Day 8 Mendoza, Argentina - wine, bikes and olives

It is sunny and dry in Mendoza. There are huge trees in the streets and vineyards and olive orchards surrounding the city, but this city is a desert, in the rain shadow of the Andes, and the green is here only because of very extensive irrigation.  Deep and narrow ditches are carved into the sidewalks, a concern for the over-Malbeced pedestrian. That said, we are quite weary as we write this entry, because we road bikes on Mendoza´s Camino del Vino (Wine Road) al day long.  So we´re tired.  But we´re also happy.

 

We woke early this morning on a mission to find the Camino del Vino.  We´d read about its existence in the US, and, as this is our only full day in Argentina´s wine country, we wanted to be sure to explore some wineries. 

 

We managed to buy some city bus tickets and find the correct bus that took us out of the city into one of the many wine regions surrounding Mendoza.  There we rented bikes from a man who looked a bit like Weird Al Yankovic but was 100% a Latin Bob Marley. He owns a business called Bikes and Wine.  He serenaded Olivia with reggae (in Spanish) as he pumped up our tires.

 

Our first stop was a very old winery with a the largest wine museum in Latin America.  We learned about wine making in Argentina, from simple wines made by the Jesuits 500 years ago to the ¨modern¨ techniques introduced by Spanish and Italian immigrants in the later half of the 19th century.  This winery (La Rural) sells a wine in the US under the name Trumpeter.  We´ve purchased it in Madison, if anyone reading it is interested, a Trumpeter Malbec will be what we had.

 

Our second stop was at a very new building that was part of a very old family winery.  We were lucky enough to have the great-grandson of an Italian immigrant show us their Malbec vines, explain the wine making process and show us their in vitro methods for quickly growing vines with superior qualities (their focus is on Malbec).  We enjoyed a bottle of wine on their back deck in the bright blue day, vineyards and olive orchards stretched out before us, the snow covered Andes to our West.  It was, without a doubt, very, very nice.

 

Chris then got a flat tire. After our reggae bike-man fixed the tire, we went to a few more wineries, finishing at a winery where we had some lunch and a fantastic white wine.  I can´t say the varietal because they didn´t tell us, in fact, there was no label the wine as they had not decided where and how to sell it.  Again, meeting the owner was a highlight.

 

We finished our day with a tour of an olive oil plant.  It was very interesting, and the olive oil delicious, though the tour was all in Spanish, so we missed much of it.  We will have to tour an olive oil plant in California when we return.  It seems to be a very interesting process.

 

All in all, wine tasting in Argentina is a very pleasant experience.  There was no pretension, and wines were fantastic.  The best Malbecs in the world come from here, and it was clear when we tasted them. 

Day 7 BA to Mendoza, Argentina: MALBA and more

Our last day in beautiful BA. It only took a week and we really started to feel at home. We enjoyed un cafe con leche y dos medialunas on a sidewalk facing the main plaza in Palermo, and stayed highly entertained by the numerous dog walkers (how does 1 human persevere over 7 leashes crossing?). And how do they pick up after them while keeping the rest under control? Maybe they don´t...

 

We also reflected on the tango show at Cafe Tortoni that we had watched the night before.  It was sassy and slapstick - what a great combination!  

 

A walk through our favorite park for more feline viewing and to the MALBA: Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de BA. It was fantastic, full of interesting art, possibly Olivia´s first Frida piece viewing, and was in a gorgeous new building somewhat reminiscent of the MMoCA. We said good-bye to our dear hostel and then jumped to plane. Interesting: our less than 2 hour flight was made much more fun by watching silent video of clips of practical jokes from the Montreal Comedy Festival. The whole plane was laughing; we had formed a community!

 

Mendoza is not what we expected in some ways. It is quite commercial with lots of very busy streets with tons of shopping. The metro area of city is 900,000 population, so to get the quaint wine country feel you have to get about 10km away. We had a fab time at an old tavern for dinner, dining on lomitos (steak sandwiches... the meat adventure continues) and drinking vino tinto de la casa from little PENGUINS. Yes, to our delight, the pitches are traditionally shaped like penguinos! So fun we had to get 2.

 

Again, thanks for all the comments. We think of you all often and are so glad to be keeping in touch.

Top Ten Things we love about BA

1. Smoke Free

2. European feel without the pretension

3. The vintage cars and stations of Linea A of the Subte (one of the oldest subway lines in the world - older than Boston´s and New York´s!)

4. The friendly laid-back porteños (people of BA)

5.  Super cool markets with ultra low pressure sales

6. Cemeterio de le Recoleta (before you think we´re goth, you should look at our photos, this place is amazing)

7. Food. Grilled meat

8. Tango

9. Affordability

10. Feral cats

Day 6 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Thank you for the comments, please keep them coming.

 

First, we´d like to discuss the feral cats.  We are staying in Palermo, a few blocks from the Botanical Gardens.  While exploring the gardens yesterday, we were pleased to see hundreds of cats in the gardens, sunning themselves, grooming their fur on fountains, eating food left for them on park benches and stalking prey in the urban forest.  It was strange to see so many cats, but fun nonetheless.

 

Our dinner last night was out of this world.  Here are some actual Olivia quotes, with commentary.

 

On the meaning on our meal:

If I were to choke on some food and die, I would want it to be this food.

 

In a zen-like moment:

I can´t think about anything else except this food.  And maybe you (Chris).

 

We went to an old-school Parilla (grilled meat) restaurant in the Palermo neighborhood of BA.  Our waiter was immaculately professional.  His Spanish was of a sort that was very difficult to understand, the sort of Argentinian Spanish we´d heard about, with an accent one can imagine came straight our of the 1950s.  We ate scrumptious endive and heart of palm salad and shared a bife de ojo (rib eye) steak that was thicker than two decks of cards and pinker than the sunset on the Rio de la Plata.  We had a small bottle of Malbec and finished our meal with Flan con crema.  It was muy fantastico.  And, because we can´t help but report on the price, we did all of this for US$35.

 

Today we visited the San Temlo neighborhood and watched Tango on the streets which brought Olivia to tears and led her to exclaim, I want to give them all of my money! (Chris, cooler head prevailed).  We walked into La Boca neighborhood, one of the poorer neighborhoods in central BA.  For the first time, we saw some serious poverty and urban decay, garbage in the streets, loose dogs, buildings falling down on themselves.  It is sad, but part of any major city. We walked past the futbol stadium a few hours before a game.  We did tailgating BA style with loose dogs, 100s of policia and tasty tasty street meat.

 

(No major diarrhea yet)

 

Tonight we go to a tango show at La Tortóni, a classic, 19th century sort of place in the downtown area.  Tomorrow we fly to Mendoza.

Day 5 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Upon further reflection, we feel that our entries have seemed too negative. In fact, we are having a fantastic time. The people of Argentina and Uraguay have been extraordinarily helpful, kind and laid back. Buenos Aires feels very European, but very down to earth as well, a fine mix of old world and new.

However, we have a few more negative comments before we can tell you about the lovely markets, and beautiful gardens, fine restaurants and cute ferral cats.

We´ve been duped. In a Dramamine-induced haze we failed to recall some quite pertinent and useful advice a la Lonely Planet. Caution when giving a taxi driver large bills...they might switch the bills on you and give you a counterfeit bill in return...

um, that´s exactly what happened to us. And we didn´t realize we´d been duped until we tried to tip our waiter at a chi-chi sushi place in Palermo Viejo. We were pissed, and embarrassed. A crime of $30 in pride.

Chris also stepped in dog poo on the sidewalk 2x. But that happens in Paris too...

We´re staying at a super-chill art gallery/hostel. Our room is on the roof in a garden. We breakfasted and lunched in the sun. We explored Palermo, a barrio in BA that is a mix of the Village and Lincoln Park with a flair all its own.

We love it here. And will add more later, perhaps giving more information about the cute cats.

Day 4 Colonia del Sacremento, Uraguay

It rained today and we chose unwisely not to wear our rainpants since we´d be ducking into museums all day. this was a huge mistake. we got totally soaked. then we returned to our hostel and changed into raingear, but decided to have our lunch there and do some more trip planning. By the time we were ready to go, it was partly sunny and warmer... so we changed OUT of the raingear and once again headed to the old town. funny? sort of.

The museums of Colonia are... well, a little odd. Lots of bad taxadermy, random broken glass artifacts and post-impressionist paintings of conquistadors. funny? por supuesto! We also enjoyed our 4x attempt to ascend the lighthouse (they said it was open... we did not push the door hard enough?) and the alley cats. Colonia is beautiful, very historical; however, a bit run down and sad to see so many buildings abandoned still.

We return to our beloved BA this evening.

Day 3 Colonia del Sacremento, Uraguay

We woke up bright and early this morning and 100% of us (Chris, Olivia, Chris´ clothes...Olivia´s clothes) left our minimally functional hotel and boarded the gigantor ferry Eladia Isabel bound for Uruguay. The three hour trip was beautiful, though, despite our 1st class seats, we spent most of our time on the deck, owing to Chris' sea (river, actually) sickness. We may not have brought enough Dramamine...

Colonia is a beautiful ancient city, full of jumbled and treacherous cobblestones, ancient Portuguese forts, blue skies and loose dogs. We're enjoying fine Uruguan wine and our room in a lovely hostel in downtown Colonia. We head back to BA tomorrow night.

Day 2 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Upon Michael Eckblad´s suggestion, we visited a Hole in the Wall of the name El Desnivel in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires (BA) last night. The beef tenderloin was delicious. And only $5US. Thanks Michael!

Today we walked in rainy and brisk BA (its springtime here you know!) and saw Evita´s grave, ate tasty empanadas and visited the National Museum of Fine Arts. Now we´re off to Korean Barbecue, we leave for Uruguay in the morning.

When we return to BA on Friday, we switching hotels. Why, you might ask? Well, our current hotel (Gran Hotel Oriental) comes complete with a room with no windows, loud talkers outside our door and a shower head that empties directly onto the floor between the sink, toilet and bidet. Not classy, just crappy.

Day 1 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Some say that Buenos Aires is the Paris of South America, well, we say that Paris is the Buenos Aires of France. We had a fantastic trip down south (with the exception of Olivia´s generous use of the air sickness bags while landing in DC), 75% of us made it down here (Chris, Olivia, Chris luggage...).

Now we´re off to eat some beef.

Day -1 Greendale, Wisconsin, USA

We are in Greendale, Wisconsin and leave for Buenos Aires tomorrow. It has been a relaxing vacation already and we haven't even left the Midwest.

Please check back to this blog to monitor our progress through Argentina and Brazil.