Mendoza- saying goodbye to Argentina in style!

For our final stop in Argentina we arrived in Mendoza for the annual wine festival and celebration. Good Timing!

We witnessed some very cool parades of Gauchos, dancers, a portable asado (on the back of a truck), fruit throwing floats (Harriet got hit by a peach) but the best of all were the potential Queens. There were 18 candidates and after much inspection of posters and cardboard cutouts, Matt declared that Dinana II had to win.   It was very sad when Gabriella from Godroy Cruz won in her place. We think some money must have been involved somewhere.

We couldn't have gone to Mendoza without going on a wine tour. We hired bikes from Mr. Hugo who is quite a dude, who poured half pint glasses of wine and kept re-filling them for us, cue disaster. Our wine tour was very amusing as we made it to two wineries, one beer garden and a liquor distellery. 75% Absinthe makes for an interesting day when Tom Ingrey drinks it like it is mouth wash. (Sorry Tom, had to be done!)

After Mendoza we crossed through the Andes to get to Santiago, this involved going up to 3,500 ish metres and then down again via 26 hair pin bends, brilliant fun!