We are now in the very heart of Argentine wine making country and, building on our rather pleasant experiences in Cafayate, we were looking forward to visiting some more bodegas and getting a good taste of what was on offer. The main area for wineries is Maipú, about 45 minutes bus journey away. When we got to the bus stop we met a very friendly young guy from Barnsley who now works in Mendoza persuading people to hire bikes from him in Maipú. Since that was what we had intended to do, we were happy to take his flyer and advice on where to get off. We boarded the bus with high hopes and a handful of coins as a machine takes the money and bus drivers do not have change for notes. Unfortunately, we had $3.60 for two tickets but the machine wanted $1.80 each for two separate tickets (in BA we could buy two tickets together). This caused a great deal of confusion as we attempted to find more change while the bus lurched around. There are never enough coins here because everyone hoards them to use on buses. If you give even a small note in a shop they always look crestfallen and ask you for the exact money, often making a great play of indicating they may need to go outside for change (but a glimpse into the till often shows that they actually have lots of coins that they don't want to give away). We were finally rescued by a man to whom we gave the cash and he used his card (like a Oyster in London) to pay our fare.

We got to the appointed spot and hired our bikes, took our rudimentary map and bottles of water and set off. Our first stop was at the Museum of Wine where we saw all sorts of old wine making stuff and tasted some wine. We got back on our bikes and went a whole 500 metres down the road to another place where we saw them growing olives and then tasted some more wine, and some olive oil and rather potent spirits. We then cycled 13km to the old Bodega Familiar di Tomasso where we decided it was sensible to have lunch (before looking at some wine making stuff and tasting some more wine (by the way, the wine was getting better all the time).

At each stop we were meeting other folk doing the same sort of thing, all at varying stages of getting 'tasting fatigue’. So we were not surprised to once more encounter a New York couple, Steve and Tracey, at another bodega, El Cerno, and we went round together. We opted for an extended sample of all the qualities of their wines. We all agreed that the better wines were actually better, we also agreed that we liked the Cabernet a lot but also liked the others. We also tacitly agreed that we were past making sensible comments and decided to treat the whole thing as a wine bar and had a really nice chat over a few glasses of fine red wines (and got into trouble for making too much noise!) S&T are on their honeymoon so we told them that, in a strange way, we are too. Tracey doesn’t actually know where she is going and Steve could not be goaded into saying. As several days have now passed, we wish them both well and hope Tracey has enjoyed it all!

Although founded is 1561, the town of Mendoza is not now where it started as an earthquake in 1861 killed 10,000 people and led to the city being relocated further from the river. For many years, the original square was left to crumble away but recently, the council have excavated and restored to form a small Museum of the City.Nearby there are the very ruined remains of a Franciscan monastry, still closed and in the process of having the restorations restored. In the rebuilding of the city, great care was taken to have wide streets so that, in any future earthquakes, the buildings would collapse into the streets and not onto each other. A wise precaution. Many of these ‘new’ buildings were extremely big but the present town often finds it difficult to fill them adequately. A contemporary arts space we visited was a huge ex-bank with vast empty areas. The tourist information office was a massive building with just a few people rattling around in the lofty rooms, staircases and corridors.

The new town also, as a new and exciting twist on the central plaza theme, included not just one plaza (and this actually four blocks in size) but four additional satellite plazas, all symmetrically ranged around the central plaza, Plaza Independencia. This lacks the seemingly essential man on a horse statue in the middle (although one of the satellites has one) but instead has a dual purpose underground Theatre/Modern Art Gallery instead. For many years Mendoza has held an annual modern art competition and keeps the winners’entries. We enjoyed following the changing styles in an interesting show, linked to the prevelant political forces through the years. Each of the satellite plazas has its own theme and is laid out individually to reflect this. The one dedicated to Chile, for example, has benches and waste bins with mosaic in the Chile national colours and the names of ‘famous’ places in Chile. It also includes a statue of General San Martín and the unlikely Chilean libertador Bernard O’Higgins (we are hoping to hear more about Mr O’Higgins when we go to Chile next week).

A little while ago we had missed the Dakar Rally in Córdoba by a couple of days and thought that it was gone. So we did not realise that it was passing close to Mendoza until the said afternoon so we missed it again (it’s a bit like Oz all over again). However, we were able to take advantage of a couple of free summer events put on by the town council. We went to Música y Vino en las Alturas (music and wine at heights) which was a bossanova group performing 8 stories up on the top of the Town Council building. This was virtually unique in our Sudamerikano experiences in that the doors actually opened exactly at the scheduled start. However, because there are only two lifts that take only six people at a time the queue moved very slowly. But that was all right because the band were still downstairs anyway and didn’t start playing until well over an hour later.

We enjoyed the views of the sun setting behind the Andes as we sipped our wine and had a rather pleasant time until the film crew came to interview us in spanish. We’re not sure they’ll use our bit! The next evening we went to Cine Bajo las Estrellas (film under the stars) where we watched Chaplin’s Modern Times in a square quite near our hostel. As a (nearly) silent film, there was no language barrier and we all enjoyed the timeless appeal of the ‘little tramp’.

We have now spent nearly three months in Argentina (give or take some sidetracks into Uruguay and Paraguay) and we are now about to leave. We will be taking a bus right over the Andes, passing Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America. Our next stop - Santiago, Chile!