Scratching The Itch

A quick overnight bus ride from Salta, and we were in Mendoza, the land of great Argentine wine.

Our main activity in this area was going on a famous bike and wine tour. Our tour company, Mr. Hugo’s Bike Rentals, was just our style. Mr. Hugo is pretty straightforward: you give his wife about $7, she gives you a decent bike and a map, and he gives at least 2 giant plastic cups of wine before you even get near the bikes.  He walks around with a glass pitcher full of cheap wine and flashes you the biggest grin when he gets to fill your glass. When you return from drinking wine all day, he gives you that big grin again and before you know it, you are drinking another (maybe 2) more cups of wine. 

Oh, the people you meet traveling. On the 45-minute bus ride out to Maipú (where all the vineyards are), I happened to sit down on the bus next to 3 interesting Israelis.  One spoke perfect English, and told me his American name was Tucker (after Tucker Max, the hilarious/crude/womanizing writer). That was not his real name; he proudly told me that he gets a new name in every country. He had been a sergeant in the Israeli army for 3 years and nonchalantly talked about killing people. He was talkative, and told me an interesting story about why he believes American women to be ‘hunters’. Apparently at some posh Southern California pool party he once attended, a girl had been checking him out form across the party. Later that night, the bikini-clad girl walked up to him and his circle of friends, sat down on his lap, pulled a tube of lipstick from her top, and wrote her name and number on his hairy chest. He was impressed but thought she was a slut.  He said he never called her. I couldn’t stop thinking about all that lipstick getting caught in his chest hair. He probably couldn’t even read the number. Plus, who wears lipstick to a pool party?

The second was a small, Brazilian guy who had been adopted and raised in Israel. He had somehow managed to track down his biological mother and was planning on showing up at her house and surprising her. He got drunk quickly and didn’t talk much. But I liked him because he kept giving me all the wine he couldn’t drink.

The third, my favorite, was definitely a little off. He had been a sniper in the Israeli Army and told me about shooting two Hamas members. I noticed he was wearing American flag socks with his combat boots, so I asked him why. He told how he was so inspired by a story he had read having to do with an American Navy Seal sacrificing himself for his friends in Iraq, that he decided he was going to become an American Navy Seal. He had put himself in contact with the father of the deceased soldier and was now planning a visit to the soldier’s grave. I found it strange that a foreigner would want to join the American Armed Forces, but he was absolutely adamant about it. He told me, “I like Americans for two reasons: you guys are real, there’s no bullshit. And you’re patriotic”.  Ok, I’m alright with that, I thought.

Our new Israeli friend with his American flag socks. 

The recommended tour consisted of 12 or so wineries, which is basically impossible to do in one day. Plus there are a few other non-wine related things on the tour, such as a microbrewery and a chocolate and liquor factory.  

You can see the eagerness on my face at our first wine tasting. 

Obviously, our first stop was the chocolate and liquor factory, where we were coaxed into trying a shot of pure absinthe, complete with caramelized sugar. Sure, it burned my throat, but I washed it down with some fresh, hand-made chocolate samples.

There’s nothing quite like the burn of absinthe. 

We leisurely rode our bikes as we basked in the sunshine and the views of seemingly infinite rows of grape vines. The tall poplar trees offered little shade, but they added a certain something to the feeling of small-town quaintness.

My favorite winery was Tempus Alba, a small, family run winery that has a terrace overlooking all their grape vines. I had a wine tasting and ended up buying a bottle (that says something about how good it is, because now I have to carry it in my backpack!). 

Thank God you have to pay for wine tastings because otherwise, I think there’d be a lot of flattened tourists and mangled bikes on the road. One would think that with all the bike-and-wine tourism, there’d be roads more suitable for bikes. Nope. No shoulders or bike lanes, just a two-lane stretch of road, that wasn’t completely paved.

The world through my eyes on my bike ride back. 

 I had several close encounters with some cars, one of which was the police car that drives around at the end of the day, you know, making sure the drunk tourists aren’t getting hit by cars. 

More pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jyeats/sets/72157625998909591