After 20 kms we turned off the main road and instantly the scenery changed to sweeping views of vineyards which stretched towards the magnificent, snow capped Andes mountains lining the border between Chile and Argentina. The roads were quiet (a good thing for when Bi took over at the wheel so Ash could drink to his hearts content) and the weather was perfect. Ash had sought advice from the wine-buying department at Waitrose on which wineries to visit and we headed first for the largest winery in Mendoza, the Norton Bodega. On arrival we were told that the winery was closed and that there were no tours running but after some pleading they agreed to give us a tour of the winery and tasting at 4.30pm. What a result! What we didn't know when we set out was that you need to make prior appointments with security to visit most of the wineries in this region. Luckily we managed to sweet talk our way into most of them.... despite being dressed like we were about to go on a long hike and looking like we probably couldn't even afford to buy a bottle of coke!
Our second stop was the Chandon winery where we were taken into a lovely and modern building, given a glass of complimentary champagne, and sat down to a very good local red wine tasting (called 'Latitud 33')... the 
Tempranillo was delicious so we picked up a bottle to drink in Fiji along with a bottle of Champangne. Although Mendoza is the best part of the world for Malbec, we still found it to be too bitter for our taste no matter which winery it came from. The next winery we visited was called Dolium. We really only stopped there just for the heck of it but what a lovely find it turned out to be.... one of our favourites in fact. We received a lovely warm welcome from the Italian owner and she showed us into the winery that she had set up with her husband. It was a tiny operation, producing only 40,000 litres of wine a year and with little advertising. 
Her son took us on a tour of the winery, taking us underground to see the main fermentation and maturation tanks where we were able to taste straight from the tanks! We tasted wine from this year's grape harvest, including a spectacular 08 Malbec still in the tank which was as far as we were concerned, perfect for drinking already. Our guide told us that it was a superb harvest and this 08 Malbec would be a Gran Reserva (their best wine). We had some more tasting and picked up another bottle for our collection and they gave us a lovely touring map of the Mendoza wine regions!After a homemade picnic sitting in the car overlooking the vineyards and Andes mountains we visited the Septima winery, one of the bigger in Mendoza where we took yet another tour (we think we're ready to set up our own winery now!!!) and tasting before heading to another very small winery across the road called Sottano. We had a tour and a tasting on a glass floor above the barrel cellar (and yes... we bought another bottle!).
We then headed to Norton for our 4.30pm appointment to finish off our winery tour. The complex looked like a country club and had a massive vineyard which is understandable considering the winery produces a huge 10 million litres of wine a year. We became a little conscious of our attire in such prestigious surroundings and gulped a little as we were welcomed into the building with a glass of champagne... they opened the bottle especially for us! 
After an interesting tour which included a tour of their inner cellar containing bottles of wine dating back to 1959, we had our final tasting of the day; lucky because Ash was about to fall over! We then returned back to our apartment for our last night in Mendoza and Ash celebrated the Argentinian way... by cooking a massive steak and drinking a fabulous bottle of wine!On Saturday we sadly checked out of our beloved apartment and headed to Mendoza airport where we caught an hour flight to Santiago.
The weather was perfect so we had spectacular views over the heavily snow capped Andes from the plane, including a fly-past of Aconcagua, which at 6,962m is one of the seven summits, the highest mountain in the Andes and the highest in the world outside the Himalayas. It was a real treat. On arrival in Santiago airport we were completely mobbed by scores of taxi drivers all offering lifts into town. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and bartering we took a taxi to our accommodation in the city centre, the Andes Hostel. We were disappointed to be going back into a hostel after our 
luxurious apartment in Mendoza but to our surprise the hostel turned out to be really nice.... exceptionally clean, very warm, cosy and comfortable... and nice room mates! Santiago is very developed and has a European feel with both modern and colonial buildings and streets lined with restaurants and modern shops. We could quite easily be in Spain. After taking a walking through the city centre, the main plazas and craft markets we stopped into a coffee bar where Ash's eyes popped out of his head! 
The coffee bar we had walked into had women serving coffee wearing extremely short, tight dresses and stilletos... Bi said they were dressed just like the girls in Robert Palmers music video 'Simply Irresistable'. It was very amusing and apparently quite the norm in Santiago; supposedly a rebellion against the city's strict catholic past! Bi had a very interesting cappuccino topped with about 15 cms of whipped cream!In the evening we packed our bags ready for our flight to Easter Island the following day and finished off with a trip to the cinema to see the latest Indiana Jones movie. Despite the cinema looking like something out of the 70s with a tiny screen and those uncomfortable chairs that fling up the minute you stand up, it was great to just do something normal and we sat there feeling very content with our big box of popcorn!
