Week 11: Mendoza
Wine, steak, and new friends
This week I made a side trip to Mendoza, Argentina, taking a bus from Santiago over the Andes on Sunday. It was an incredibly beautiful but winding ride, with one section of about ten switchbacks that put my stomach in knots. I arrived in Mendoza to beautiful sunshine, and I enjoyed a free cup of wine from my hostel while I called my parents.
For my week in Mendoza, I was mostly envisioning wine, sunshine, and hanging out by the pool at the hostel. However, Monday and Tuesday turned out to be quite gloomy and chilly, which threw off those plans a bit. I was honestly in a pretty bad mood since I didn’t have concrete plans and wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I ended up mostly walking around town and camping out at coffee shops, doing a bit of research for the next legs of my trip.
I did also got coffee with a recent Belmont grad who is working for the Mendoza municipal government for a year, helping with economic development. She gave me a glimpse into the life of Mendocinos, explaining that they work from 9am to 2pm every day! She’ll often go to lunch with coworkers after work and not get home until 7pm. Definitely a different lifestyle from the U.S. to spend nearly as much time each day socializing as you do working!
The weather finally cleared up on Thursday, and I met two French people at my hostel, Theo and Aglaée, to go on a bike tour of some vineyards with. We went to pick up the bikes on the edge of town, and were provided with a map of the stops on our tour.
Our first stop was actually an olive oil farm, which we appreciated, given it was 11am and we weren’t ready to drink wine! We took a tour of the facilities and learned how olive oil is made. It mainly involves crushing the olives and their pits into paste, and then mixing this with water to separate the oil from the paste. We tried several oils and a couple balsamic vinegars, including one with chili that was really good but really spicy!
We continued to a winery where we had a delicious lunch of empanadas, short rib with potatoes, and flan, paired with four different wines. Mendoza specializes in both Malbec and a sweet white wine called Torrontés. I much preferred the Malbec. Theo, Aglaée, and I spoke some French to help me keep it sharp, and I learned the important word pompette, which means tipsy!
After a third winery with more tastings, we biked to a market where we got some tastings of alfajores and ice cream. Aglaée also spotted Morbier cheese at one of the stalls, which I had just been saying was one of my favorite cheeses from France. The seller gave us some to try, and it tasted like it was straight from France, even though it was produced in Córdoba!
Each night, the hostel put on a dinner for the guests, and we all sat around a long table (see the video below). It was a great way to meet new people, and also a great way to avoid cooking for the week! The best dinner was the asado, with unlimited grilled meat. I’m not usually a big steak person, but there’s something about an Argentine asado that makes me a fiend for it. And, my iron levels are thanking me.
On Thursday, I went rock climbing with a group from the hostel, including Iasmin and Pedro (Brazil), Iván (Uruguay), Theo (France), Nico (Argentina), and our two Argentine guides, Mathias and Vicente. We all piled into a jeep-sized truck at 7am and drove about two and a half hours towards the Andes. As we drove into the mountains, we passed some semi-wild horses, and some dogs happily chased our car for a while. We made it to a steep trail that we hiked up to arrive at the base of the rock wall. It was one of the most beautiful settings I’ve ever rock climbed in — probably tied with San Vito Lo Capo in Sicily, where I climbed last summer.
When we got to the top, our guides quickly realized they miscalculated the size of our feet. The highest size of climbing shoe they’d brought was a 40 (US men’s 7.5). That wasn’t gonna work for me, or for a few of the guys! Thankfully, Theo brought his own climbing shoes that were size 42. He lent them to a couple of us (real sisterhood of the traveling shoes), and while my toes were still smashed into them and throbbing when climbing, I managed okay.
The guides set up three routes, and we all rotated climbing them. The first one felt like a good warm up for me, and the second one was a bit harder. The third one was very challenging, and I needed a lot of guidance (and a bit of rope support) to get over one especially difficult section. I had a blast climbing, and loved the adrenaline rush of making a lunge towards the next hold and hoping I wouldn’t fall (of course with a harness though). With a big group and all the gear to set up, it took a while to climb just a few routes, and we spent about three or four hours up there.
We headed back to Mendoza very happy and tired. I sat in the back of the jeep on the way back with Iasmin and Iván, and we were basically a tangle of legs. We passed around mate and looked out the back window as we drove down the dirt path out of the mountains. Soon, we all fell asleep. There’s some moments that I know I’ll look back on very fondly, and drinking mate in the back of a jeep with new friends from Brazil and Uruguay is definitely one of those.
That evening, we all rallied and joined the hostel’s celebration for St. Patrick’s Day. For some reason, Mendoza celebrated it a couple days after the actual day. The bartender convinced me to try a fernet and coke, which is an Argentine specialty. Fernet is an Italian bitter with a sort of minty taste, and they mix it with coke to add some sweetness. I tried it once in Buenos Aires and hated it, but people told me it gets better each time you drink it. Indeed, this time it was much more manageable. I think I’ll have to drink it a couple more times until I like it though.
We ended up at a club playing throwback reggaeton music, most of which I didn’t know. I thoroughly enjoyed it though, since I’m always wishing they played more reggaeton back home. On our way back to the hostel, three of us stopped to get a pancho, which is the Argentine version of a hot dog. Very similar to the Chilean completa, but without avocado. It was really good—redemption from the terrible completa I had last week with Celia in Santiago.
The next morning (Friday), I had a bus ticket back to Santiago. I woke up, very sleep deprived, and packed my bags quickly to head to the bus station. When I got there, they told me my bus was canceled. It turns out that there was a storm brewing around the mountain pass at the border, and it was closed for at least the rest of the day. Ugh! I was frustrated, as I had another bus booked for Saturday out of Santiago. But, there was nothing I could do. Thankfully my hostel had space for me and I went back for another night. At least I got to enjoy a second asado dinner with everyone!
I was rebooked for a bus on Saturday at 1:30. A hostel friend, Julia (Sweden), was planning to go to Santiago as well, so we planned to take the same bus if the border reopened. Luckily, we got the announcement that it reopened around 11am, and headed soon after to the bus station. Soon after arriving in Santiago, we discovered the border had been closed again! We were so grateful to have gotten out when we did. I’m now a day behind in my travel plans, but thankfully the two hostels I’d already booked for the next two nights moved my reservations for free.
I’ve just arrived in the town of Vicuña, about 7 hours north of Santiago. Tomorrow I’m heading even further into countryside, where I’m volunteering for a 1-2 weeks. I’ll save most of the details about volunteering for next week, but I’ll just say there will be a lot of marmalade making!
I’m so jealous of your climbing 🤩 It looked so cool!
Happy for you that you made it to Santiago at the end. More buses stories to tell during your trip ahah!
"A tangle of legs" and size 7.5. Bahahahahahahahaha!