November 16, 2013

Back to Mendoza for a third dose. But this time for a very exciting reason. Three of my closest friends from college were going to be here for a few days and there was no way I was going to miss an opportunity to be with them – 3rd time around or not. So sweet Brent tagged along for a girls week in Mendoza.

We met up at our hostel Sunday morning and spent the afternoon exploring town and strolling through the huge Parque General San Martin. Seeing as its the start of spring, and we were in the middle of the high plains region of Mendoza we were dealing with some serious sun and intense heat. Soo naturally we broke up the walk and the heat with a few litros of Quilmes, shady spots of grass, and mucho catching up. As we were reaching the apex of the walk and working our way towards Cerro Gloria for a panoramic view of the city, Brent’s flip-flop decided to call it quits and came unplugged. After a few minutes of awkward hobbling around he managed to Macgyver a repair with a bottle cap he found on the ground and a piece of cord from his shorts and we were on our way again. We finished the afternoon with a view of the city and a cab back to town (those bottle cap flops ended up not being so comfy). We made one final pit stop on the way home for some ice cream from Ferruccio Soppelsa and between the five of us, with 3 flavors per cup, we about tried them all. Pistachio and white chocolate were at the top of my list as far as flavors go. Once back at the hostel we indulged in some spicy beers brought specially from El Bolsón for my capsaicin loving friends and headed out to dinner at Cocina Poblano for some middle-eastern fare, pingüinos of vino, and a mint chocolate flavored hookah for dessert.

The next day we woke up well-rested and set out for a bike wine tour with Baccus Bikes. Brent and I had done this same tour on our previous visit but were excited to return during the summer months when things were in season and in bloom. Not to mention, we’re not ones to say no to a little vino on a nice day. Having started the day late and wanting to take our time and enjoy, we ended up only going to two wineries out of the four on the agenda. Our first stop was Pulmary which is the organic vineyard and one of my favorites from the last trip. Upon arrival you could immediately see the differences between the seasons. Their restaurant was up and running, the patio was full, and they had reorganized and updated some of the decoration in the warehouse. Definitely a nice change. We tried 4 wines during our visit: a young Merlot, a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Torrentés, and a special Sparkling Rosé. We gulped back the last of our Rosé and booked it to the next vineyard Lagarde just in time for their tour and tastings. This was where we retired for the day. We bought a couple more bottles of wine, visited with the sommelier, and hung out on the patio till they closed up shop. We had an eventful ride back to the bike shop seeing as Molly’s entire pedal fell of her bike and there was no bolt to hold it back in place. Sooo Brent to the rescue. He rode the whole 30 minutes back stopping intermittently to push the pedal back into place and still managed to beat us there. We finished the evening with an asado at the hostel.

We parted ways for our third day in the city. Brent and I had some much-needed planning to do so we skipped out on the thermal spas and spent the day checking things off our to do list. Productivity rules. We met back up with the girls before dinner and celebrated a day of success with an incredible meal from Azafrán.

The finale of the week: renting a car and driving along Route 7 to Aconcagua National Park. This was something Brent and I have been wanting to do for a while but couldn’t justify renting a car for just the two of us. So now that we had 5 people it was certainly worth while. The weather was perfect and we made a few pit stops along the way to take in the scenery including the 2 hour loop at the base of Aconcagua.