Happy that we had our passage out of Mendoza, we spent the day wandering the lovely colonial town of Salta and visited the main cathedral. It was such a culture shock being back in civilisation and we were practically skipping through the streets past the modern shops and hotels and the lovely coffee houses with REAL coffee! It was like being back in Europe... or to us, Disneyland! We took the teleferiqo to the top of the hill and admired the view over the city,
sitting down in a cafe on the top to enjoy a delicious hot chocolate which after all our hard travelling was bliss... it was REAL milk (as opposed to the powdered stuff we have been living off for nearly 3 months) with a big chunk of chocolate in it! We returned to the city and went for lunch in the Solar de Convento restaurant near the main plaza. 
It was a lovely and charming restaurant (quite the opposite to what we both looked like when we walked in)... complimentary pink champagne, bread and canapes on arrival and we sat down to a lunch of Argentine steak for Ash and Wild Mushroom Pasta with real parmesan cheese (heaven!!) for Bi and a really good local wine called Manterello. Ash was nearly close to tears eating an amazing steak, as opposed to l
lama and chicken legs... we have both missed our food and wine so much on this trip! We have a new-found appreciation for the things we have so often taken for granted back home. At 4pm we boarded a first class bus (fully reclining leather seats.. like club class) for our 16 hr journey down to Mendoza.We arrived in Mendoza on Tuesday morning and took a taxi to our hostel. Our hearts sank... it was a dark, seedy bar with rooms above it and nothing like it was described in the guide book... not uncommon!! Our room was not ready (this turned out to be in our favour) so we dumped our bags and headed into the city centre to hunt for alternative digs! Mendoza isn't quite as we expected. We both had visions of a small rustic town surrounded by vineyards but it is actually a fairly sizeable, albeit lovely city very reminiscent of Buenos Aires. We passed lovely shops and lots of wonderful delis which inspired us to cook and this led to the idea of finding a private apartment for our 4 nights here. We checked with the local tourist information for some recommendations and then with a list in hand, we walked about 5 miles around Mendoza, checking out different apartments which were all dingy and horrible. Bi's heart was on the pavement by this point and she was getting very cranky! Eventually, at the point of giving up and returning to our dingy hostel we came upon the Park Hyatt 5* Apartments. 
We walked in and asked to see an apartment... mainly just for a laugh.. and were told we could upgrade to the Executive Suite for the same price as a normal apartment. Oh WOW! We were blown away by the suite and within 20 minutes of looking around it we decided that was it, enough was enough, after nearly 5 months of really roughing it we deserved to splash out on some luxury and so we did. It's still very cheap by English standards at 54 pounds a night including buffet breakfast but it actually wasn't an easy decision to make because we had lived off that amount of money over a week in Ecuador and Bolivia. We are both suffering a bit with reverse culture shock as we have seen so much poverty over the past few months and lived so simply and we really did feel guilty about splashing out!
We walked in and asked to see an apartment... mainly just for a laugh.. and were told we could upgrade to the Executive Suite for the same price as a normal apartment. Oh WOW! We were blown away by the suite and within 20 minutes of looking around it we decided that was it, enough was enough, after nearly 5 months of really roughing it we deserved to splash out on some luxury and so we did. It's still very cheap by English standards at 54 pounds a night including buffet breakfast but it actually wasn't an easy decision to make because we had lived off that amount of money over a week in Ecuador and Bolivia. We are both suffering a bit with reverse culture shock as we have seen so much poverty over the past few months and lived so simply and we really did feel guilty about splashing out!So, we walked back to our dingy hostel to collect our bags. When we arrived back at the apartments the reception staff looked mortified by the sight of us entering their lovely hotel. We were wearing all our dirty hiking clothes.. the same ones for two days due to our bus journey, our trainers were covered in red sand and squeaked all the way across the polished floor and we were carrying our big and very filthy yellow rucksacks! They made us pay the whole bill up front... ummh.. wonder why?! However, nothing could take away from our happiness ... we have polished floor boards, central heating, a big living room, dining area, kitchen, bathroom and king size bedroom all with cable TV and have access to a spa, sauna, gym, restaurant and room service woohoo! 
It's like having our own city apartment and we keep going on and on and on about it because it the polar opposite of what we have experienced in South America so far! We went to the enormous Carrefour hypermarket in the afternoon and stocked up with great food and Mendozan wine which we will be enjoying for the rest of the week. Being in an apartment gives a good feel for what it is like to live in an Argentinian city.
It's like having our own city apartment and we keep going on and on and on about it because it the polar opposite of what we have experienced in South America so far! We went to the enormous Carrefour hypermarket in the afternoon and stocked up with great food and Mendozan wine which we will be enjoying for the rest of the week. Being in an apartment gives a good feel for what it is like to live in an Argentinian city. 
On Wednesday we caught a bus 30 minutes out to the Maipu region of Mendoza to visit the wineries and olive groves that this area is famous for. We hired some bikes to cycle between the wineries, and although they were mechanically sound the saddles were like concrete! We started by visiting the Museo Del Vino, a museum dedicated to this region's wine production. We walked into the museum (also a functioning winery) 
and were just knocked off our feet by the superb smell of grapes, wine and the barrels. It was like Seventh Heaven! We visited their small but interesting museum dedicated to the production of wine over the years (including several cowhide grape presses.. not for the vegetarians!) and after trying the local wine we were given a tour of the vineyards and wine production process. 
The vineyards were beautiful, stretching out as far as we could see with views to the huge, snowcapped Andean mountains in the distance. It was fascinating to be taken through the wine production process, from separating the grapes from the vines to seeing the different presses, fermentation and maturation vats and finally the Frenck oak barrels that the wines are aged in. 
After visiting the museum we headed to a local chocolaterie, liqueur maker and deli 
where we tried some (distinctly average) local products. The cycling was fabulous though... once we were out of the main Maipu centre the roads were wide, fairly quiet and lined with tall trees with their leaves changing colour (as it is late Autumn here). We cycled past fields of vineyards and olive groves with more great views to the distant mountains. 
We felt as if we were back on a normal holiday! We cycled to a very pretty converted farmhouse for lunch called Almacen De Sur, where we had a fantastic but very rich two course meal of stone-baked breads with balsamic and olive oil, steak for Ash, pasta for Bi and creme brulee. After lunch we cycled to our furthest point, the Carinae winery where we had another tour and had some more tastings. We have decided that the locally produced Malbec here is a little spicy and bitter for our taste; we much prefer the smoother Syrahs, Cabernets and blends. In fact, the Carinae Syrah was great, so 
Ash splashed out on a bottle to be opened in a couple of years! We then visited the Laur Olive Grove and Press and it was very interesting to see the production of local olive oil... not the smallest production at 2 million litres a year! We headed back and stopped in at the very modern Tempus Alba winery where we sat on their sun
ny roof terrace drinking wine and overlooking the vineyards and olive groves before cycling back to Maipu to take our bus home to our nice (warm!) apartment. We laughed in the evening at what a contrast the whole day had been... just a week ago we were filthy, starving, freezing and very grouchy in Bolivia and now we were sat in our 5* suite having spent the whole day boozing and eating!! 
With two days left here before our flight to Santiago we are relaxing and making the most of our apartment and facilities today and are going to have a wander around the city, and who knows, maybe we'll drink some more wine! Tomorrow we have decided we will visit Luján de Cuyo, another wine region of Mendoza where there are bigger, more well known wineries such as Norton and Chandon. We are both now starting to feel a little sad that our journey in South America is drawing to a close.
