Mendoza - Bikes, Wine and Horses

Sunday in Mendoza
We weren't too taken with Mendoza when we arrived on Sunday - the guidebooks and people we've met rave about it but it's another city, and not a nice one, and the weather is cold and cloudy. Our intention was to put our Santiago flight back and stay here a week and go to Spanish School but we didn't fancy spending a week here so we sacked off spanish and planned to do 3 days of excursions (ie. maybe it would be nicer OUTSIDE of the city...) and we'll head to Santiago on Thursday.

Monday in Mendoza - http://www.bikesandwines.com/
Today we hired bikes and took a tour of Mendoza's wineries. You hire the bikes out of town near the bodegas and they give you a map and encourage you to drink and ride! We were expecting quiet, pretty lanes in the countryside... Uh Urr... we got crap roads, lorries and buses, and the most uncomfortable bikes you can imagine. So whilst the entire circuit is 12km (we were thinking...well easy! lot's of time for wine tasting) the standard of bikes and roads meant it took a lot longer to get between bodegas.

However the wine is excellent - can defs recommend Argentinian Malbec we've tried several brands - and the wineries range between cute and trendy.

All in all we had a fun day out - glad we did it but couldn't recommend biking it in Winter (oh forgot to mention isn't freezing!!)

Tuesday in Mendoza - Horse-trekking in Mountains.
Guess what - still bl**dy freezing... (sorry mum but it's THAT cold!) It's taken us a second day of freezing our butts off to sack in the tours and tomorrow we're going to sleep in and spend the afternoon in cafes.
I've never been horse-riding so was keen to give it a go - again, probs a fab thing to do in the summer when you can feel your toes in order to give the horse a kick, and feel your fingers so you can hold the reins, and without the clouds so you can see the mountains. I had my now standard four layers (base layer, fleece, north face down jacket and lowe rain jacket) plus hat and gloves and by the end of our 3 hour horse trek was a tad chilly. Two Brazilians in our group were really ill equipped and we reckon they must have been close to hypothermia.
I did really enjoy the riding though and will defs do it again somewhere warmer.