Yesterday we went to visit the vineyards and wineries for which the Mendoza area is famous. We could have went on an organised tour but instead we decided to go with three other people from our hostel, Gareth and Jared from New Zealand and Kye from the US.

Supposedly, it was simple to find the bike hire place from our hostel using the local buses. However, this was far from the case. We left the hostel at 9 and caught a bus which we thought would drop us off right out side of Mr. hugo's where we would be hiring our bikes. After being told to leave the bus at the final stop, we wandered around town trying to locate the elusive Mr. Hugo with no joy. Eventually, we managed to work out that we needed to catch another bus for about 15 minutes to hire our bikes. I anyone is ever doing this then get the number 10 bus and not the number 9 bus from Mendoza!!

After getting our bikes from the legendary Mr. Hugo, we headed off in search if our first stop which was to be the olive oil place. However, it was not just olive oil which thy produced. They produced vinegars, jams and alcohol which we all go a taste of and was excellent. The balsamic vinegar and the some of the alcohol were particularly good. Kye opted for an absinthe shot as this is banned in the US. Not sure how I would have fared trying to ride a bike after having some absinthe.

The second place we visited was the Di Tommasso winery. This was about 10 km from our first stop along the main road which was a bit hairy at times given that there are massive trucks flying past you!! This winery was one of the smaller, family run wineries which was really interesting to visit. Even though it was one of the smaller wineries, the vineyards stretched as far as the eye could see and they produce 30,000 bottles of wine a year. The tour was really interesting and to cap it off we got to taste four of the wines produced there. They were all pretty good even though I still can't really taste the difference between a 10 peso bottle of wine an a 60 peso bottle of wine!! We had again taken food to save some cash so the others had some food here and we then ate our packed lunch while we the others headed to another winery.

What turned out to be our final stop was the Tempus Alba winery. This was a small self guided tour followed by some tasting of your choice. Beth opted for a class of rosé which was pretty generous for £1.80 and I went for a three taste selection of some red wines. They were all really good and we hurriedly finished them to try to visit a final winery which was the biggest in the area. Unfortunately, we didn't make it in time so we headed back to Mr. Hugo to give our failing bikes back.

Although we didn't get to see everywhere we wanted, the tour was excellent and it was really good to do it ourselves with some others from the hostel. If we had not of booked our onward bus out of Mendoza then the best thing to do would be to split this over two days and visit as much of the wineries as possible. They would be two pretty drunk days though!!!

After getting the bus back to Mendoza and a quick visit to the supermarket, Jared kindly made us all tea of spaghetti bolognese. This was by far the best meal we have had in our hostels (apologies to the chef!!!). Beth was pretty knackered after the days excursions so I polished off most of the bottle of red we had purchased at the supermarket and slept like a baby.

This morning, we needed to was to the cashpoint early so we could pay for our room. True to form, this cashpoint was out of order which meant we had to go right into the middle of town on the rain to withdraw some cash. Someone was grouchy as she had not had a cup of tea but I won't mention her name. We are just sitting in the hostel now with the exciting prospect of an 18 hour bus journey to Salta.