With the cold winter seemingly tracking us northwards, our arrival to the sun-kissed Argentine city of Mendoza marked a welcome change to the wild colds of Patagonia. I was pleasantly surprised at how broad and tree-lined the streets were in town centre, despite an over-saturated number of cars, buses, smoking pedestrians and sidewalk litter.
Mendoza´s famous red Malbec wine region is older than its relatives in California’s Napa Valley and less commercialized than its cousins in France with many local wineries offer taste-testing tours to visitors. Despite being more expert at downing "liquados" (ie. milkshakes) than your average "vino", Nicole and I took to touring the vineyards and olive oil plantations via hired mountain bikes; a backpacker favourite which made for easy photography along the way.
Of course, I hadn´t done anything so stupid as mixing alcohol with bike-riding since my brave trip to/from the Heineken museum in Amsterdam in ´05, but at least this time there weren´t countless water canals and tram-tracks to watch out for :)Much more is on offer for visitors due to the city´s close geographical location to the wild Diamante, Atuel and Rio Mendoza rivers with possibly the best white-water rafting in Argentina, however it´s close proximity to the Andes and more specifically Cerro Aconcagua, "Roof of the Americas" at 6982m is the big drawcard for adventure enthusiasts around the world; although only the most hardened mountaineers set out to conquer the highest peak outside Asia over a 4 week long slog into -30 degree weather.
High winds made contemplating the 5 day ´Aconcagua Base Camp´ trek un-walkable, so we made our way to see the mountain and it´s surrounding desolate scape of peaks via tourist bus, which gave plenty of informative details and photograph opportunities of the area.
