Let’s just say, if it wasn’t for the political unrest in Argentina, we would both happily move to Mendoza. It usually takes Rachel a day to warm up to a new place, but not here, she was instantly in love with the city. We took a walking tour of the New City - the Old City was destroyed in an earthquake so the New Citywas rebuilt in a different location away from the river, with a more strategic design incorporating large squares, wider streets and pavements that could better tolerate the seismic activity often felt in this city. On the Saturday there was some sort of charity event going on in Plaza Indendencia (the largest square which the city is based around, there was lots of people and it really added a great lively atmosphere of the place. We went to 2/4 of the smaller squares around, Plaza Espana was closed for repair, Plaza Itália (previously Plaza Peru) had some very weird looking sculptures, Plaza San Martín (what a surprise) was very similar to the other Plaza San Martíns we’ve already seen on our trip, and Plaza Chile just wasn’t included in our tour. We grabbed lunch and checked into our hostel, again being upgraded to an apartment. We headed out to Parque San Martín in the afternoon, we ended up stood watching some sort of fashion show? we’re still unsure - in Plaza Indendencia before going via “the best ice cream place in Mendoza” according to our morning guide. This was a great decision!! Rachel had green apple and raspberry sorbet, whilst Josh had orange sorbet and bitter chocolate ice cream, I think we’ll be making a trip back there before our bus on Monday to Santiago. The Park was beautiful at 500 hectors, very vast. We certainly didn’t make it the whole way around, or see even half of the attractions in the park but the place was special. We sat on a bench overlooking the artificial lake and mountains and watched the many very happy dogs trotting by. We went out for a nice meal that evening , as it was out last chance to have Argentinian steak and we certainly picked the right spot, both leaving very full. On our way back to the hostel, there was still lots of activity happening in Plaza Independencia so we decided to check it out. There were dance performances happening on a main stage, and a huge market around the square, we watched a very talented artist create small landscapes with spray paints, and wandered round the numerous stalls  before heading back. 
There was a slight hiccup in the initial plans for the Sunday. We wanted to visit the wineries but as soon as we started to research it became very clear many are closed on Sunday, and so were the bike rental companies which would make it difficult to get around the very few that were open. Luckily our hostel offered a Sunday tour including two wineries, an olive and a chocolate factory at lunch so we opted for this so we didn’t miss out. It was just the two of us and a girl from Germany (Alina) who was currently living in Santiago. Our first stop was Bodegaz Lopez an industrial winery, we were shown around the winery and the production process was explained to us, as well as how to tell the grape plants apart (by the leaves). This parictuarly winery produces around 15 million litres of wine per year, they use French oak barrels to age the wine which gives coffee, caramel and chocolate flavours to the wine. The wine is aged in the barrel s for about a year, then put into bottles to age a further, 4, 9, 14 or 19 years depending on how premium the wine is. At the end stage of production, a machine is used to fill the bottles and in 1 hour 10,000 - 12,000 bottles are filled. Here we tried 2 wines and were taught how to check the quality of the wines. We had a 2016 Malbec and a champagne (this one had 60g of added sugar per litre and isn’t the first wine Rachel hasn’t pulled a face at). Josh was lucky enough to get to try a 15 year old montchenot as well which went down very well. The second winery was a much smaller organic one. The vineyards were small as harvest isn’t until mid February to mid April but we learnt how this particular winery stayed organic. In most vineyards you will only find grape trees, but here there were peach and pear trees (sweeter fruits attract animals first), herbs and lavender (detract pests) and flowers (pests go here’s first so alerts the winery if something is happening). If there was to be an issue, wine is sprayed over the ground and plants and the strong rid of the pests meaning no herbicides are used. This winery used American oak as well as French, the American oak gives tobacco, leathery and smoky flavours. We tried a Graciana (apparently sweet, it was not), a 2012 Malbec, and a Chaska a sweeter dessert wine. Unfortunately we were unable to visit the other two factory’s, but the delicious lunch and icecream made up for that. We got lots of recommendations from Alina for our time in Chile which was super helpful too. We had a relaxed fternoon, and got ready for leaving Argentina the next day.
Our bus was at 1:30 so in the morning we wandered around the city a little, tried to get icecream and were very disappointed when the shop was closed. This wasn’t the worst part of the day (I know hard to believe) but getting to the bus station to find out the bus was cancelled and the border was closed slightly trumped it. At first we were very confused, in 30 degree heat being told your bus is cancelled because of snow doesn’t quite add up. After some thought, we got a taxi back to the hostel to stay another night and booked the cheapest flight for the day after. Although extremely frustrating, it had its perks - we managed to get icecream!! We had a lovely walk up to Cerro de la Gloria for sunset and had dinner at La Florencia (same as first night) and enjoyed our actual final steak of Argentina. We are both very much going to miss Mendoza.