We left San Martin and headed out into the middle of the Patagonian pampas and before night fall, we watched as the landscape changed from the high mountains to the flat lands characteristic of the pampas. After "so long" (of after what felt like that) in the high mountains and lakes of the Lake District, it was novel to see that there was another type of landscape to travel through! Here was that land that makes Argentinean beef the best in the world. Flat, lush and without any predators. Bovine bliss and paradise!

Mendoza lies in the rain shadow of the Andes, so the surrounding region is dry, dusty and arid. The reason that Mendoza exists is due to the water that runs off the snow capped Andes that stand as a backdrop. After the rain and cold of our last day in San Martin de los Andes, the dry, warm tree lined streets of the old town were a welcome relief. A chance to dry off, at least.

Any urban area located near the tectonically active Andes will, at some stage at least, feel the wrath of the forces that lie dormant in the elastic sheets of rock that we all think of static and lifeless. Mendoza is no different. It too has felt the awesome power unleashed from below and suffered for it. When the city was rebuilt, the forefathers decided on very wide streets. It would allow people to escape collapsing buildings and there would still be space for the building to collapse without further loss of life.

The combination of its shady tree-lined and wide streets gives Mendoza a very relaxed feel. With the warm and dry weather, outdoor cafe culture is king. Add in the Argies love of a late night, then you have the ingredients of a very cool place to be for a few days. But not being people to just soak up the atmosphere and ambience, we decided that we needed to add a little bit of excitement to our dull and dreary lives.

Since Mendoza is home to the malbec cultivar and is practically the capital of Argie wine, we decided that we needed to continue our wine education. But with a twist. Take a local bus that might get us to the little suburb where most of the bodegas are based around, find some bikes to rent (after the obligatory ice-cream reward stop) and hit the road and get tasting!

Where wine tasting in South Africa, Australia and Tasmania are big attractions and have been geared up to treat travelling wine-tasters as royalty; in Argentina it seems as if getting people to actually come and pay to try the wine is something that happens to be tacked on. The bodegas out here are still a little rough around the edges and nobody follows a set rhythm. One bodega's tasting is a full glass of wine and a brief explanation and then left to your own devices; whereas another is a small corner of the cellar and one or two uniformed ladies explaining the five different cultivars and vintages and organising the wine sales while the international award winning vinter is in her office just behind.

Here it seems as if you are tasting the wine right in the heart of the operation and so a real connection is made and appreciated, while in the other places that see hundreds of thousands of travelling tasters a year it seems like what you are tasting has no connection to the vineyard you happen to be on. But either way, you get to try some pretty good wine. Add a bike, a heavy rain shower, a good few kilometres and the wine just tastes that little bit finer! Not to be outdone was the olive farm and tasting that we had to try. Twisting our rubber arms was necessary to get us there and try the freshly baked bread drenched in olive oil with a slice of sun-dried tomato. After a "hard" day's cycling and wine-tasting, we needed to refuel. We are elite athletes, after all!

But we were not satisfied to just see Mendoza from the back of bike, so we decided that we needed to see it from the air too! With extremely consistent thermals and a handy range of mountains nearby, paragliding is big in Mendoza and so we decided to see for ourselves what it is like to fly like the birds!

But to get to the mountain top takes a little bumpy dusty journey up a rough and ready road where as you bounce around in the back, you hold on whatever you can get hold of and watch the ground tumble away into the depths! Clearly the guys we would be flying with carried on talking and laughing. Obviously they had done this before!

Helmet on! Camera tried on! Instructions received - do as I say and just run down the mountain and don't stop until I say! Sit back and enjoy the ride.

As you sprint down the mountain and the angle of the slope becomes steeper and steeper, you feel the thermals catch the wing and suddenly you are running like a cartoon character over an abyss and you are free. There is nothing to hear up here save your laughter, the occasional comment from your pilot and the whisper of the wind as it caresses the wing above you!

It is nothing short of magical to be able to glide above ridge tops mere feet below you or reach out and touch the sides of a hill as you sweep past! The ends of your finders may well be the end of wing feather tips and your toes in the end of your shoes could be talons seeking and the wind across your neck could quite easily be ruffling the feathers found there. And up here the view is immense and the horizon just a thermal away.

Looking round you see the others of your kind riding the thermals and making sweep arcs in the air; an aerial ballet of boundless grace and beauty that keeps you absolutely fixated on the beauty of flight and a deeper understanding for man's eternal quest to reach for the skies and perhaps touch the face of God himself, somewhere up there.

If this flying, then I want more of the same!