Mendoza

We're deep in wine country now, and back in the hot summer weather. Supposed to be 36 degrees C today, ouch. Mendoza is located right in the desert, but you wouldn't know it by all the trees and the giant park. Thanks to a complex irrigation system devised by the indigenous Huarpe people that runs throughout the entire city, Mendoza looks like it gets rain, when in fact, less than 200 mm falls per year.


Yesterday we rented bikes in Maipu, a town just a short bus ride south of Mendoza, and did a self-guided tour of the wineries in the area. It was fun, but sooooo hot. Couldn't tote any cases of wine back on the bikes, but I seriously considered trying.

On the way back, we had to take 2 different buses. The first one, from Coquimbito to Maipu, went fine (well, except the bus overheated and we had to transfer), but then we got on the wrong "9" bus, and ended up going all the way to the bus terminal, into the center of Mendoza, and started heading towards Godoy Cruz (far from where we were staying). Ended up getting off at a Walmart (joy!), and had to pay for a cab back to the hotel. The ordeal took probably 3 hours when it should have only taken 1. Sadly, this sort of thing happens to us all the time, so we weren't too surprised, even though we were just as pissed as usual.