Knowing it is the annual wine harvest festival, we have booked a hotel in the centre of Mendoza guaranteed for one night. That’s fortunate because we check in and it’s a huge disappointment. Hotel Internacional is a dumpy little place, we have a room about the size of those in Japan, minute, nowhere to put 2 small suitcases let alone anything else. We are tired and hungry so head straight out to a local resto recommended from our guidebook.
Like in Spain, they start eating here at 8pm. For the wine festival our road has been turned into a huge drinking baccanalian affair, booths from countless wineries line the closed street.
There are two bands competing against one another on either end of our street. Our windows are barely single glazed. The fact that we are at the back of the hotel doesn’t affect the noise level. The bands get going at 8 and stop at 1:30am.
We asked for a mountain view but are looking into an apartment building from the 7th floor, next to a noisy old fashioned elevator with 2 doors that you pull closed. If anyone forgets to close one of the doors, the elevators don’t work at all.
If you need the AC on, you call down to the front desk who switch it on and off from there! Hello!!
We have an amazing appie platter of super smoked salmon and sea bass for supper. Did you know Chile is the second largest producer of salmon in the world? It is all reared, none wild.
The street party is just getting going when we return to the hotel at 10:30pm, put in the earplugs and pass our til 8:30am. We wake determined to find another place to rest our heads for the next 11 days in Mendoza. Fortunately the town is not jammed to the gunnels, but we have to come up with lotsa $$$ to move into the Spanish chain NH Cordillera (much more upmarket digs).
We walk over and check out the hotel. Yeah. Back to pack, check out and get a cab for the 5 minute ride to new hotel.
Here we have the penthouse suite overlooking a leafy square which is being torn up and replaced. We have a balcony running the length of our 25ft. long glass window, a sitting area, a big office desk area, super comfy bed, big bath and a walk-in closet. This is what I call home.
I’m glad the bookings we have made on this trip are flexible and on booking.com, otherwise we would be up the creek.
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