March 3rd; Happy birthday Paulo! And Annie tomorrow xxx
Having a chill day in Mendoza, the wine capital of Argentina...indulging ourselves just a little.....
Some really sad news yesterday - my tenant Svein in unit 9, collapsed and died suddenly after a run, only early 30’s...a really nice guy with Master’s in IT...remembered fondly flying his model spy plane around the garden controlled by his laptop....
I wasn’t sad to leave Santiago behind (just another big city), but for future visits it would be a great base for beaches, boats and boards of all sorts. When are you getting that job Chooey?
We pushed Gus across an intersection to jolt her back to life, then headed west, past our first glimpses of cactii, towards the mountains,.....climbing slowly to 3200m over a pass that kept curling back on itself like a ribbon. The landscape took on a lunar quality.....barren, rocky, desolate.
TJ stopped Gus near number 24 of 29 curves for a roadside lunchbreak.... on a slope for a slightly hairy reverse clutch start. We jumped out for a scamper up a little and a view of Aconcagua, SA’s highest peak at 7000m... all were short of breath and weak in the legs after only a couple of minutes...the altitude is going to take some getting used to.
10kms in no man’s land across the Chile/ Argentina border before we were held up for 4 hrs in border crossing while the guys searched for some obscure document re Gus they’ed not been asked for before. We caused quite a stir pushing Gus through the customs area....
Finally arrived in Mendoza, a really pretty town in a huge dry valley at the foot of the Andes, patchworks of vineyards everywhere, laden with grapes.... they are flood irrigated by Andean snow melt collected in a dam an hour out of town....malbec is the most renowned grape here, but we are introduced to new varieties, and the Chardonnay is superb....
4 of us indulged ourselves with a winery tour and enormous gourmet picnic lunch at the vineyard where Sarah Tomlinson worked for a few months. All the grapes are hand picked...it’s sensual feast with the smells of ripe grapes, fermenting juice, lush vineyards... It would be awesome to see this place in the Autumn and in winter... the seasons are so extreme... (hence the great wine)
We headed out last night for a degustation dinner at another old vineyard on the edge of town....clay oven baked lamb with pea risotto a standout..
The guys finally found help for Gus...it’s the alternator, not the starter motor, and we’re given an extra day here in Mendoza while she undergoes some running repairs; the guys also managed to find a compressor for the fridge on board, so our diet may improve somewhat......
The downside is now a 16 hour day straight to an estancia where we’ll camp for 3 nights ....we were to have 2 days en route with a bush camp in between....
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