One last adventure (well, sort of)

On April 18, following three days of gorging ourselves in Uruguay we took a brief ferry ride across the Rio de la Plata to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Our initial plan of visiting Iguazu Falls was long ago thwarted by LAN’s route change which would have sent us to the Brazilian side of the falls instead of the Argentinian side.  We said no thanks to a $200 Brazilian visa just to spend 20 minutes transiting through the country, and settled instead on a few days in Buenos Aires on either side of a trip to the Mendoza wine country.

Still not fully recovered from our Inca Trail hike and middle of the night flight to Montevideo (I’m glad the US and Europe have not embraced the 2:00am departure), we were more than happy to enjoy a couple of leisurely mornings. We rented an excellent apartment in the residential neighborhood of Palermo from Wayne, the guidebook writer we met in Chile. We took advantage of having our own home in Buenos Aires, and spent our mornings at the kitchen table sipping coffee and enjoying  a variety of treats from the neighborhood pastry shop down the road. We also managed to fit in a tiny bit of sightseeing.

The center of the center: Av 9 de Julio

Suffering a bit of a Chivito hangover we managed to avoid steak for dinner during our first few days in Buenos Aires, no easy task. We instead took advantage of the Italian influence for some decent pizza and managed to stumble upon a characterful local eatery for some small plates that would have fit nicely somewhere in Spain.

Because there were stacks of cans of peas, we took this picture.

The evening of our second full day brought our overnight bus ride to Mendoza. It was also supposed to bring our friend Larry from New Jersey but the forces of United Airlines and air travel in the Northeast US were conspiring against him. His flight from Newark for his connection in D.C was hopelessly delayed and we were left to face another overnight bus ride on our own.

Larry's spot

We began the journey to Mendoza with a bit of optimism given the glowing things we had heard about bus travel in Argentina from a number of people. While the experience itself was certainly a step above our previous overnight bus rides in Laos - not the highest bar to cross – we could have done without: a) the 2.5 hour departure delay; b) the unsurpassed (in our travels) chaos of the bus station as half the population of Buenos Aires was taking a bus out of town for the Easter weekend; and c) the fact that it is still a 12 hour overnight bus trip. It all left me feeling the way I normally do after spending the night on the bus.

Because night buses are no fun, we took this picture.

We did eventually arrive in Mendoza and thankfully Larry persevered and the airline gods were more forgiving, allowing him to arrive in Mendoza a few hours after us.

Jess made me hold this sign.

We all managed to fight through the travel fatigue to partake in some good drinking and eating over our two days and three nights in Mendoza. The highlight was our trip to Salentein winery in Valle de Uco, about an hour south of Mendoza for a private tour and tasting, lunch at their restaurant and a tour of the onsite modern art gallery. We enjoyed the ultra-modern operations and architecture of the facility, and the wine and food were not bad either. Thanks again to our wine-connected friend Hal for the hook-up!

Salentein's "Temple of Wine"

When do we get to stop talking and start drinking? 

Killka Dutch-Argentine modern art gallery

Wine for the road

In honor of the Easter week/weekend and everyone eventually arriving in Mendoza we went for an excellent meat feast on Thursday evening and made our own parrilla on our guesthouse grill on Friday night (good Friday = eat red meat, right?). While I think we took the concept of ‘slow cooking’ the meat to a new level, the end result was well worth the wait and the cooking experience definitely a unique one.

Larry tends the wood coals

Look at how nice the meat turned out! (And those charcoaled discs are butternut squash)

Saturday was spent doing some more wine tasting at three completely different vineyards: the tiny El Cerno with a passionate Italian guide; Vina y Cavas de Weinert with its century-old cellar; and Bottega Sottano, a vineyard started 5 years ago by three brothers whose inheritance came from Frito Lay buying out their grandfather’s 90% share of potato crops in Argentina (or similar).  In between all this we stopped for a local roadside lunch of empanadas and jamon sandwiches thrown in for good measure.

The amazing (so we're told) "Filosofus" on display at El Cerno

Jamon stand

Photo op!

While we did a bit more sightseeing upon our return to Buenos Aires - including visiting the particularly intriguing Cementerio de Recoleta (resting place of the rich & famous) - the real highlights were again the food. We went of the obligatory traditional steak/parrilla dinner on Sunday night, and for our last meal of the trip we took advantage of Larry’s culinary influence to splurge on a seven course seafood meal at an unassuming spot just outside the tourist zone. Regrettably nobody brought a camera for this as some of the dishes really deserved to be preserved for future reflection, but nevertheless it was the most indulgent and memorable meal of the trip.

Recoleta cemetery: Tombs the size of small houses arranged like a small town

We really enjoyed Buenos Aires, a huge cosmopolitan city with a purposeful pace to life, great food, distinct neighborhoods and architecture that combined to remind us more of New York than any other city we’ve visited.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and after four months on the road the bags were packed and strapped on for the final time before completing our circle back to London where a much needed day and half of rest awaited before we embarked on Part II.

Off we go... again!

Somewhere out there