Mendoza

From August 14-17 I went on a weekend trip to Mendoza. 

Mendoza is a city at the foot of the Andes and very famous for its vineyards - about 80% of Argentinian wine is produced in the province of Mendoza.

I took an early flight on that Friday morning to have a couple of hours in the city before it got dark. Flying towards the Andes is exciting by itself! We were flying above the clouds and from a certain point I could suddenly see the mountaintops peaking through the clouds. The closer we got the more I realized how gigantic these mountains were. It was truly incredible to fly towards this huge mountain range right in front of us until we turned to land. 

Andes

Already from the airport I had a wonderful view at the mountains and even in the city they were almost constantly visible. That Friday I spent a couple of hours just roaming around the city and enjoying the peacefulness of a small city in Argentina. I lived in a hostel right in the city center, which made it easy to get to all interesting places. 

Saturday I spent some more time in the city but at 2:30 I got picked up to go on a vineyard tour. The tour was completely in Spanish and I was the only foreigner so at first I wasn't so sure about the whole thing but it turned out to be a lot of fun! And my Spanish got better with every glass of wine… We went to two vineyards with wine tastings and also to a place where they process olives. So we got to try quite a bit of wine and olive-products (bread spreads, oils, cosmetics…).

On Sunday I had some more hours in the city and then I got picked up for the highlight of my trip - horseback-riding at sunset at the foot of the Andes with an Asado (Argentinian BBQ) afterwards. 

It was simply amazing!! I have not been on a horse in years and now with that background it was very special. I met a Swiss girl that works on that horse farm and she kind of implied that I could work there, too, which made it very hard to return to my hostel that night and fly back to Buenos Aires the next morning. 

Oh, I almost forgot - I had wonderful weather that whole weekend but it was freezing! The nights cooled down to 0°C and during the days 12°C were the maximum. Pretty cold for August, hmm…