El Jet Lag

Getting to South America was a breeze really. It started with a long 11-hour flight, but we were lucky enough to end up with the two of us on a three person row, so we had space to spread out and move around a little. Then after a couple of hours in Santiago, Chile, we flew an hour to Mendoza, where our accommodation for the next two weeks was only a 20-minute taxi away, in leafy suburb Godoy Cruz.

The hard part of our continental shift has been the jet lag. We left Auckland, NZ at about 8pm and our journey finished about 16 hours later, but around 8pm local time on the same day. Our 16^th February lasted a record 40-hours and after very little sleep on the flight, our body clocks have been all over the place!

So, for the most part, we’ve been taking it pretty easy. We’ve explored the local area on foot, stocked our fridge at the local hipermercado and popped into the city-centre of Mendoza to see the Plaza Independencia.

Yesterday, we managed to shrug off the worst of el jet lag, so we naturally, focussed in on our primary reason for visiting Mendoza – learning about and drinking wine. We went to three bodegas (vineyards) in the Lujan de Cuyo area south of Mendoza: Achaval Ferrer, Decero and Lamadrid. After a lunch at the last Bodega we came back to Godoy Cruz and ventured out to a local wine bar for the evening.

Today, we went for a walk around a local park, and have been doing some boring but necessary life admin. We’ve also been making some plans for our remaining 10 days here, so watch this space to see what we get up to!