I have family there and go most years, but I haven’t the touristy activities for ages, so my information is probably a bit dated! The rafting is all in Poterillos, but there are agencies in town to take you, some of them offer biking trips too, but when I went with them, it wasn’t great, but that was about 8 years ago. There is a lot of excellent desert singletrack for riding, especially leading out of Chacras de Coria and from the park, but you’ll want a guide/group to ride with.
Things may have moved on, so ask in bike shops and you might find they will do a guided ride. Also the wine tours are great. If you can find a bike which isn’t falling apart to hire, do the bike wine tour. It’s a lot of fun, and wineries like Norton have great places to do the tasting. Try to go to some wineries that don’t readily export too, such as Salentein, Flinchmann, Rutini, and one of the oldest, Lagarde. (These are all big wineries that just don’t appear in the UK much, but there are loads of small ones too)
Steak eating: I would reccomend La Marchigiana- they have a couple of restaurants, one in town and one in Palmares mall. It’s not the finest or most glam, but it is a really solid, consistently popular place. Have a ‘proveletta” for a starter, it’s a whole grilled provelone cheese with oil and oregano. In between eating steaks, have lots of empanadas as snacks between meals to keep going- (mini pastries with ground beef, egg and olive filling) there are some good cafes for a coffee and medialunas/ other dulce de leche filled sweet pastry.
There’s a load of good bars and places to eat on Avenida Aristides, make sure you drink at least one Fernet and Coke- it’s the nation’s favourite social drink, and an acquired taste… Bear in mind no-one goes for dinner before 10pm, so have a nap and go late. If you want to go on to a Nightclub, or ‘Boliche’ it will deserted until about 1am, but it will be open until 7-8am…
Mendoza’s great, I’ve not been for over a year, looking forward to going at Christmas myself!
