Mendoza: Wine Country

After much umming and ahhing a group of us decided that our destination for the four day holiday weekend was going to be Mendoza, which is the wine capital of Argentina.  What better way to spend a long weekend than by biking through vineyards and testing all the wines that South America has to offer? This idyllic weekend started out with a fourteen hour bus ride which was delayed three hours, typical.  But we made it to our hostel by noon on Saturday and asked what we could do to pass some time as all the wine tours had left for the day....the guides answer: paragliding.  Somehow, 45 minutes later and 300 pesos poorer, we were strapped into harnesses and running off the side of a cliff at full speed.  Spontaneity at its finest.  We got a bird's eye view of Mendoza, the surrounding vineyards and the nearby foothills to the Andes.  Couldn't think of a better way to be introduced to this slice of countryside.

Later that night we were treated to an asado (a massive barbeque) and FREE tequila.  Yes, FREE tequila.  How could I resist?  About an hour in, our delicious dinner turned into some form of foam party (I blame the tequila) which we enjoyed until the wee hours of the morning.  Waking up the next morning at 7:30 for a full day of trekking, rappelling, and white water rafting was not as easy as we had imagined in our tequila induced state.  But we soldiered through and had the greatest day despite the cold weather! And what better way to celebrate a great day then by having some more tequila? The Porteño men across the hall from us decided to host a mini party for us so we ended up teaching them all the American drinking games we could think of (you try explaining flip cup in Spanish!!).
The best part of the trip was definitely our biking tour of the vineyards.  We got to visit three different bodegas (wineries), all completely different, and taste test 3-4 wines at each place which as you would imagine made it increasingly difficult to bike in a straight line as the day wore on.

 
As it was the weekend of Carnival, we attempted to make it to the celebrations.  Assuming that the Argentineans who like to start their drinking late and end even later, would be celebrating well past midnight.  We walked over to the huge park only to find it completely deserted, yes, we missed one of the biggest celebrations of the year.  Oops.  Lucky for us a large group of Argentine men took it upon themselves to help us celebrate in some way shape or form.  When they saw us walking into the park they ran at us with bottles of water and cans of spray foam, and as we all ran screaming in opposite directions they completely soaked us, apparently another tradition we had never heard of... Slightly scary being charged by a large group of water bottle toting latino men.
Finished our trip with another fourteen hour bus ride which got us home at 8am Wednesday morning, allowing us a full 2 hours before we had to go to class for our 5 hours intensive spanish class.  Now it's time to catch up on three days worth of sleep!