Day 2 - Mendoza

We decided to rent bikes and check out some nearby wineries, so we found a rental place in town and took off for Maipu, a town a few miles away that has many of the bodegas, as they are known in these parts. Our first stop was La Rural, which we had heard has a great wine museum. It was a little further than we had expected, and we had to pull out the map a few times to navigate the countryside, which isn't nearly as developed or paved as our own version of wine country, but in the early afternoon, we were tasting some great wine. Our favorite was the Rutini Malbec, which is apparently sold in the US under the name Felipe Rutini Malbec, so go find it and give it a try.


Unfortunately, this Friday was some holiday in Mendoza, and the rest of the wineries we tried to visit were closed. After biking to two or three more places only to find that there was no wine waiting for us, we started the long trek home. It was good to get some exercise after days of sitting in planes and busses, but if we had known, we would have drunk more at the first place :) Almost everything outside Mendoza seemed to be closed, but we did find one place close to the city where we shared a large beer.


At night, we decided to walk to Azafran, a highly recommended restaurant in our guideboook. When we got there, they were temporarily full, but they had a tasting room where they said we could drink and wait for a table if it was ok with the people already inside. Fortunately for us, the people inside were three Canadians who were so much fun that we ended up spending the rest of the evening with them. David and Patrick had come to South America together from Toronto, and they had been in Mendoza tasting wine for a week. They had just met John that night in the same tasting room, and it just happened that he was from Toronto as well. He had actually been in South America for almost 6 months. We all hit it off right away and began sharing the many excellent wines that were stored all around this tasting room. Pretty soon, we were getting a little drunk and talking about everything from travel stories to climate change. The others had already eaten, but they let me and Dee eat in that room. The food, wine, and company were all excellent.


At some point late in the night, drunk and full, the five of us all headed back to the street we had been on the previous night. We ended up back at the same restaurant, this time drinking wine inside. David and Patrick were taking a plane to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuega early the next morning, but they weren't going to let that stop them. Dee and I finally left all three of our newfound friends around four in the morning as they got into a cab to go to a club in another part of town. We hope they had a great rest of the night.