night there, we joined those in the hostel for a traditional Argentinean Asado (BBQ). Wow! They really know how to cook there meat over there. Ínstead of the normal Australian style of using an incredibly hot bbq and cooking the meat for a short time, they cook slowly over ashes. The actual cooking took around 3 hours and I think they used about a 1:1 weight ratio of salt to meat... still it made for some incredibly tasty meat.

While in Mendoza, we did the typical tourist thing and did a ¨bikes and wines¨ tour. Basically, you rent a push bike and they give you a map of the local wineries and off you go. We visited a couple of wineries and tasted a lot of Malbec, which is a red that is typical of this region and is only grown in Argentina. Unfortunately it wasn´t my favourite variety, but we bought a couple of bottles of nice blends that we had tried. We also visited a small place that made handmade chocolates and liquors and purchased a green pepper liquor which was very spicy as well as a pomello liquor (the chocolates weren´t much to rave about).

Otherwise, Mendoza offered us the opportunity to enjoy some good food and do some relaxing. It was then back over the border to Santiago to catch our flights to Iguazu falls and BA.