When we arrived at the Mendoza bus station, Lauren and I grabbed our bags and headed to a corner to reorganize our stuff so we could carry it more easily. While we were standing there, a man came up behind us and started to grab Lauren’s daypack. I turned around immediately, preparing to punch him.

It was Taylor.

We had convinced Taylor and Shosha to join us in Mendoza for a long weekend vacation from Buenos Aires for wine tasting. The Lonely Planet had described Mendoza as the Napa Valley of Argentina, and we were excited to be enjoying California at non-California prices.

We all headed into the city to get a hostel. The first place we stopped was a little out of our price range. Across the street the rooms were cheaper and, they told us, there was a jacuzzi! We still thought it was expensive so we sent Lauren out on a search for more places. She came back 20 minutes later and told us that the cute, young-people’s hostel was cheap but booked for the night, and an older people’s hotel was also cheap but, well, older.

We decided to go for the jacuzzi so we sent Lauren and Shosha back into the hotel again to book us into the rooms. They came back 2 minutes later and told us there was only one room with a jacuzzi. We still decided to go for it, so Lauren and Shosha went back in. They came back out 2 minutes later.

“We’re not staying here,” Lauren said.

“Why not?” Taylor and I asked.

“The bedrooms looked like an extension of the bathroom, the floors were tiled, the rooms are small and smell like bleach and the room with the jacuzzi has two twin beds, not a double,” Shosha told us.

We all agreed those were deal breakers so we walked down the street to the old people’s place.

After checking in, we went out for a lunch of empanadas and then to find out about wine tasting options. At the information center, we discovered that the wineries were closing by 6 (in only a couple of hours) and that only one is open on Sundays (the next day). Bummed, we made plans to go wine tasting on Monday and started bumbling about the city.

While Shosha, Taylor and Lauren were talking with the information center guide, I was picking up flyers for various things to do around the city, including two flyers for wine shops in the city. We decided that if we couldn’t go to the wineries, at least we should pick up a bottle for a midday wine-and-cheese snack.

We headed to the first place only to discover that it was closed for the next two hours for siesta. (Yes, they really close their businesses for two hour in the middle of the day to sleep. Probably because they drank to much wine at lunch.)

When we arrived at the second wine shop, we discovered it wasn’t a wine shop but a winery with tastings. We all agreed to do the tasting and split a bottle at the end (it was obligatory to buy a bottle or pay for the tasting). With the tasting, we got a “tour.”

The tour guide only spoke Spanish, but Shosha did an amazing job translating everything, telling us about why the bottles had to be stored on their sides (the wine needs to be in contact with the cork), that the walls were one meter thick because Mendoza has frequent earthquakes, and that one can make white wine with a red grape — its the peel that gives the wine its color.

After the tour, we sampled several wines, including some “young” sweet wines and maybe the most dry Cabernet Sauvignon I’ve ever tried. We settled on one of the sweeter white wines that the guide suggested would go well with cheese.

Shosha and Taylor had some bread, cheese and tomatoes on them from their bus trip, so we went to the grocery store and picked up a little more cheese and bread and headed back to our hotel to drink our new wine. At the hotel, they let us use their dining room and we all pigged out on the food.

Afterwards, we were all ready for our own siesta. Which we took. For the next two hours.

When we woke up around eight, we went out and found a street lined with bars and picked one. Shosha and Taylor ordered a massive plate of cheese fries, but Lauren and I, trying to watch our weight, were able to resist and only eat one or two (or three). We split two more bottles of Mendoza’s wine before calling it a night. (That only amounts to a little more than 2 glasses per person.)

The next morning, we all slept in. We headed to a central market for lunch, where Shosha and Taylor tried the Mexican food while Lauren and I split a lomito sandwich.

After lunch, we all called our mothers for Mother’s Day. Then we decided to head towards the park, famous for being larger than the city itself. We didn’t have a map but knew the general direction from the Lonely Planet. As we were walking, herds of teenage boys who were obviously coming from a soccer (football) game were walking towards us, away from the park. At first there were a dozen or so, and then more and more started coming.

Feeling outnumbered and a little nervous (soccer fans in South America have a reputation for getting pretty rowdy), we decided to cross the street where no one was walking down the sidewalk. Not half a block after we crossed the street we heard a loud bang beside us. We looked and realized that one of the teenagers had hurled a very large stone at us from across the street.

We immediately decided to get off of the road, cutting over one block. As we kept walking, however, we didn’t see the park. There was some greenery beside us, but it looked more like overgrown parking lots than a park. And on our right were military barracks guarded by teenage soldiers with huge guns.

After a few more blocks we considered turning around. We saw a girl walking down the street by herself and sent Shosha to ask her where the park was. She told us to go another block and take a left, back in the direction of the soccer fans.

We did and quickly stumbled into the park (sans soccer fans). It’s fall in Mendoza, so the trees were turning colors and leaves were falling, making it beautiful.

Soon we came upon a plaza, filled with kids, cotton candy and a carousel. We got some cotton candy but skipped the carousel, although Taylor did take a trip down the slide.

We hung out in the park until it started getting cold and headed back to our hotel, exhausted from the 4-5 mile walk we had been on during the day.

That night, we went out for Middle Eastern food. We all split hummus and babagonoush, which so little resembled hummus and babagonoush I wasn’t sure which was which. Lauren and I got shwarmas while Taylor and Shosha went for the vegetarian option: falafel.

That night, we went out to another bar, this one slightly more swanky. We almost left because the wine was so expensive, but to keep us there, they gave us a discount for a nice bottle. For reasons I can’t remember, Lauren annoyed me and I decided that it would be appropriate for me to push her off of the booth we were sitting in. She tried to stop me, but I finally managed to kick her off — and she went flailing across the floor, whacking her head on a chair, right in front of our waiter, who was obviously not pleased. Ooops. (I’m sorry!) (Lauren: And I knocked my elbow pretty hard on the ground when I landed. At first I was astonished that Beth would do such a thing and immediately started berating her. But a few moments later, I found it pretty hilarious and regretted not getting it on film.)

The next day was wine tasting day. Apparently, the thing to do in Mendoza is rent bikes and bike around wine country sampling wines. I wasn’t too fond of the idea considering the route was more than 40 kilometers and the thought of wine combined with my history with two-wheeled vehicles didn’t seem like the best plan (see Turning Left on Red). So we went by a car rental place to see if renting a car would be cheaper than renting the bikes.

It turns out that it was almost the same price that we had been quoted for renting bikes, but there was one problem: cars in Argentina only come in manual. Shosha and Taylor didn’t have their driver’s licenses on them, and Lauren doesn’t know how to drive a stick, so I’d be stuck driving all day. And while I can drive a stick, I only drive cars maybe 4-5 times a year (I live in New York). The concept of driving a stick in a foreign country wasn’t that appealing. Nor was the idea of being the designated driver on a wine tasting tour.

So we hopped on a bus to go get bikes. Although we got a late start, we were excited to discover that we’d only have to pay for a half-day rental for the bikes, saving $5. A British woman ended up on the same bus ride as us and got bikes at the same place as we did. The overly helpful owner of the bike shop was chatting her ear off about where to go, but because it was late in the day, we just wanted to get on the bikes and go.

The second we got on the roads we realized two things: one, cars did not share the roads with bicyclists very well, where 18-wheelers often sped past us with less than a foot clearance, and two, it seemed equally as daring to bike on the side of the road, which was rocky and gravel-y and threatened to knock over the bike at any turn. Wines and bikes seem dangerous enough, but this was ridiculous.

We headed off to the first winery — actually a wine museum — where we wandered through the vineyard of Cabernet grapes and past piles of harvested and crushed grapes. We had never seen harvested grapes before, but throughout the day we would see piles and piles of them.

We photographed all of the old (and current) wine equipment, from the carts to the barrels and crushing machines and headed inside, where there were enormous (enormous) wooden barrels of wine, each over 15 feet in diameter.

Here, we were given a substantial “taste” of a Cabernet wine, which wasn’t all that impressive. I tasted the wine and poured out the rest, while the rest of the troop downed their first glass. I was still to nervous about the bikes to enjoy myself.

We left that place and headed north to a winery that the bike owner recommended, getting more and more annoyed about the road conditions. When we got there, we discovered the winery was closed for the day. We turned around, heading back south, stopping at a market for a sandwich to help tide us over for the 6-8 kilometers (3-4miles) we had to bike to the next winery.

A kilometer or two into the ride, the road suddenly stopped and dead ended into a construction sight. Shosha and Taylor asked one of the construction workers about the road and he said it was being worked on — it was closed to cars but open to us. We were excited for the reprieve from cars and biked on, getting at least a mile to ourselves before reconnecting with the main road and the cars.

Forty-five minutes later, we finally made it too the second winery of the day. The wine tasting cost US$3.50, but we weren’t sure we would have enough time to make it to another winery, so we shelled out and tried the wines — a Cabernet and a Malbec.

It was nearing 5pm, so we headed out to try to make one last winery that was just down the street. By the time we arrived, it was 5:10. The sign out front said the winery closed at 5pm, but we parked our bikes and ran in, hoping no one would notice that we missed the cut off.

Inside, the wine was being stored in massive steel vats instead of wooden ones. We rushed upstairs to the wine tasting, but another large group was putting in their orders. We walked outside to the patio to check out the scenery while we waited. There were fields of grapes and olives trees, and because it was harvesting season, we saw workers in the fields picking the olives.

Back inside, we discovered that the tasting cost as well, this time US$7 for one flight, so we all decided to share one flight per couple. This wine was worth it. Lauren and I tried the Cabernet and a Tempranillo, a varietal neither of us had heard of before, as well Cab-Merlot blend. All of the wines were very complex and very good, but we fell in love with the Tempranillo and ended up buying a bottle of it. We also had some fresh olives with our wine,which even Shosha, who doesn’t like olives, agreed was very tasty.

It was after 6pm by the time we finished, so we rode back to the bike shop. The day was made better by the last wine tasting, but I doubt that I’d recommend the bike+wine trip to anyone else. (Lauren: I think I might, just as long as you knew what you were in for…)

That night was Lauren and my two and a half year anniversary, so when we arrived back in town, we got showers and headed out for a night by ourselves. My parents had given us some money for Christmas, and we had been saving it for a special splurge on the trip.

Around the corner, we discovered a cute restaurant with a parilla (barbeque) for two special and went in. The parilla was a sample of every meat (except fish) on the menu — 3-4 types of beef, some chicken and 2-3 different pork options. In all, probably more than 12 different types of meat. We ordered some sides too because they sounded so good (fried eggplant, whipped pumpkin and Lauren’s favorite — mashed potatoes), which turned out to be a good idea because the barbeque plate was only meat, no sides!

We also got a bottle of Tempranillo. By the time we were finishing, Lauren and I were struggling to taste each of the meats, because we had gotten so full on the first plate of meats that came out.

We decided to head out afterwards for a nightcap and maybe dessert. After wandering aimlessly for half an hour, we stumbled onto a casino and decided to go in.

We indulged in our favorite casino pastime: watching other people gamble insane amounts of money on the roulette table.

Then we headed to the lounge where we got Irish coffee and a chocolate brownie smothered in dulce de leche with ducle de leche ice cream. By the time we polished it off, we were ready to be rolled back to our hotel room.

The next morning, Shosha and Taylor had arranged a trip to go see the mountains and nearby volcanoes, but because the trip left at 7am, Lauren and I bowed out. We spent the day doing errands (picking up laundry, buying our next bus tickets, uploading pictures) and met up with them when they got back that night. They were early getting back because the roads were closed due to snow.

We all headed out for Mexican that night, but when we arrived at 7pm, we discovered the restaurant didn’t open for another hour. We went to another place for cheese fries and Lauren and Taylor started discussing Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, which Lauren had just finished and Taylor had already read. Shosha and I rolled our eyes and tried to relate the the conversation, but for the most part, we were lost among the conversation involving beams and magic doors and whether the plot lines were really true to the characters.

We walked to the Mexican place just as soon as it opened and they treated us to shots of margaritas and nachos. Shosha and I fell for it and ordered the expensive margaritas, while Taylor and Lauren split their second 1 liter of beer for the night. We got various quesadillas and listened to more Dark Tower conversation while Shosha and I covertly tried to change the subject or have our own conversations.

Afterwards, we went out for wine ice cream, which Shosha had told us about. On the way, Taylor started losing his voice, probably from too much Dark Tower conversation. Lauren and I shared a triple scoop, including Malbec, Shiraz and Port ice cream covered with chocolate and nuts, with the Port definitely ranking the highest.

Lauren and Taylor insisted we stay out later because they still hadn’t finished talking about the Dark Tower, so we headed to another Mexican place that had happy hour all night long. Shosha and I strategically sat on the same side of the table this time so we could have our own conversation. Lauren and Taylor made fun of us, saying we would be discussing politics all night long, which we did. By the end of the night, Taylor had developed laryngitis and was barely able to squeak out his insights on the Dark Tower and Shosha and I finally convinced them it was time to go home.

The next morning, Taylor was voiceless, and Lauren and I finally had our fill of beef and wine. So we sadly said goodbye to our traveling partners, and Lauren and I said adios to Argentina.