Victoria and Justin: It's not about the bike

From the Atlantic coast we headed West into the Andes mountains. The journey itself was pretty spectacular with the road winding long the valley floor, passing snow covered mountains and deep blue lakes. Let me just say it now, the buses in Argentina are an absolute pleasure (especially compared with the crap we've endured in the rest of South America). We took the "Cama" option (that's 'bed' in Spanish), the seats are like business class on a airplane and you meals (and wine)!

First stop was the alpine town of Bariloche, sitting along side Lago Nahuel Huapi and surrounded by a number of ski resorts. In winter the town is heaving with skiers and boarders but in summer it takes on a more laid back vibe (much like any other ski town). Our first afternoon was spent scoping out town and planning the next few days. We stayed at Hostel 1004, on the 10th floor of an apartment building, the views were sublime.

Our first adventure was the famous "Circuito chico", a 25km bicycle tour around the lakes and forest. We thought to ourselves "25kms, that's nothing, should be sweet". Well, once we got underway we discovered it was a little more hilly than we'd expected (not mentioned in the guidebooks). It ended up being pretty tough work but well worth it.

We woke the next morning feeling a bit tender, which was good timing for me as the Wallabies game (against Scotland) was being shown on TV but we lost 9-8, arghhh, which meant Victoria had to endure a pretty grumpy husband for the rest of the day.

The next day need to be more active as we had dinner at the local parrilla (Argentina steak house) and polished off half a cow and a bottle of Malbec. So, we hiked to the top of the local ski mountain. The views from the top were incredible, there's nothing quite like lakes and mountains.

We'd now overdosed on lakes and mountain vistas. So, we took an overnight bus North to Mendoza, the 'wine' capital of Argentina. It's a beautiful city, enjoying wide tree covered streets and plenty of green space, but once you've done the standard "walked around the old town" there really isn't too much else to do. So, the next day we headed out to Maipu, the wine growing region on the edge of Mendoza, for our bicycle wine tasting tour. We picked up some wheels from "Mr Hugo", an old guy who offers free wine at the end of your tour, and off we went in search of wine!

It was a fun day but not quite what we expected. The tour was actually just us cycling down a semi-main road (B-road in UK) stopping at the various wineries which offered tastings. it wasn't quite the same as the picturesque image we'd developed in our heads. Nevertheless, we made it five wineries, ranging from boutique labels (around 70,000 bottles per year) to the massive Trapiche operation (over 5 million annually). Although, after the first couple of glasses it all tasted the same.......

So, after a little over a week of mountains and boozing it was time for something special, next stop Puerto Iguazu.