Drinking alcoholic drinks in excess is dangerous. And funny. Life has to be dangerous to enjoy it. Nothing is safe.
Mendoza has been good to me. Three other guys from the hostel joined me on the full day tour after my steak night. We had a very nice tour guide (Maira) who constantly refused to explain the expression “gata flora” (the name of a wine from Cafayate) to the others. She said she would need more wine for that — challenge accepted (although she never explained it, probably for the sexual connotation to it).
We started the tour with an Aroma Room(TM) where we could smell about a fifty different scents and try to find them in the wines we would be tasting. But it is not an easy task. Sometimes, I was plain wrong with the fruits, but cherries and plum are easy to find in most wines.
All the wineries and the tastings were very good and sometimes I would have liked to take a bottle or two with me. Also, the scenery was amazing. It is autumn now in Argentina and you could see, smell and feel it. All the beautful colours and light, gorgeous!
By the end of the day, we were slightly drunk. But we didn’t have enough yet and invited our tour guide for another bottle of wine (the Norton wine I won on the bus ride to Mendoza). Unfortunately, we didn’t meet up again as promised, probably because on Mondays, there is even less night life than on Sunday (which also was almost zero, and I waited until 0:30 for the night club to actually open).
The next morning four Kiwis from Christchurch and Wellington and I went on a bike tour to Maipu. We were a good team and had a lot of fun. First we headed off to taste some olive oil (and derivate products), jams, chocolate and liquors. I also tried Absinthe, certainly the first and the last time in my life.
We continued to the first winery and it was a very posh and beautiful place. Instead of tasting wine and doing another tour, we just bought two bottles and got one for free. On the sun terrace we killed two of them and kept one for later. Mmhh.
It was almost three o’clock so we went to the Beergarden where a person of undefined sex (shemale?) made amazingly good pizzas. But we didn’t have much more time left. After the feast we got onto our bikes again and drove to the next wine yard, quaffed the wines, drove back to another one, and as it was almost 6pm, we settled there for our last two bottles, while the sun was setting onto the sun terrace. A lovely day.
Escorted by police, who were waiting at the gates of the winery we drove back to the bike rental where we eliminated the last bottle that we had left over. Unfortunately, just two weeks ago the bike rental companies were forbidden to offer any wine anymore. Why??? So we didn’t free wine. We were glad that the next shop was just around the corner. Supplies enough for the bus ride back.
Unfortunately, when I tried to catch a cab across the road crossing some railway tracks, I stumbled and fell, hurting my right ankle badly. Back at the hostel, we grabbed the free wine with the BBQ. The BBQ was only mediocre and not worth the 65 pesos.
On a funny side-note, I met Jeremy, who’s name is probably Doug Rattmann, or Rat Man from the game Portal. The similarity is striking.
I played a bit of guitar before I had to leave the party and go to my bed around 1am. By that time, my leg hurt so badly that I didn’t get much sleep and this also thanks to a snorrer that could be heared probably not only in the next room, but also the next hostel.
Except for my painful attempt to take a shower limping and hopping on one leg the next morning and to catch the bus without the chance to say good bye to the other guys I spent an awesome time with, Mendoza had been really good to me. What do they say? Leave when it’s best? Sometimes that’s hard, so hard.
