A 14 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires dropped us around 8am at the bus terminal in Mendoza, Argentina. This bus ride, I must mention, was a bit different than what we are used to. For starters, I believe it was my whining that lead us to splurge for a "premium" 1st class bus ticket. Without much clue of what we were getting for $120 USD, we swiped the credit card as more of an experiment than anything else.

Upon arrival in our premium bus, we were beyond stoked. It´s pretty much a Qantas First Class Experience (not that I know what that feels like). Our seats were equipped with a full 180 degree reclining capabilities, personal TVs with TONS of movies (in English) at my finger tips, wine, champagne, meal service, and EVEN BINGO! Now this is the way to travel.

Anyway, we arrived at the bus station in Mendoza and quickly hightailed it across the city to our accommodation for the next 4 nights, Hostel Lao. Hostel Lao is popular, and for good reason, and therefore despite being pretty exhausted we were forced to drop our bags and head out to check out the city until our room was ready around 12:30.

The city of Mendoza is perfectly situated in the valley of the neighboring Andes mountains, with picturesqe fountains and statues, and lush green parks. What makes it even better is the deliciously warm sunshine that is bright and in full abundance over 300 days a year! It is kind of perfect and certainly a welcomed sight for these two weary travelers.

After a nice long walk around to situate ourselves, we headed back to our place to move in to our room. We were located back in a private unit beyond the garden. It was small, but nice, and the bed was comfy. What more can you ask for?

Despite our fatigue, we really needed to do something to get our blood pumping and our energy up. We decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and throw on some gym clothes and take a nice long run out to the big park across town. We miscalculated the distance out to the park and by the time we got there we only really had energy for one lap around the 2.5 km lake. We hit up a bit of calithestics and jogged back to our place. In all the run was about 5-6 miles, which is certainly more than we're used to.

Feeling pretty good after our exercise, we showered, changed and headed out for a happy hour beverage and some dinner. Heading down the same street we had just ran down, we came across a lively looking Irish bar, best we stop in for one. I order a $2 glass of wine, while Adrian settled on a Quilmes (the local lager). We enjoyed the last few minutes of the warm, fading sun while we sipped our beverages. By 6:30, we were starving, and really couldn´t be bothered to go around looking for a new place to eat. That evening we dined on better than average pizza and burgers.

After we had our fill we took to the Mendoza evening to see it by night and to find one more place to stop in for a night cap (half bottle of wine). We found two welcoming seats at a bar on the edge of Plaza Indepencia. We enjoyed more great conversation over a magical bottle of Malbec until we eventually needed to call it a night. Despite, the extrordinary comforts of the Premium Class bus, it still is, in fact, a bus, which doesn´t allow for the most luxurious sleep. And so we walked back to our place and finally got a fantastic night of sleep.

In the morning, we were up to enjoy the yummy free breakfast at the Hostel Lao. We dusted ourselves off and once again threw on some work out clothes. We didn´t know it at the time, but this would be how we would spend the next few mornings, burning away the dusty, fog of our last few glasses of wine from the previous night with a long run.

This time, beforehand, we decided to grab a couple of rental bikes and take on the city, as we so often do, on two wheels. It took longer than we had hoped, but eventually we secured ourselves two fairly delapadated bikes and made our way back to the park we ran through the day before. We took 2 laps around the lake this time, before grabbing the bikes and heading back to the hostel.

We showered and changed quickly, as our hunger had dictated that we get food in our bellies immediately. We hopped back on the bikes and hit up the supermarket for picnic supplies. Back at the park, we found a nice sunny piece of grass and popped open our beers & ciders and enjoyed a very mediterranean lunch of bread, olives, tomatos, and cheese.

The sun soon shifted far enough to shade us completely, at which time we worked off our indulgent lunch with some frisbee and a bike ride around the entire park. We were back at the bike rental place by 5:30 and walked back to our place where we arranged a trip out to the wine region for a bike tour the following day.

That night we headed out down the street for some dinner. We passed many unappetizing ´westernized´ places before settling on a just as ´westernized´ placed that at least had a nice garden, fresh looking food, and a good wine menu. We enjoyed our fresh squeeze lemonade, crisp bottle of chardonnay, yummy california-style veggies burgers, and great company.

Over dinner we discussed our evening's conundrum. In town that night was a performance by one of the members of The Buena Vista Social Club. Having heard initially it was the whole band, only to find out it was one member left us a bit deflated. It had been harder than necessary to acquire tickets (sold out of the $30 tickets and only accepting cash... of course). We went back and forth deciding what to do, asking ourselves "Are we lame if we don´t?" until we eventually decided to give the 10pm show a miss, in hopes to be fresh and rested for our long day at the vineyards the following morning. Yeah, I know we're lame.

But we were, in fact, up fresh as a daisy at 7:30 for breakfast, shower, and out the door by 9. We stood at the indicated corner and watched as two of the busses that would take us to the wine region rolled right past us. Confused, we looked around the corner to our left and realized that we had missed the stop by 50 feet. It has been a long time since we were in place that actually abided by bus stops and not side of the road arm waves. Expecting there to be another one along shortly, of course, it wasn´t for another 25 minutes or so that another #15 or #16 bus showed up, and we boarded.

Finally about an hour and a half after leaving our hostel we had arrived in 'wine country'. We quickly found our bike rental spot and procured two bikes and a map of the area wineries that we were to go to and times we were supposed to be there. As we soon discovered, wine tasting in Argentina is very different than anywhere we had been before. They seem to hold this wonderful past time of winetasting with a bit higher prestige and tradition here. You don't just bike around and rock up to any old tasting room and drink the wine on offer, as is the case in California and certainly in Australia. Here, you have to have specific appointments. At each of the wineries they explain in much detail the process and facilities at their winery. They teach you the history of the family and the region. Finally, at the end of the hour they have spent with you they allow you to taste three of the many wines they offer. Like I said different.

All up, because of the time spent at each place, we only got to three wineries, Carmelo Patti, Largarde, and Altavista. It was actually well organized in the places and order of these wineries. The first was very small, boutique, and very award winning and Patti, the owner, was as smooth as his delicious Malbec. The second was a much larger operation, with a large facility, and quite a long history in the area. And the final winery was a huge, elegant, winery. Clearly the French family owners had A LOT of money, and knew a thing or two about making wine. We even got to try two different wines that we had never had before... Bonarda and Torrontes.

Between the second and third winery we stopped to share a bottle over lunch in the park. I can certainly get used to al fresco lunches and yummy bottles of wine in sunny parks in Argentina! ;)

By 5pm we were just about finishing up for the day. We returned our bikes to the rental shop and headed for the bus stop, for the bus to take us back to Mendoza. For dinner that night, I could no longer hold off Adrian´s desire to hit up an Argentinian Parrilla. We had heard the best place for steak in town was Don Mario's or Don Mateo´s as I like to remember it (Adrian´s long lost Argentinian Uncle, known for his massive cuts of steak?? Yep, that's exactly right) We made a long trek across town in order to find this place, and would you believe it, the place was completely empty, at 8:30pm on a Thursday??

Without a clue as to what to order, Adrian let the waiter bring him a steak of his suggestion while I was happy with a salad and more red wine. After about 30 minutes, the steak finally emerged. The thing was probably 4 inches thick. There was no grilled veggies and potatos with this thing... it was juuuuust meat, and a whole lot of it! I think I caught a bit of intimidation in Adrian´s eyes, but despite that, he began to take the thing down, and down it was taken!

Earlier in the trip, I had made a promise both to Adrian and myself, that I would have to try some steak while in Argentina. The last time I tried was one of our last dinners in Melbourne, at an incredible restaurant called "Cutler & Co". It was a tender, grass-fed, wagyu beef, steak... and I really wasn´t having it. However, this is what Argentina is known for, so I had to give it a try. This time around... it was, how do I put this... Actually ´not bad´. That is as much as I´ll give, without feeling to awful about myself. Adrian, didn´t mind having the rest of the steak to himself.

By the time we got out of their it was close to 9:30, and the place was just starting to fill up. I understand that in Argentina they enjoy late meals with the family, but I can´t for the life of me, understand why anyone would want ungodly amounts of cow carcass in their belly right before bed!!

With Adrian suffering from a slight case of meat-sweats, we power-walked for 40 minutes or so back across town, back to the Irish bar we had been at a couple days before. We had stopped in the previous day and confirmed they would be playing the Packers vs. Bears game on one of their many TVs. We arrived to a crowded bar, but were successful in scoring a quick table. What was less successful, however, was finding this football game. Not one of the dozen TVs was playing anything but soccer. We alerted a nearby waiter to the issue, and though he appear to put forth mild effort to find the game, after about a minute or 2, he decided it was impossible and gave up. I was officially, SOL!

A bit defeated, we went back to the hostel. Instead of a lively bar with beer and live football, I watched delayed updates on a crappy iPad app. Yep, pretty sad.

The next morning after breakfast, we were forced to move rooms. Apparently this weekend was a Chilean long weekend and they were heading to Mendoza in droves and therefore, they had booked out our room (as we had decided last minute to stay an extra day). No problem here, we were upgraded to a suite for a discounted price, not bad! After settling in, we donned some workout clothes, yet again, and headed out for a nice looong run. This time, we ran from our place, to the lake, and around twice. 6.43 miles in about an hour, which we blame on the traffic to the park slowing us down! Suuuuure! ;)

After returning to the hostel and showering and cleaning up. We prepared a lovely champagne lunch and took care of some much needed planning for the upcoming trip of 4 Wisconsinites to Peru. I chatted to my brother and enjoyed the garden of the Hostel Lao in the lovely Argentinian sun. We passed several hours in this fashion, until we were ready to head out for a Friday happy hour. Now, while I understand that things in Argentina, especially bars, open late and stay open late, I cannot forgive or accept the fact that there are almost no choices of places to get a beer at 6pm on a Friday evening!! Such a disgrace. We settled on a convenience store that sold cheap beers and had a few tables set up outside. We polished off one litre together and made our way back down the street to see if anything else was open. 7pm, and still nothing. We decided to go back to our old faithful (even though they´re liars and don´t play football games when they promise they will be on) The Irish bar.

I had more of my cheap, yet delcious wine as Adrian enjoyed several varieties of local cerveza, until eventually I was again ready for dinner. On the menu tonight, Sushi!! We had a delicious sushi dinner over a bottle of Torrontes, that we had tried for the first time the day before.

We finished the night with a stroll and a stop for an ice cream to share (Malbec vanilla flavor, of course). It was the ending of a lovely 5 days in Mendoza. The following morning, we would be getting back on the bus for a much more reasonable bus trip of 6-7 hours... or so we thought...