San Rafael
El corazón de Mendoza
We found a Bodega outside of San Rafael to work at, called Chateau HANA, an acronym of the names of the owner, his wife and two daughters. With a capacity of 85000 liters its quiet a small Vinery and all the steps of the production are done by hand. The two mayor vines of the production are a pretty tasty Cabernet Sauvignon and a Malbec which is really famous for the Mendoza region. Our host Aziz taught us everything, from the harvest of the grapes to the bottling, about the vine production. During our stay we've been pressing the grape must, cleaned the machines of the bodega and collected olives for the production of olive oil.
During our stay we got to know his neighbor Nageeb, who came to Argentina to spent his pension after living in Palestine, Great Britain, The Arabic Emirates, New Zealand and Bermuda. He's now the owner of the Finca Nim, a beautiful piece of land with a huge park, a nice farm house and two cabañas to rent. So after two weeks we moved to the other side of the street and helped him for another 2 weeks with the olive harvest. If you're interested in volunteering around San Rafael we can really recommend both of our hosts. Here are the Workaway links for Aziz and Nageeb.
The city is surrounded by beautiful places like los Reyunos or Valle Grande, two mountain chains, with lakes, rivers and stunning nature. These locations are perfect for lots of activities, like hiking, climbing, camping, rafting and kayaking. You can find there as well several hotels or cabañas to rent. If you are more up for winter sports you could take a three hour car ride to las leñas in the Andes Mountains, the most famous ski and snowboarding resort in Argentina. To reach Mendoza, you can calculate around 3 hours and through the Andes to Santiago de Chile around 8.
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