Our trip from Santiago to Mendoza was one of the best examples of Latin-America being on the "Latin time". Our bus was supposed to leave at 9.50 pm from Terminal del Sur. First of all the counter told us the bus will leave from the station 40 to 49. So could be whichever. The station was so overcrowded that you couldn't basically move, walk or stop anywhere. There were buses of different companies coming in and leaving the station every second. It was pretty chaotic. There was no El Rapido bus on time, at least we hoped there wasn't as it was quite hard to be sure when you don't know from where the bus is gonna go exactly. It got 10, then 10.15, we got a bit worried. There were some gentlemen trying to organize the masses of people yelling something into the loud speaker. Then again they had no idea about some El Rapido bus. "If it comes, it comes, then we'll know", they said. When it was 10.30 we were definitely worried. I went back to the counter inside the bus terminal. The lady there was calm like a cucumber. she just asked if I mean the 21.50 bus: "sure, sure it will come, just look for the yellow bus, it'll come somewhere". No sign of even acknowledging the fact that it has been late for 45 minutes. So we waited, and around 10.45 pm it actually came. Then it took ages to load all the people with their luggage on the board. It looked like people were moving, they had bought fans and tvs and boxes of inca kola.. we left way after 11pm, and nobody even winced their nose about it.
Just another quick note on buses in South-America. You have to be ready for anything. In Valparaiso, Chile, we tried to go to a nearby town Viña Del Mar. Told the bus driver even in advance that we want to go to the beach. I had my offline map open, so we also asked directly "can we get off here" when reached the beachfront. The driver replied 'no' and said something about a better place. Confused we waited for a few minutes seeing how we are moving away from the beach and towards the city centre. The driver was speeding like a maniac. We asked again, he didn't even notice, in another minute he stopped and said 'here, that's a main plaza, that's a very beautiful place, get off here'. Tried to argue with him some more, he shuddered and said snobbily he is not going back this way anyway, so you better walk.
Another interesting incident was in Mendoza where we had already taken bus number 171 to Maipu twice and suddenly one morning when the bus was half empty and we tried to get in the driver asked where we wanna go and said he is not going to Maipu. To our confused faces he didn't even add what other bus goes there this day. If I asked where he is going, he said "well, not there". Cheers, captain obvious. Thankfully local people are super helpful everywhere so we found our answers even without asking in the bus station.
Arrived at the Chile-Mendoza boarder at 2 am. It was really cold outside as it was high up in the Andes once again. I am so very thankful for the bus company, as in total the boarder crossing took about 4 hours, but we had to go out only twice, both times for about 15 minutes, the rest of the time they let the passengers sleep on the bus, even fed us coffee and cookies.
Mendoza is the fourth largest metropolitan area of Argentina, the population of the city itself is around 115 000. It's the heart and soul of Argentina's wine country, especially famous for its Malbecs and other red wines. It also belongs amongst the nine Great Wine Capitals.
We were just walking around on the first day and took a closer look of a Julio Quintanilla theatre on the Plaza Independecia, when a guard handed us a pamphlet about this months cultural events. That became our best friend, as in the same evening we headed to Nave Cultural centre for a tribute concert to Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Beatles. Two different local bands were playing and were both amazing.
We even stayed in town a few days longer because of the most unexpected find. There was an urban festival 'Hit tha Beat' going on for four days. Two days of workshops and two days of competitions. There were so many people and the level was really good. When buying the pass for the workshops (which was really cheap) every participant also brought some canned food or rice or macaroni or any other food to give to charity. What an amazing way to make a difference for a dance community! The teachers were from all around the world. Malcolm's house class, Franky Dee's hip-hop and Rafa Red Volcon's dancehall are within some of my all time favorite workshops probably. I have missed dancing a lot and these few days filled with different styles, inspiring words, beautiful choreographers and motivation were unbelievable. Such energy and love for dance was felt in the building these days. I feel really thankful for this opportunity.
What is not that unexpected, is that Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina and is surrounded by vineyards. The easiest to go without a really expensive tour is Maipu region. Basically, one has to buy a red card for bus tickets and ride a bus 171, 172 or 173 for about half an hour from downtown towards Maipu central. The best place to rent bikes FOR SURE is 'Maipu bikes'. You get a bottle of water for the ride and 2 empanadas and a 'glass' of wine after returning. The 'glass' always equaled around 4 bottles per company (we did go back three times). The owners are the nicest people ever.
During the day cycling around the vineyards you meet same people and sitting down at the base after closing always led to some fun conversations and a dinner later. We were somehow always the last to leave the base.
As we went to the area on three different days, we visited all of the vineyards in the area. The wine is good in all of them. In my opinion 'Trapiche' and 'Di Tomasso' give the best tours where you actually learn about different kinds of wines and a process of wine making a lot. It is also worth to do tastings in some of the smaller vineyards, as they are personal and have the cosiest yards to sit under the sun, enjoy the view and wine on a balcony overlooking the faraway mountains. The olive plantation is worth going for a tasting too as for 55 pesos you get to try 6 different oils, 3 vinegars and 2 pastes with a bunch of bread, olives and sundries tomatoes. I'm saying it's worth it and I don't even like olives.
Another place one shouldn't miss is the Tierra De Lobo distillery. The place doesn't make wine but makes alll kinds of amazing pure liqueurs and sweet fruit liqueurs. The owner is a very knowledgeable and generous person who takes his job passionately. Yet he was saying a lot of people don't visit the distillery as it is a wine district, but I believe you really should if you are interested in good quality alcohol. Also, if anybody is looking for a place to volunteer near Mendoza, he would appreciate some help!
One day we met with Ricardo through Couchsurfing. Before meeting him in the afternoon we decided to walk to the Parque General San Martin and hike Cerro de la Gloria. The park itself is bigger than Central Park in New York being almost 200 acres larger and offers a lot of spots for fun family activities. From the top of its highest peak it was a lovely view over the city and the nearby mountains. After a hike in the hot climate we decided to chill in the park and enjoy some excellent Mendoza Malbec. Time flies when having fun right, so at one point we discovered we are almost late. The walk back downtown would've take 50 minutes, we only had 30. So we hitchhiked. A lovely local guy took us to town in less than 10 minutes so we had time to sit down at a restaurant and open another Malbec.
Ricardo drove us around the city and to the suburbs. In one of the suburbs we found a Sunday festival with live music and dancing.
We wanted to couchsurf in Mendoza at first, but then we found a hostel deal on booking.com for Banana hostel where we had to pay less than 5$ per night. The hostel had so much potential. It has a bar, a pool, pool table and a huge yard with a sun deck. We were in a 6-bed-dorm but had it completely for ourselves the first 3 nights. For the first few days it was a bit too quiet and the stuff seemed very random. In the end tho we got some so fun people that we almost didn't wanna leave any more. Reading other people's hostel experiences I always know to stay objective, as so much depends on the company. For a couple days we would have been very annoyed at the place but at least we had Ria so always managed to stay above things and have our fun. PS: the hostel has great breakfast: pancakes, fruits, scrambled eggs with tomatoes and orange juice every morning. Coffee could've been better but it was manageable.
There was a 6.4 magnitude earthquake in San Juan on the day we were going to leave Mendoza. Tremors were felt in many other towns as well, Mendoza included. The living room of the hostel was shaking solid for a few seconds and we all had to left the inside for a few minutes. So that's another first for us. Sadly in Chile and that part of Argentina occasional tremors are very common.
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