Wine country in Argentina...

is not what you might picture!

Although Mendoza, Argentina is known for the quality wine it produces, drinks and exports, it turns out Mendoza, the city, is not as picturesque as we envisioned. The city of Mendoza is populated with overpriced restaurants, dirty overpriced hostels and thousands of taxi cabs and not much else. However, once you escape the small city and visit some vineyards, your mood will change. Upone our arrival to Mendoza on a long bus from Chile, we were slapped in the face with tons of insanely priced hostels (by South American standards). We left the place we had a reservation at because he wanted to charge us the fee for a 5 person room, even though we are only 2 people. CRAZY! We are still unsure if leaving at 11PM was the best decision...we ended up walking the city until 1AM before settling on a place that, although was still overpriced and dirty, it had an air conditioner to cool us off. To make a long story short, if you are headed to Mendoza, Argentina be sure you have an appetite and plenty of pesos because it´s expensive for what it is. If you´re lacking mucho pesos though, spend them on the wine and sleep on a park bench, it´ll be worth it. Oh, one last complaint about Mendoza- walk if you can because the cabbies start the meter before you enter the cab because "it´s the cheapest thing in Mendoza, we have to make our money somehow," as was explained to us.

On to the positives: the vineyards and the Mercado Central.

Our visit to Bodega La Rural was nothing shy of amazing. We caught the last tour of the day and had an intimate explanation of the grounds and the wines, as well as a taste of the grapes straight off the vines and a few tastes of wines...not the size of tastes we get in the States either, a "taste" here is a full glass of wine, and some! La Rural even has a small museum cataloging the history of wine making in the region, interesting stuff.

The Mercado Central is also worth visiting for a more authentic experience of foods of the region. Very much like Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia (but a fraction of the size), these mercados found in just about all the towns we´ve visited, offer smiling faces, great food, juicy produce, and mouth-watering smells (except the butcher stalls).

After a couple of days of Mendoza, we set off on an overnight bus to Buenos Aires, where leafy plazas offering tango performances and great wine awaited our arrival.