Mendoza

Carinae Vineyard – very dry with delicious wine

Taking a nice warming shot of…olive oil!

Unsatisfied by mere tasting, Ryan took matters into his own hands…

Approaching Estadio de Las Malvinas (note Jandro wearing the blue Huffer NZ Map hoody in the bottom right – respect!)

Holes in the footpath were a potential hazard after big nights on the town…

‘La Cordillera del Los Andes,’ enigmatic as if it was a mirage

Mendoza is a beautiful city, situated at the foot of the Andes near the border to Chile. It is a very old city, and the region is renowned for its wine and produce. Almost any gourmet product you can find here will have Made in Mendoza marked somewhere. While Ryan and I were in the area we thought it should be a priority to do a wine tour. It was very informative: apparently the unique grape of the region is Malbec and the best climatic conditions are found in a valley called Maipu (the guide was obsessed with finding a way to say it so it didn't like 'my pooh'). The two vineyards we visited were called Lopez and Carinae. The first was a traditional winery, one of the largest and most popular in Argentina. The Lopez guide taking the tour gave a very good explanation in Spanish but I felt sorry for the Israeli in our company as her English explanation was basically limited to statements such as "the wine is left is the barrels for 3 years." The second was a very small boutique winery owned by a French man with a great sense of humour. As the guide provided by our hostel worked there she organised us a tasting with him and there was a bit of pre-match banter considering the NZ under 21 rugby team was playing France for 3rd place the following day. The day was capped off by a visit to an olive oil factory where a very strange guy gave us a slightly comical explanation of the simple process of production. The guy had this cheeky smile and tone of voice that suggested he was always on the verge of making a big joke and was chatting up the guide the whole time! That night the pasta dinner that was supposed to turn up at 10pm was served at 12.30pm, consisting of noquis - probably our least favourite type - and the wine was called Viejo Tomba ('old tomb') and Nuestra Viña ('our vine'). Our guess was that they weighed in at about a peso each and the consensus was "worst wines ever tasted." However, they succeed in lifting our spirits to the point where pool was played -eventually for money- and we checked out a mad club that had non-stop strobe lights from 2am until after 7am (when I left).

The next day, the effects of the bad wine were felt a little by all and it was fairly lazy times before the match in the avo. We took a taxi to the game and managed to make it in reasonable time despite the traffic. The Mendozans really got behind the championship and there was a really good turnout - even though in true Argentine fashion most of them turned up at half time. They were not so impressed by the blatant NZ flag waving and shouting for the team with calls of ''¡ya basta!" (enough already) by the second match. The haka duely silenced the crowd however - the only moment I have ever been in a full stadium where absolute silence was observed without a national tragedy. Moment of the match was definitely when Jandro, short on pesos shouted 'bonbon helados' (ice-creams) at the shouting ice-cream man confusing him completely. The scores were the best we could have asked for - a win to NZ and a loss to Australia. We certainly got a lot of satisfaction in reminding our new Aussie friend from the hostel who remarked before we left for the game "I only support the winning team!" The stadium is a long way out from the city and we overlooked organising a taxi back. As is to be expected, there were none anywhere so we had to walk almost all the way back to the hostel hungry, thirsty, with the urge to use a real bathroom but otherwise in good spirits.

That night we had the pleasure of joining the NZ team for their end of tour party. The NZRFU had footed the bill for a bar for the night and thanks to Paul 'Topless' Swenney we managed to get into the invitation only affair. As the free drinks were downed ever faster by the huge players and team officials, many took a turn for the worst on the slippery floor falling on bottles and even one poor local girl! Ryan and I made ourselves useful in ordering the drinks and helping the boys with Spanish phrases to use with the ladies. A highlight was definitely hanging out with Hose Gear - winger for the Hurricanes, really cool, down to earth guy (shame he was just too drunk for me to manage to hook him up). The night ended at the hostel as I managed to mediate a wee dispute between our Aussie friend and one of the hostel staff as he tried to bring half of Mendoza into the rec. room. After that I played a little table tennis with the staff, practicing a wee bit of Spanish and winning every game - got to bed around 8.30am

By 1pm that day we were back in the bus to Mar del Plata and ready for sleep. The day was nice and clear with great views to the mountains and seemingly never-ending tundra. All in all, a great trip and I look forward to returning and exploring the mountains in October.