Marc & Nora ROUND THE WORLD 2005/2006 - Join us!

The bus journey took 19 hours in total but as we had to change after 6 hours in Neuquen it seemed shorter.

In Mendoza we rented some bikes and cycled through the main park which is huge. From there you can also ride up a hill from which you have a pretty view over the city.

Travel tip: Hostel WINKAS at Sarmiento is really clean & beautiful. Good breakfast and perfect location!

Mendoza is famous for its surrounding vineyards, more than 680 in total. It is the biggest wine region in Argentina and the 5th largest in the world! (Mendoza has 143.765 hectares of vineyards which represents 68% of total surface cultivated in Argentina).
So off we went on a 1day bodega tour! The 1st winery we visited was Weinert Winery. The owner is a Brazilian-German immigrant and his estate was medium size with 800 000 produced bottles a year. Lopez winery is the probably biggest wine producer in Argentina, with 40 Million (!!!) produced bottles of wine.

To cut a long day short - we had 4 visits to different wineries, got a guided tour through all of those and increased our knowledge about wine production tremendously. But most important of all we also educated our palate by extensive wine tasting. After all that wine we also visited a Liqueur Producer where we had some interesting samples of weird creations.

Finally we visited a chocolate factory. Mendoza and Bariloche are famous for their chocolate, chocolate boutiques can be found on every corner.

After Mendoza we headed back to Chile. The bus journey was spectacular as we crossed the Andes. We passed by Cerro Aconcagua, which is the world's highest mountain outside the Himalayas (almost 7km high - to be precise 6962m).
The road between Argentina and Chile is often closed in winter due to heavy snowfall. We were lucky as it was just re-opened after being closed for a few days. The wait at the border was therefore very long.