Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Chapter 8: Mendoza

Wine cellar at Familia Di Tommaso, Maipú, AR

We all got on a local bus to Mendoza City where they were preparing for their yearly holiday fiesta. There was drumming and a parade to the Plaza Independencia, live music and dancing. Instead of hassling the crowds in the plaza, the police were rescuing stray children which was adorable. Quite a welcome. We walked around the city watching the festivities, enjoying the warm night air - something non-existent in Patagonia - and made a summery green pepper, tomato, and squash soup for dinner.

Mendoza police officer rescuing a little boy, Mendoza, AR

We split up our time between the city of Mendoza and the surrounding vineyards. In Mendoza, in addition to the fiesta the night we arrived, we also spent a day walking around to all the satellite plazas that represent the different European backgrounds of the city and of course one for the hero of Argentina General San Martín. San Martín was born in Argentina but schooled in Europe where he also served in the military. When he learned that his home country was going through a revolution he quickly returned to help with the fight. His efforts proved to create miraculous results: training a military force and then charging over the pass between Mendoza and Chile (which even cars today don't attempt - the pass has been closed for years and a tunnel was built in its place) to defeat the colonial forces thus liberating Chile. He later helped with the forces in other countries, trying to help them break free of colonial rule but found his efforts were not quite as helpful and retreated back to Europe where spent the rest of his life. Mendoza also has an enormous park named for San Martín in which we spent a day wandering around.

The enormous monument to General San Martín perched at the top of Cerro Gloria. Mendoza, AR

Mendoza was also the place where, for the first time, everyone seemed to think that if we camped we would die. We got our wallet stolen and everything we did was just a little too touristy and organized - even though we didn't actually do any tours. Mendoza is the famous wine region of AR. They've been making wine here for about 500 years so it's pretty good. Unfortunately some things went wrong and we only got to taste at 2 places - Ironically one of these things was Chris having to bike for an hour to get to the bank to withdrawal the money that was going to be stolen that night.

However, the perk of going wine tasting is more about the beautiful landscape than the drink. We biked, Courtney mostly one handed, around through back roads with vineyards on all sides and pretty trees. It was hot and pleasant. Any time we tried to do something outside the normal wine route everyone was supposed to be on, someone would come up and tell us that we didn't want to or couldn't or shouldn't. So we did anyway and that was fine. Wine in the grocery store is really cheap also, so since we would have had to pay 25 pesos - 10 pesos more than most fairly good bottles - each just to taste 3 wines it turned out better to have spent most of our time biking around.

Chris trying the complementary wine at the Museo del Vino. Maipú, AR

We did end up at a (highly over priced) campsite where we met a group of French exchange students on vacation from school and a German couple. They invited us to eat their "Montón de Carne" with them and we all spoke Spanish since it was the only common language we had together. We spent two nights chatting it up until 4 in the morning over the parrilla - Argentine BBQ (only to get up at 7 am for touristy activities - We found out later that they were all 20, which explains why they had so much energy). In addition to new friends, our campsite had a pool! We were able to wake up to a good swim every morning.

The morning after the wallet was stolen, however, the police picked us up to file a report and let us use their phone to call anyone who might be able to help us out. As it turned out Juan's truck was still in disrepair and he had already headed home by bus to Buenos Aires so as not to miss Christmas festivities. The police dropped us off on the highway and after a few hours we met Abrio and Julio. They were driving a tanker truck full of concentrated Quilmes beer - the Argentine beer of choice - that was ice cold (the day, however was sweltering hot) and Julio let us try some beer with the lunch that he fed us. He felt sorry for us and was completely distressed that Courtney had never eaten carne before, so he bought us dinner (hoping that Courtney would eat steak). He took it upon himself to teach us Spanish and, the following afternoon, dropped us off at a bus stop with $50 AR for a bus into Retiro - the Main station in Buenos Aires - and a 6 litre water bag full of cerveza.

Our ride. The YPF outside of Mendoza, AR

1 comment:

  1. Following our discussion with Chris, here's a useful link with the list of bike stores in Buenos Aires:
    http://www.btt.com.ar/bicicleteria

    ReplyDelete