kellita the señorita the ibby dibby dow: "Yeah, but we’re on vacation."

If there’s been a theme to our time in Mendoza, this is it. Every time we started to doubt our decisions about that other glass of wine, a nap, buying something, or dessert we just reassure each other that this is vacation and we deserve it. Imagine if I used that reasoning when I’m by myself all the time? I would have had to come home a long time ago.

We were a bit overwhelmed with what to do in Mendoza as there is no shortage of amazing options. We sat in our room yesterday with brochures spread over the beds taking turns with the Lonely Planet trying to figure it out. Andes and vineyards. We knew we had to experience these two legendary aspects of Mendoza. Bike wine tour, luxury wine tour, adventure Andes expedition, bus tour, this company, that company, etc. It’s a different experience for me to have a partner to make such decisions with, and we laughed at how difficult it was to come to these seemingly simple conclusions.

With the help of the Internet and recommendations from my friend Dipal (thanks Deeps), we decided on the full-day Alta Montana tour on Thursday and the full-day vineyard tour on Friday.

With the help of three alarms we awoke early yesterday, breakfasted, and jumped on the 20-person tour bus. We spent the next approximately 11 hours winding through the mountains, taking in the great outdoors. I’m happy to say my love of the outdoors is still alive after having spent some time back in city life. Luckily I listened to the concierge and traded in my sandals and thin hoodie for my heavy fleece and hikers because the weather got more crisp as we climbed eventually to 10,500 ft elevation to see the Christ the Redeemer statue that stands as a peace-keeper on the border of Chile and Argentina.

We stopped on the way back down for a home-cooked comfort food lunch where we enjoyed some traditional Argentine dishes and one of my favorites, corn on the cob. The separated tour group got more friendly and boisterous as the red wine flowed. Exhausted from the elevation, we napped most of the 3-hour ride back to the hotel until we were awoken by a young chap barfing all over himself behind us. Poor guy. After a quick stop to use the toilets and disinfect the bus we arrived home exhausted from such a tough day of bus riding. We enjoyed a cheese plate "for 2" that we could have shared with 5 of our closest friends and talked about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.

This morning we were up and at em early again for our full-day vineyard tour. 4 wineries, 4 tastings each followed by a 5-course lunch/wine pairing at the last. Have you ever started drinking wine at 10:30am? It makes for a very quickly close-knit tour group.

Now we’re once again in the comfort of our black leather first-class bus seats heading back to BsAs. My how time flies.