Back to Argentina: wine festival in Mendoza and Buenos Aires second time around

Mendoza had been destroyed by an earthquake. No, not so recently but recently enough that the city planners, rather pessimistic ones (or realistic¡?) decided to rebuild the city with the presumption that another earthquake would hit sooner or later. The new Mendoza ended up with wide streets and loads of green plazas as escape ways for the citizens - you can imagine that this makes the city also look quite nice :)

Our hostel wasn't too special but for one night it would do just fine. Mendoza's activities consisted mostly of wine tasting. And when I say mostly, I mean solely! Even skydiving was advertised: "Wine tasting in the air!"...really? Well, this meant that most tourists would do day trips to various wineyards around the city. Since I don't drink wine this would've felt a bit silly but we were lucky, the wine came to us! We happened to be in the city for the last day of the annual wine festival Vendimia! Chris got to enjoy all those great wines for a ridiculously small amount of money: 10 euros for 4 glasses of the premium wines (plus all the extra glasses that the generous wine promoters would hand out).

Hostel in Mendoza

Lush parks

Lunch in a great bistro

And accidentally in this big wine tasting crowd we bumped into a familiar face. This face belonged to a German guy called Martin whom we met first in Puerto Varas (we stayed in the same hostel), then randomly on the street in Santiago and now here! Small world it is but that shouldn't be news to anyone anymore. We spend the rest of the wine festivities with him and a(n international) bunch of people from his hostel. Was a fun evening, but not such a long one since I could hardly hear anything: my ears were so blocked by the stupid flu.

Next evening we hopped into an overnight bus to the lovely city of Buenos Aires. As usual, the bus was luxurious and provided us with decent sleep. But now it was kind of the half way of the trip: the first part in the south was done and the second part was about to begin. I guess we were a bit tired, it's not always just relaxing even though it's a holiday and when we heard that our dear friend Julio would let us use his other flat, we were psyched! Our own apartment with everything we needed and in the middle of San Telmo, a familiar nice area. Perfect. We met Julio in a cafe near the flat, he showed us the place and then we all enjoyed a great lunch in an Indian restaurant. The rest of the day we just spend in the flat, watching tv and chilling: a holiday indeed!

Home chilling with dinner and tv!

Mafalda sitting on the bench right next to our home! Spotting celebrities ;)

Next day we did get a grip and left the flat to meet Julio and Romina for lunch in Palermo. We walked all the way and enjoyed the busy streets of BA. Lunch was great and it was so nice to see Julio and Romina again. PLUS we got to meet Julio's father and brother, such nice people. We were sad to stay just two nights this time but we decided to try to come back for a bit longer before our flight back home. After lunch we had to say bye to J & R and so we continued walking, first to the Japanese garden (where some monsterous fish lived...hrrr) and then to the beautiful, pompous graveyard of Recoletta (where I hope no monsterous things lived anymore...hrrr).

Lunch with Julio and Romina!

Sooo cuuuuteee aka small stuff at the Japanese garden

Jardin Japones

Monsters beneath the surface

Cemetary

Evita





We walked back home and the next day we packed BUT this time, only some of the stuff! Julio had nicely promised to take care of our tent, trangia, my massive sleeping bag etc. which we left behind with ambivalent feelings: I was relieved not having to carry so much stuff with me (it made such a difference!!!) but it also meant that no more camping with our dear Akka or cooking with the perfectly handy trangia...end of an era on the trip. Before hopping on to the boat to Uruguay, we had invited Julio and Martin (the German from Varas, Santiago and Mendoza) over for breakfast! We made loads of pancakes but unfortunately the breakfast ended up being short because both the guests got stuck in traffic and soon we had to leave already :/ Still, it was supernice. I <3 Buenos Aires!

Breakfast with Martin And Julio!