After a 10 hour bus trip involving a painful border crossing into Argentina, we finally arrived into Mendoza. We took a taxi straight to our pre-booked accomodation only to find out that they also don't know how to use their booking system. They tried to deny us somewhere to sleep in their hostel even though we had the confirmation and had paid a deposit. I don't usually get angry but I may have snapped at her when she seemed indifferent to our situation, as being Easter Saturday there was nothing else available in the town (we got lucky finding this place). The lady then ran around, doing who knows what, walking passed us and throwing a hand in the air at us when we looked at her and kept on walking. Finally she came back and said she had a room usually for four people, which I didn't want to take because this lady had pissed me right off and I didn't want to give her my money but we had no other choice but to take it. In the end she turned out nice and apologetic for the situation.

Anyway... settled in, we left our bags and went out for dinner only to find that once again, Lonely Planet (our guide book) is outdated and untrustworthy as the vegetarian restaurant we tried to find had closed down. We found another though and enjoyed the fastest service we have ever seen and walked away afterwards regretting, not looking at the prices before we ordered. Not to worry though as we had a nice night.

The sole reason for coming to Mendoza is to drink wine and to eat good food. 70% of wine produced in Argentina is made in Mendoza. Being Easter though we weren't sure of opening hours of the vineyards and low and behold, they were closed on Easter Sunday. We had half expected this but were still a little put out. So with everything in town closed for the day, there was not a real lot to do except to relax in the Central Park. We found the only corner store open in town and bought a couple of bottles of wine and snacks. So for the next 5 hours we sat by the fountain in the sun, on the grass, surrounded by beautiful trees, listened to music the hippy artensans were playing and just... relaaaaaaaaxed... (We may have made another grog run in that 5 hours... haha) An early night followed ready for a day around the vineyards.

Bright and early (11am haha), we had some brekky and caught the town bus out to the vineyards. It was here we hired out a couple of bicycles from Mr Hugo. We had been recommended to this guy by a few other travellers and he did not disappoint. Upon arrival we were given bikes and big glasses of wine. As we drank this wine we saw signs around his yard letting us know that wine was free for his customers...Awesome!

We headed out on a route shown to us by Mr Hugo and first stop was, believe it or not, not a vineyard. We started it off by learning the process of producing olives, jam, mustards and liqueurs. It started off great with only 4 others in the tour, but it quickly became annoying with another 8 people joining in for the tastings making less for us. Not to mention the Israelis were just plain annoying. It was a good start though as we hadn't had much for brekky which was a bad idea with a day of drinking ahead.

We had planned to head to a Wine Museum next but given the current crowd we decided to pass on that knowing that they would all be attending too, so instead we went on a 15 minutes ride into the country and found ourselves at the largest vineyard in the country, Trapiche. We were late for the tour and so we were joined in for the tasting at the end (yes we became the annoying latecomers... shutup...haha). This facility was so beautiful with state of the art facilities and a beautiful landscape. The tasting room itself was stunning with an outlook over a lake and the vineyard. The wine was really nice and as it ended we stuck around for a few minutes enjoying our wine. We found ourselves the last people there and a young staff member came up with two small bottles of sparkling and said "Happy Honeymoon" hahaha. Why not! We sat out on the balcony and enjoyed these whilst taking in the amazing environment.

We found our stomachs grumbling and so headed to a beer garden we had been told about. It was more of an outdoor lounge area with nice, comfortable chairs, low tables, a great spot in a paddock/vineyard and great boutique beers. We enjoyed some food and ofcourse the beer for about an hour before realising that we didn't have long left before the vineyards would close. We drank up, paid the bill and worked out we only had time for one more vineyard. We looked at the map and remembered Mr Hugo telling us about the "oldest vineyard in the country"... Sounds good!

Unfortunately the map we held was a little deceptive. We rode for the next 30-40 minutes along the road stopping a few times and almost turning back. We were regretting our final choice of vineyard but thankfully we stuck to it and finally rode in and found we had missed the tour but made it for the final tasting of the day... Perfect! The wines were really nice again and it was a beautiful setting.

We procrastinated a little before heading back as we didn't want to face the long ride back to our mate Hugo. We took a few photos in the vineyard and then jumped aboard our bikes and began the ride home. Along the way we heard quite a few wolf whistles (the Argentinian men have a lot of class) and so I slowed my bike, raised my ass and asked if they liked what they saw. Apparently they were whistling at Kate but seemed a little put out that I would say otherwise. Haha!

As we rode into Hugo's we found everyone else who had hired bikes that day sitting around the garden drinking wine and chatting about their day's. We grabbed some wine and joined in. We sat here for the next few hours enjoying the company of other travellers and loving the free wine. We had quite a bit and got quite drunk and caught a bus back into town later on to get some food but given we had been drinking for the whole afternoon we weren't too keen on going out (they don't go out here until around 2am) so after dinner we called it a night. We stumbled into bed and pretty much passed straight out. It was a great day and we were only sad that we couldn't do it again the next day! The next day held in store, an amazing bus ride back across the border with throbbing heads.