Mud, mud, glorious mud

We are nearly at the end of our time in Argentina and are currently in Mendoza where they make all the Malbec wine.

We made our way from Rosario to Cordoba on a 6.5 hour bus ride. Cordoba was lovely and we went in a lot of churches and art galleries. A lot of Argentinians take their religion quite seriously and the churches are open most of the time and people come in to pray. For us, it is a way of escaping the hustle and bustle of the cities and seeing some beautiful architecture.

Jesuit church in Cordoba

We took a day trip to Alta Gracia which was a beautiful little place. It's where Che Guevara spent his teenage years and we went to the museum at his house where, if you aren't Argentinian, you get charged nearly ten times more to get in. The main reason for our trip was to visit the Jesuit estancia which is a UNESCO world heritage site. It was very well kept bearing in mind it's over 500 years old, and peaceful and also had descriptions in English which meant we learnt quite a lot.

In Alta Gracia con maracas

Back in Cordoba we got ready for our overnight bus trip to Mendoza. A nine hour journey leaving at 10pm. We didn't quite know what to expect but it was great....it was like being in business class (or how we think it would be in business class!!). We had a flat bed, our own TV and even dinner and wine. Hoorah. The lady asked us if we wanted to be woken up at 5.30am for breakfast, er, 'no gracias' was our reply. We both slept fairly well (mom, your eye mask came in very handy).

Our hotel room for the night

Before

During: Dinner and wine

After: Nighty night

We arrived at 7am Saturday morning so we spent the day getting our bearings, going to tourist info and arranged a walking tour for the afternoon with a wine tasting at the end. Magdalena was our guide and she was great. She told us that Mendoza is actually a desert and so all the water is pumped from the Andes for use in the city....we were really surprised as everything was so green. It was also nearly completely flattened in 1861 because of a huge earthquake so most of the city is actually only 200 years old.

As today is Sunday and most of the vineyards are shut we decided to go to the natural thermal spa pools just outside Mendoza which Tim had read about on wikitravel. It was soooo nice to have a bit of downtime as it's all been pretty full on so far. The pools were indoors and outdoors next to the Mendoza river (where the mud comes from) and nestled in the lower Andes hills so the views were awesome. The pool temperatures ranged from 40degrees to river temperature (ie. quite cold). We had a buffet lunch included with meat cooked on the BBQ and we treated ourselves to a bottle of Malbec...sort of like having Sunday dinner in the UK but ever so slightly different. He he.

Thermal pools in the Andes

Sunny at the spa

Mud, mud, glorious mud

Lunch is finished

Hasta luego.... Xx