Mendoza - January 23rd

The main reason why anyone comes to Mendoza is simple, wine.  This is the wine capital of Argentina, and a lot of the wineries in the surrounding countryside offer tours and tastings.  We were thinking about doing an expensive tour (about £100 GBP) but our hostel can sign us up to a cheaper one (about £40) so we decide to give that one a go.

One of the ‘benefits’ of this trip is that we will get picked up from our hostel, but this turns out to be a curse as we are one of the first groups picked up, which means we get a nice one hour bus ride around the city as everyone else gets picked up.  Eventually we head out to the first bodgea, Navarro Correas, which happens to be one owned by Diageo, of Guinness fame (our guide tells us this).  This is a slightly disappointing visit because of two things, the lack of enthusiasm of our guide and the crap wine they give us for tasting.  Our second and third wineries were much better, they were smaller and the guides had much more passion about their subjects.  The second winery, Vistandes, was a small modern winery, albeit with state of the art facilities, but they actually gave us decent wines.  And the third winery, Cavas del Don Arturo, was another small boutique winery which didn’t just give us decent wines, they gave us one of their best (so they say).

Of course some of this generosity through the day is because they know as we get more pissed we buy more wine.  Well that is except for the backpackers like us.  But all the locals with their cars back in Mendoza were stocking up on the wine.  After the tasting was finished (and apparently it has to be done in the morning when the palette is fresh), we went for lunch in a local restaurant.  This had been sold as having more foods that you could try, and we all scoffed at that idea.  But actually it was true. The lunch was a tapas type lunch with over 40 dishes on the table, 7 or 8 types of meat, a similar number of cheeses, and at least a dozen vegtable dishes.  Add to this 5 sauces, a few breads, 2 types of empanadas, a rice dish and a pasta dish, and they pretty much made the 40 dishes.  It was an amazng spread, and given the food must have cost £20, the wine at least £10,it made the whole day really good value.

When we got back to the hostel at 16:30 all we could do after that food and wine was have a siesta.  This was good because in the evening we were going to go to a football match.  The match was a local pre-season friendly (actually mid-season friendly but the leagues over here are strangely organised) between San Lorenzo (one of the big 5 Buenos Aries teams) and San Martin, a local team from nearby San Juan playing only their third season in the top flight.  We were going to the match with one of the staff from the hostel, and a friend of his.  They don’t let us go on our own.  We met up at 20:00 for the match, even though it didn’t kick off until 22:00.  This is because usually there are massive queues at the security gates, but for this match there wasn’t actually a big crowd, so we got through fairly easily.  I say that, but the search was thorough.  We had already left most of our possessions in the hostel for pickpocketing safety (again not an issue with this turnout) but anything which looked like something we could use as a weapon or throw onto the pitch would have been taken.  I had a pen in my pocket which I had forgotten about, and it was taken, the policeman who took it was kind enough to demonstrate to me that how could be used to stab someone.

Once inside the stadium all you can get to eat is the local speciality of Choripan, which is a chorizo hot dog.  It is some sort of tradition; you could set up stalls selling other stuff but nobody would buy it.  I’m not going to give too much of a match report, it was a boring first half although San Martin took the lead about 5 minutes before half time.  The second half was better, San Martin scored again, then San Lorenzo had a man sent off for an outrageous off the ball revenge punch.  However this woke them up and they scored twice to level, but then in extra time San Martin scored to win 3-2.  Quite entertaining for us neutrals, although as we were in the San Lorenzo end (this was deemed by the hostel to be the safer end – as it is more neutral, San Martin is a local rival of Mendoza) there was disappointment all around.  However you wouldn’t know it, the fans sang all the way through.  Also you woulnd’t have known there were only a few thousand of them, they made a lot of noise (more than an entire Emirates crowd at an Arsenal match).  The match finished at one minute to midnight, which is the latest I’ve ever been in a football stadium at, and which means the walk home falls into tomorrow’s blog.