Week 35: Argentina

This week was filled with beautiful places to explore, delicious wine to taste, and a lot of great people to hang out with!

Top 9 Highlights This Week:

We spent quite a bit of time on buses! Ok, this is not necessarily a “highlight”, but we did manage to sit beside a great couple (Ali and Jord) to chat with for a few hours of our 19-hour overnight bus from Bariloche to Mendoza. This bus provided us with dinner and a snack. We also had a less enjoyable 16-hour overnight bus ride from Mendoza to Tucuman, where we were not given any food or drink, and happened to be sitting with a pretty rowdy crowd of locals. However, we followed it up with a beautiful 5 ½ hour bus ride that took us from Tucuman through Valle de Tafi to get to Cafayate.

We explored Mendoza for the better part of three days! We had a really fun, helpful couple running our hostel, and many other great couples staying there to hang out with too.

We visited Termas Cacheuta, hot springs found just outside of Mendoza. We had no idea these existed here before arriving in Mendoza. We love happening upon great activities in new places! At Termas Cacheuta, we were treated to at least 20 different pools of various sizes and heat levels, a lazy river, and a splash pad, all nestled in amongst some beautiful mountains. While driving to and from the hot springs, we even had views of Aconcagua (6960m), the tallest mountain in the southern hemisphere!

We explored wineries in Mendoza and Cafayate. With Argentina boasting more than 1500 wineries and this being the main wine region, there were tons to choose from! Many of the wineries were tucked away in beautiful areas outside of town, but we found many scattered throughout town too. When we were in Mendoza, we travelled by train to Maipu, where we toured Bodega Lopez (in Spanish). In Cafayate, we enjoyed the stunning views from El Esteco and the delicious torrento at Bad Brothers. This region is best known for their torrento and malbec. Tours and tastings had a tendency to be on the pricey side, so although we enjoyed walking around some of the wineries, I also enjoyed purchasing bottles to share with others away from the wineries.

We loved Cafayate right away. This small town is nestled in the mountains, and is filled with a lot of kind people, a few lovely markets, and great restaurants. It was here that we finally tried the famous Argentinian bife, which certainly lived up to it’s reputation! Another night, we crashed a 15^th birthday party (the ‘big deal’ birthday here in Argentina) and joined the crew for singing and cake. Between our hostel and the local panaderias, we enjoyed a lot of fresh bread. With it being wine country, we also managed to find torrento and malbec ice cream that required some sampling.

We continue to work on learning more Spanish. In addition to short conversations with locals, we are listening to a podcast (Coffee Break Spanish) and playing a game (Duo Lingo) to practise.

We were turned away from a hike. While in Cafayate, we attempted to do a hike between seven waterfalls with some new friends (Marielle and Jerome), but we ran into some locals who insisted on us having a guide. We opted to do a different trail instead, and enjoyed the time in the mountains. Along this trail, we met a really friendly local man who invited us to join him in horseback riding and wine tasting.

We toured incredible rock formations. We explored ten of the most incredible rock formations within 46km of Cafayate. We had a funny guide who only spoke Spanish, and an awesome group to travellers to hang out with. No more words... the photos speak for themselves!

As with most of our weeks, we walked a lot. Near the beginning of the week, we walked the streets of Maipu and Mendoza. We joined a Tours for Tips walking tour of downtown Mendoza, where we met a bunch of great people to hang out with for the afternoon. Fun fact: there are 100 000 trees planted in Mendoza that are completely reliant on an irrigation system that runs throughout the city. Without this water, not a tree would survive in this desert! We have just found that walking is an amazing way to get a sense of a new place, and it helps keep us on a budget! As we walk in town, we also check out cafes and restaurants, scoping out the best places to treat ourselves with ice cream and happy hours!

Act of kindness: We had acts of kindness scattered throughout this week. We had so many offers to help from staff and guests at our hostels, and we had so much fun hanging out with lots of different people all week long!