FLY FOR ME, ARGENTINA

ALL CHANGE From the mountains to the city of Mendoza

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swamped in folklore. They rose to fame in the mid-18th century as European traders started buying contraband hides and tallow in the frontier regions around Buenos Aires, leading gauchos to hunt large herds of escaped horses and cattle that had roamed freely there.

When not “gambling, drinking, playing the guitar, singing doggerel verses about their prowess in hunting, fighting, and lovemaking”, they were bravely leading the successful charge against the Spanish colonialists, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Today they remain revered as national heroes and some continue to lead lives partially separate from their country-folk. We were taken out of town to Negra's dusty compound in the foothills of the Andes by Pablo, owner of family-run business Trekking Travel Expeditions, and told his level of English matched our Spanish.

Happily, there is little need for talking when riding in the wake of a gaucho, up the winding rocky paths and under the circling condors of a place that has been home to his family for generations.

Located in the central west of the country, Mendoza is less visited than Salta and its sunset orange cliffs in the north west, or the 275 cascades of Iguazu Falls in the north east.

The two hour flight from Buenos Aires to the regional capital may be one of the most turbulent in the world, but well worth braving for two reasons alone: the wine and the mountains.

Vineyards in Mendoza are planted at some of the highest altitudes in the world yet produce two thirds of all Argentine wine, with the pink-skinned grapes of Criolla Grande and Cereza squished into famed vintages of Malbec.

Plantation tours are available across the state including the Luján de Cuyo and Uco Valley, where seemingly endless rows of vines create contour lines on the undulating hills, watched over by towering Christ statues on some of their peaks.