The bus trip from Santiago to Mendoza was an approximately 8 hour ride up and over the Andes mountains from Chile to Argentina. It was supposed to be pretty amazing scenery, so I wanted to catch a morning bus to be able to take it all in. However, when I was looking at buses on the Internet there only seemed to be night buses, which seemed a little strange. So, I thought I would just leave it until I got to Santiago, and figure it all out then. Well, as it turns out, the road was being repaired, and was down to one lane in a long stretch. Therefore in all their wisdom, they decided to only allow westbound traffic during the day, and eastbound traffic (my direction) during the night. Isn't that strange? In North America we would usually see an hour in one direction followed by an hour in another, or something like that in this scenario, I would think? Any ways, this was the first of my many South American transportation adventures / challenges / nightmares to come.

So, the real cool section of the road we did not get to until well after dark, but even at night you could tell this is an amazing sight. This is where the road basically winds its way up (way up!) the side of an Andes mountain, out of Chile to the Argentina border. See below for a picture during the daytime. It was pretty dark at this time though, so I did not get any pictures. I guess it's a famous stretch of road, as I was able to find that picture on the internet pretty easily. Any ways, I am traveling in one of the huge double-decker long distance buses, and there are a couple of local middle age (20-30ish) women beside me with a small 2-3 year old. The road is down to one lane at this point, and we are on the new section of the road, about half way up the hill. The road is in a not quite finished state, where it drops about 4-5 inches between the new pavement and the dirt side of the road.

Well, coming around one of the really tight corners, I think the driver probably misjudged his turn. All of a sudden, he slowed down the bus, and then came to a complete stop. My guess, he could not make the corner without going off the pavement. That's probably not something he wanted to do in a big bus like that on a high incline. I am sure it would be hard to get back on the road, not to mention the massive drop offs on either side of the road. So, we are stopped on a massively sharp, steep corner, and there is only a space of maybe 5-10 feet from the pavement behind us to an at least 100 foot drop. Then the bus lurches backwards a few feet and then stops sharply. Everyone on the bus is wide awake and chattering anxiously. The bus lurches back another couple of feet and then stops abruptly again. The women next to me starts crying softly. The bus driver then puts it back into forward, and tries to continue up the corner, but the engine stalls. The woman is now crying loudly, and thus the baby has woken up and joins in the crying. This was the point where my heart / stomach / not sure what, just clenched up as well. I don't know much about those big buses but stalling did not seem like a good thing!! Luckily though, within like 20 seconds the bus restarted a second time, and with this he went forward slowly, made the corner, and we proceeded on our way. I tell you though, that was a mighty long 20 seconds at the time. Minutes afterwards, the fear was gone for me, and I got that adrenaline rush I like from danger sports. Not so for the women next to me who continued to cry softly for almost 10 minutes.

So Mendoza was not what I expected. It a dirty dusty run down city of only about 100K?, but with traffic for what seems like a million people. Everywhere you walk in the center the traffic is horrendous. But luckily the best thing to do in Mendoza is to get out of it and tour the surrounding wineries. So after a 45 minute bus ride to an area by the town of Maipo, and renting a bike from "Mr Hugo's Bikes", I was off to see some of the dozen wineries in a 4 km radius.

They were all so nice that I ended up only visiting 3, and an olive oil factory. At the first winery I tried a flight of red wines, and I think they were all quite good. Of course I love the Malbecs as they always seem to be good. But I did notice through the 3 wineries and the tasting flights that I had, that there were at least a couple that I liked even better. I think they were usually their premium lines, a mixture of the grapes (Malbec, Pinot, Cabernet) that the wine "chef" determines is the best for that years grapes. These were usually excellent. Expensive, comparably, but very good wines. I don't think any of those were exported to Canada though. Mostly they export to the US, with some Canada and Europe. At one winery I also had a flight of all Malbecs. They were all good, similar, but you could taste the differences.

The best thing about the wineries, besides the wine, was the setting. It was so nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of Mendoza, and the horrible traffic that was everywhere, even in the streets between the wineries. Once you were in each of the wineries I went to, it was like you were in another world. It was quiet, peaceful, and very relaxing. You were usually in the middle of the grape vines, with views of nothing but vines as far as you could see. They often had outside terraces built up one level, with plenty of shade, where I just sat and enjoyed my taste testing.

One winery was also a kind of museum, where they had the history of wine making in that region. It covered from when the Spanish came and it was only produced for religious purposes, through to when they first started commercial production, all the way up to their current practices, including touring their harvesting methods, the vats, etc. It was quite informative and interesting. The olive oil producer was also very interesting, giving a little tour of how it's produced. Afterwards there were samples of various olives oils, some local balsamic vinegars (including a Malbec balsamic, which was amazing), various flavored olive pastes which were very good, and then some locally made chocolates for desert. The perfect ending to day of wine tasting.

So after delivering my wine wobbling bike back to Mr Hugo, that was by far the best day in Argentina. Everything else was kind of disappointing in Argentina. Cordoba and Salta were also similar to Mendoza, being dusty, dirty, and having horrific traffic.