Mendoza
This spot ended up being my favorite.
Not sure what purpose this had, but while waiting for our tour to begin, it was sure fun running under the sun-dappled canopy, imagining I was a princess.
The specialty here at Domiciano was that they harvest wine at night. The flavor profile is different than a day harvested wine (not that I noticed). But it was delicious.
Not so good for us humans, but amazing for wine - these are the barrels where the wine is kept to age, for a more robust flavor.
I imagined the taste testing or "quality assurance" to happen here. Workers in white lab coats, slightly inebriate, celebrating the fact that their jobs rocked.
After Cusco, I took a semi-convoluted route to Mendoza, Argentina. The basic rules of traveling in South America is either you spend tons of money and travel on flights or you spend tons of time and travel on buses (I'm talking 10-20 hour long bus rides which are very cheap). Since I had such limited time in South America, I took a lot of flights for my long distance commutes. I left Cusco and traveled all day before reaching Santiago, Chile. I spent one night in Chile and promptly left at 8 AM the next morning to take a gorgeous bus ride from Santiago to Mendoza, Argentina, where my journey finally concluded.
The van from Santiago was filled with 12 passengers. We were all eager to reach Mendoza but I was also excited to see the incredible landscape on the ride over. I spent most of my time listening to music and gazing out the window to the unbelievable sites in front of me. Unfortunately, I had not prepared for the long journey to Mendoza, so after my donut and coffee breakfast wore off, I began to get very hungry. The bus made one stop at a Peruvian gas station about 2 hours outside Mendoza but I didn't have any Argentinian cash to buy snacks. During the rest of the ride to Mendoza, I started talking to the guy next to me and became fast friends with a fellow traveler named Pier. We excitedly shared our backgrounds and travel plans. He had just come from Chile to visit his girlfriend and was on his way home. He must have taken notice of my longing looks to the other passengers eating on the bus because he promptly shared some chocolate cookies with me. Travel buddies are the best.
After a 6-hour bus ride, we arrived to the Mendoza bus station in the late afternoon. Pier was taking another bus to his hometown in the evening and had time to kill, so he offered to walk with me to my Airbnb. I was relieved because the town wasn't as quiet as I imagined. We looked up walking directions to the house and set off in the heat. I was staying with a local named Federico who lived about 15 minutes from the center of town. When we got to Federico's, I quickly learned that that he only spoke Spanish, and I was relieved that Pier could easily translate between us. Fe (Federico's nickname), made us some strong cups of mate tea to cool down (even though it made me hotter) and then we started to head back into town to meet up with Vaughn, who was an old friend from work who was also on his RTW trip. We had a pleasant afternoon drinking beers and having jamón sandwiches (ham sandwiches). Later, we strolled around town. Lavender flowers outlined the sidewalks and it gave the area a heavenly aroma. Pier had to depart a little bit later but I joined Vaughn and some of his hostel friends for a dinner at a "tenedor libre" buffet, literally meaning "free fork".
Vaughn and I spent the next couple days roaming around the city of Mendoza, attempting to pack in as many unusual activities as possible, (which from aside visiting wineries, there wasn't too many) -including visiting a snake museum and getting lost in the stately General San Martin Park. Our main plan was to winery hop in Maipu Valley (one of the three wine producing regions in Mendoza) atop our rented bikes, but for the next 2 days, we both alternated getting sick. We pushed our winery day back twice and both made a pact to not get sick on our 4th day.
Our route to Mendoza was littered with spectacular views - mountains shooting into the skies and valleys plunging deep into the Earth.
Captured this while my bus buddies were purchasing their edibles. Since I didn't have cash, I resorted to staring out into horizon. Not too shabby.
Hiking amongst the Andes Mountain range...a scenic beauty.
Luckily someone at an intersection shoved this advertisement in my hand as we were biking the roads of Maipu. The prices looked extremely promising, so after visiting Domiciano, we came in to check the scene out. This place was such a bargain. We got 4 huge helpings of local wine PLUS another full bottle for what equated to $3 USD.
Made a new friend from New Zealand and continued to clink glass after glass while sharing our traveling stores and ambitions. Fantastic boozy break.
Domiciano de barrancas ended up being my favorite winery in Mendoza. The tour guide collected me and Vaughn and took us to an elegant dining area where we tasted our first wines. The guide was very friendly, had perfect English and took the time to explain fancy wine lingo and the components that go into each type of wine. Turns out, there's a lot! Apart from the soil composition, angle of sunlight, type of grape, and season harvested, Domiciano specialized in harvesting grapes at night. Neither Vaughn nor I really understood how that made any difference, but we both agreed that the wine was delicious. After tasting 4-5 wines and spending ample time chatting away, our guide took us outside to look at the actual vines. Chronologically following the timeline of making wine, she then took us to where they age wines and more magical ingredients. Finally, we ended up where they bottled and labeled the wine bottles, thus concluding our tour. After saying our goodbyes and planning where we'd head to next, we proceeded back in the direction of Mr. Hugo's to visit the other wineries.
We had a really fun afternoon visiting a total of 4-5 wineries. Each place had its own flair and a special wine to taste. During the latter part of the day, the heat coupled with my heavy buzz made it extremely difficult to bike on the busy roads. Every so often when I'd veer slightly outside the bike lane, a car would come whooshing by, reminding me that I was not alone on the road. When we decided to leave (aka when we couldn't drink anymore), we dropped our bikes back off at Mr. Hugo's and climbed on the local bus to take us back. We were exhausted on the ride back but it was truly a successful day.
On our final day together, we wanted to do something active to make up for all the wine drinking and lazing around. Vaughn found a hiking trail outside Mendoza that was supposed to be beautiful. So for the last time, we hopped on a local bus and rode it until we reached the outskirts of Mendoza, almost seeping into the next town. I honestly had no idea where we were but trusted Vaughn...and/or we were winging it again. Unfortunately, the website we were using gave unclear directions of how to get from the bus stop to the trail, so we randomly walked and down streets searching for about an hour. After a while, we started walking along a dirt road with a lot of cars driving by. The passengers were suited up in hiking gear so we figured we'd follow the path, hoping it'd lead us to the trail. It was a success and shortly after, we finally reached the foot of the hills we'd been searching for. There was a restaurant near the entrance of the trail and we hungrily scarfed down pizzas before setting off on the trail we intended to trek over an hour ago.
We hiked for 3-4 hours, almost reaching the top of one of the mountains. The views were surreal. We were surrounded by lush green mountains and the Andes mountain range was outlined in the horizon. Vaughn and I bonded over random conversation and then played my question game and had a really enjoyable time trekking around in nature. That night we ate at one more tenedor libre (another massive buffet) and ate our weights in meat. Our time was coming to an end in Mendoza, but definitely worth it. Although the actual city doesn't have too many attractions, the abundance of wineries and mountainous landscape offered an amazing retreat from all the hustle and bustle traveling usually is. We both departed the next day and I took a night bus from Mendoza to Buenos Aires, my last stop in South America.
TRAVEL TIPS: MENDOZA
DAY 1-3: NEW FRIENDS AND TOWN OUTINGS
Mendoza has been coined "Argentina's Napa Valley", and we were both ready to spend a beautiful day basking in the glorious sun while floating between the palatial wineries. On our fourth day, we climbed aboard the local bus in the late morning and rode it to Maipu Valley. Public transit was not my strong suit (at the time), so I let Vaughn figure out all the hairy details of getting there. After a short 30-minute bus ride, we hopped off the bus onto a road named "Los Caminos del Vino", literally meaning "The roads of wine". Perfection.
Being the laid back travelers that we were, we decided to wing our visit to Maipu Valley, hoping to stumble upon a sea of wineries at every turn. From the bus stop, we walked a couple blocks to a charming place called Mr. Hugo's and rented 2 bikes (for a quite a bargain). Mr. Hugo himself gave us suggestions and a general route to follow and then we were off! We decided to head to the first recommended winery called Domiciano, which was in the opposite direction of the rest of the wineries. I had an enchanting visual of myself effortlessly gliding along on my bike, arriving fresh-faced to a new vineyard every couple blocks. Reality, as I realized within minutes of being on the bike, had different plans for me.
The plump sun was beating down on us and within 5 minutes my clothes were slightly tinged with sweat. I will also be honest and say that for some reason, I hate biking. Always have and always will. But somehow I always land up on them, usually after losing arguments that walking would be more efficient (which I obviously know it's not). So we traveled for what seemed to be miles in the humidity, before arriving at our first winery: Domiciano de barrancas. The vineyards looked enchanting; the sweaty ride over was definitely worth it. We searched for someone inside the main building, and she let us know that we could tour the winery in 15-20 minutes.
DAY 4: WINE TIME
DAY 5: HIKING MENDOZA
