We arrived in Mendoza City, Mendoza at about 9 am Thursday morning and were able to luckily check into our room early! After a quick freshening up, we did some exploring and price comparing and landed ourselves a very affordable wine tour! At 2 we left in a van with 11 other tourists and all in all we represented, Brasil, Uruguay, Chile and the United States : ) Unfortunately for Mom and Tim, our tour guide in the van only spoke in Spanish and so they were left with my broken translations.. Imagine trying to translate the way that by airplane they combine two types of gases inside certain clouds to create a bomb that breaks up the ice in the clouds and causes it to hail… ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?! Haha. So I did my best : ) We first visited a very small winery that only bottles enough wine to be sold from their location, there was a girl there that was able to give us a private tour in English PHEW! We learned the ins and outs of making wine, from vine to bottle and ended with a little wine tasting! Next we visited an olive oil factory where they produce extra virgin olive oil and a variety of other products and we got a tour of the factoy, learned the process and sampled the goods : ) We next visited and toured a much larger winery,  it was really cool to be able to see and compare the difference between the two operations. The day ended with a cute little visit to a mom and pop organic farm, where they showed us all their different fruit trees and animals : ) For next to nothing, we ended up getting a really awesome taste of all that Mendoza agriculture has to offer : )

Friday we did an excursion to Alta Montana! If you get the chance I would recommended googling the trip : ) It is a really famous route that goes from Argentina to Chile through the Andes. We traveled in van and went from Mendoza to the border of Chile and the stops and scenery along the way were breathtaking. Words really can’t describe the Andes and so I think that I will let Tim’s pictures do the explanation for me : ) We were able to see Mount Aconcagua, the largest peak in the Americas.  Stops included, it took about 6 hours to get to the border of Chile. There we ate a traditional lunch of the mountains at a restaurant in the last  “pueblo” in Argentina, with a year round population of 9 : ) There was snow and it was chilly, I can see why only 9 people choose to live there year round!! The return trip took us back along the same route incredible landscape. It waS most definitely a trip that I won’t soon forget : )

Like I said, we are currently on our way back to the capital city! We spent the morning walking around the city, shopping at the open air markets and enjoying the  80 degree weather : ) Tomorrow mom and tim continue will continue their trip ALL the way home. Poor guys will be SO sick of traveling. It has been an incredible week and a half with them and I am so blessed that they were able to come down and visit. I also just want to thank you all back home for the incredible support that you have all given me during the past 3 months, I couldn’t have been more blessed in the time abroad!

Instead of rows of corn, rows of grapes!

Close up of a vine

Salon lined with all the old wood barrels

Learning all there is to know : )

Swirl and taste : )

First stop on our beautiful trip!

Lake on the base of the "pre" Andes

Famous bridges in one of the 6 paths through the Andes between Argentina and Chile. General San Martin used it with his troops during the liberation

STAG JUMP! that's for you EM!!

Aren't they adorable!?

Puente de La Inca: Bridge of the Incas. A path that the Inca people used during their short time in Argentina. Across the way are the old thermal bathrooms!

Group photo! You can see the remnants of a church and hotel in the far background!

BRRR!

In front of Mount Aconcagua!

22841 feet! You can see it hidden amongst the clouds

Just some more beautiful landscape. So glad we took this trip, it was some of the most incredible landscape that I have ever seen!

Hangin in a Mendoza Park : )

The new running joke is that Argentines eat ham and cheese with EVERYTHING! You can see the dessert on the left even has ham and cheese in it! I think mom and Tim will have to do a jamon y queso DETOX!