Mendoza!

On the weekend of January 20 to 23, we ventured to Mendoza, Argentina to taste some wine, olive oil, and of course, climb the Andes and ride horses with the gauchos!  Starting off, we went to an olive oil factory and tried some very delicious olive oil.  I wasn't too much a fan of olive oil until I tried some at dinner one night.  Needless to say, I absolutely loved it and bought three bottles of olive oil.  Next, we went to two wineries - Rutini and then Lagarde.  The wines we tried were Malbec 2009 at both wineries and Sauvignon Blanc at Lagarde.  In my opinion, my favorite was Rutini Malbec, which I hope to purchase here and bring it back to the US.


This is the vineyard at Rutini.

The following day we trecked the Andes mountains, on foot and on horses!  In the morning, the group I was with, named the gauchos, got to climb the mountains by foot and got to see some amazing views of the mountains.  This picture is a shot of some of the gauchos!

The gaucho is a national symbol of Argentina, and is similar to the American cowboy.  Our tour guides that helped us ride the horses through the Andes were gauchos, in their traditional gaucho riding attire.  This was the first time I had ever gotten to ride a horse, and it was so much fun!  This is a picture of my horse; I didn't catch what her name was, but I decided to call her Daisy because she was so pretty!