OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES IN MENDOZA, WEST ARGENTINA

Grab a pew, everyone. It’s time to talk about Mendoza.

I spent Christmas with my mother in the sleepy city of Mendoza in western Argentina. It was absolutely dreamy. We ate an unconventional but delicious Christmas lunch of shakshuka with leftover steak from our Christmas Eve grill, pink fizz, then ice cream, and had a brilliant time resolutely ignoring the outside world in the way that only those far from a home which finds itself in mind-numbing turmoil can. Situated in desert land on the edge of the Andes, the province of Mendoza is the country’s primary wine-growing region, making it a popular destination for serious international vinophiles. This tends to make it an almost exclusively adult destination – otherwise, it’s a bit off the beaten track for tourists. Vineyards aren’t its only draw, however: we spent a glorious few days there drinking in the incredible mountain views and clean clean air along with the Malbec. I found the climate more comfortable than in Buenos Aires – for someone as naturally sweaty as me, Mendoza’s aridity was soothing. And it was magical. The real attractions are outside the city: stunning, positively Martian red mountains, adorable little villages, and of course the serene vastness of the vineyards. It’s taken me a while to write this post, because I wanted to record these experiences exactly as I remember them, in all their wonder, and I almost couldn’t put that into words.

Go to a thermal spa

God, that spa. I’ve never been anywhere like it. Taking a minibus up the mountain road for over an hour to get to this unpretentious, pretty much deserted little hotel to spend the day slathering ourselves in mud baths and decompressing in almost untouched rock pools that open right out into the desert river felt like a pilgrimage ritual of some long-lost feminine religion. They also served up a huge and delicious buffet lunch we could barely stop eating. This day was absolutely blissful, and I have a sneaky feeling that if I go to heaven, it’ll look a lot like this. Or no, forget that: I’ve been and returned, and it was this.

Take a vineyard tour or several and educate your palate

Before I came to Argentina, I didn’t like wine in any capacity other than some bubbly on special occasions. But even I couldn’t resist the persuasive power of Malbecs and Cab Sauvs ripened in the most authentic conditions, then crafted by people determined to uphold the national pride that is the wine industry. One of my favourite things we did throughout our trip was our wine tasting meal! We’d been round a couple of vineyards before stopping for a long lunch of several small courses, each perfectly matched with a different wine. I was amazed at how different the wine tasted when matched with food like that! I drank more wine that afternoon than I had in the previous twenty years…

Visit Aconcagua and its surrounding natural wonders

One of the many things I didn’t know about Argentina before I got here is that it’s home to the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas: Aconcagua. In Quechua, a native Andean language, ‘acon’ means white, and ‘cahuac’ means sentinel, with Aconcagua roughly translating to ‘sentinel of stone’. To climb it, you’ll need a couple of weeks, including time to acclimatise to the different altitude – most people opt to just gaze in awe, and then possibly stop for a parrilla on the way back into the city, as we did. It’s definitely gaze-worthy, and the drive out is as well – full of beautiful rock formations, stops in picturesque little villages, and you can also opt to stop at what’s known as an Inca bridge – local legend has it that Inca soldiers formed a bridge over a ravine with their bodies, and slowly petrified while waiting for the rest of their cohort, but it’s fairly certain that it was used as a highway for the Inca army. Aconcagua itself watches protectively over the desert, and the Andean belief of mountains as gods starts to make sense – I certainly felt closer to heaven out in the scorchingly beautiful wilderness than in the city.

Drive somewhere to admire the landscape from an airconditioned distance

We travelled to Mendoza via a bus from Córdoba. It took 11 hours. This might sound slightly hellish and totally hare-brained, and I’ll admit it was possibly one of my lesser thought out ideas, but we both really enjoyed it. Comfy seats, aircon, just watching out the window as the landscape got steadily drier and sparser as we drove west. In contrast to flying in, it was a great way to contextualise the landscape in our minds, and we both felt we had more of a sense of the setting of the place, rather than just as an isolated destination. Once in the city, we took a bus tour of all the major points – again, recommend, because aircon. Our excursions also involved a fair bit of driving in a minibus. When I suggested we go to Mendoza, the two things I really knew about it were ‘wine’ and ‘rocks’, and if I’m being honest, I was more excited about the rocks – I really wanted to spend some time just looking at the country. When I list it like this, it seems like a lot of driving, but given the heat and extremely beautiful but hostile land, this is a really good way of seeing it – and see it you must.

Taste olives… and olive oil

The PG version of a wine tour. You’d think this would be really weird, but it was actually great. I’d never thought about the differences between varieties of olive, and I certainly never thought standing in a hot room tasting different oils from a spoon would be an enjoyable experience, and yet. And yet it was. To do this, we took the train out of the city to a tiny little village called Maipú, rented bikes, and cycled to all the olive farms we could find. Only one was open. A very enthusiastic young man plied us with olives and olive oil. Wonderful. We left almost as laden as we had been after the wine tours.

So there we have it… all the wonderful things there are to do in Mendoza to feel a sense of heightened reality. Whenever I think about our time there, I feel a warm fuzzy glow in my mind of remembered sunshine and peace, and feel truly blessed to have been there.