Sunday, November 21, 2010

Mendoza - Argentina

Next we went to Mendoza, the city at the hub of the largest wine producing area in South America.  After a day or two walking around the quiet city, we arranged a trip out to the wineries where we rented bikes and cycled around sampling the produce.  In Argentina, coins are next to impossible to come by. Shops refuse to give change, and the bus companies apparently have a monopoly on the stuff (which supposedly they sell to the black market), so in order to get enough change for the bus we had to go into three different shops buying bottles of water and chewing gum.  It's very annoying, it's similar in Bolivia too, you always need to have the correct change.

Toasted ham and cheese sandwiches are really popular here it seems...
The area around Mendoza is basically desert but the town is really green with lots of wide streets and big trees, due to the irrigation system, involving drains running along every street, which are occasionally flooded with diverted river water.  Amazingly most of the drains are open.  Apparently the system was already set up by the local tribes even before the Spanish arrived.  The local vineyards have a similar system.
The wineries...

1 comment:

  1. Malbec from the Mendoza region is my favorite wine. Have some for me :)

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