Post by Grubb Colonia is on the Rio de la Plata an hour’s ferry ride from Buenos Aires. Standing on one of the jetties fingering off the coast of Colonia, I felt like I was gazing at the Atlantic Ocean, but it was only the wide mouth of the Rio de la Plata which served…
Out of the blue into the brown
Post by Grubb. Talking to an American woman we ran into at the airport in El Calafate we found out that, coming back from the Iguazu Falls, she had spent a few days in Montevideo. How was it? She grimaced, “The water was brown!” So yesterday, after flying in from Mendoza, we took a ferry…
Chivito
Post by Ella Last night we indulged in fancy dining at the Charco Bistro in Colonia. We opted for the earliest reservation at 19:30 (7:30pm) and weren’t sorry we made the effort. I really could not resist this national dish of Uruguay, the chivito. Essentially a steak sandwich. A sesame bun, nicely seasoned grilled steak,…
The wine flight
Post by Ella This flight from Mendoza (Mendoza being the wine making hub as you may recall) to Buenos Aires was full of people carrying their wine purchases. A woman with two big shopping bags, each with a box that probably held 6 bottles, struggled down the jetway. A guy with a case of 12…
Over to Uruguay
Post by Ella Yesterday (Tuesday, by our reckoning). Travel day. Early flight (I’ve dubbed it the “wine flight”) from Mendoza to Buenos Aires, cab to the ferry port, ferry to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. And we had the dubious pleasure of being accompanied by a soccer team from San Lorenzo, often breaking into spontaneous…
Aconcagua photo roundup
Post by Ella. We’ve already posted bits and pieces about our lovely but long day winding through the Andes right up to the Chilean border. Our companions (as previously mentioned) were: Nick and Patricia ( pronounced Patrees-ia) she Brazilian, he Australian, met in Canada when they attended the same conference. Nick moved to Rio and…
San Martin’s short cut
Post by Grubb. In 1817, at the beginning of his campaign to liberate Chile and Peru from Spain, San Martin followed a river out of Mendoza, Argentina and led his army into the Andes. Since then that river has been dammed to regulate the amount of water flowing into the acequias for the vineyards. The…
The men and their lenses
Post by Grubb. Yesterday we had a guide take us up into the Andes. With us was a couple, Nick and Patricia, from Rio de Janeiro, and a middle aged man, Bjorn, from Norway but now living in Great Britain. The guys had bonded the day before during a wine tour over the fact that…
Thank you, Walter White
Post by Grubb. Whenever Argentinians ask us where we’re from in the US and we say, “New Mexico,” their initial reaction is puzzlement, the usual confusion about whether we’re one of the united states crossing their minds. We attempt to clarify by adding, “Albuquerque.” Blank looks. Then the clincher, the option that always works: “Breaking…
Ready to summit?
Post by Ella. All I can say right now is this is where we were today. More to come.
Yerba Mate in the Parque
Post by Ella. I’ve been fascinated and curious about the mate tradition in Argentina. Pronounced MA-tay. Yerba comes from hierbia which means herbs. Everywhere, you see people carrying their mate cup like we carry our Starbucks coffee. Except it’s not styrofoam or cardboard with a firmly fitting lid. The mate cup, also called a mate,…
Party gals
Post by Grubb. For three women in our winery group tour, this was their second winery excursion in as many days. They had taken part in a farewell party that concluded a Patagonia/Mendoza tour they had been on and were up till 2 drinking and singing karaoke the night before. The tour had been offered…
Bottoms up!
Post by Grubb. At each winery we stopped at on our tour of the Luján de Cuyo spread of vineyards, the conclusion of the brief inspection of gigantic stainless steel fermentation tanks along with taking in the vinegary odors of the racked oaken wine barrels led to the long table where vintages were sampled. Usually…
Four wineries x Five tastings each = too much wine
Post by Ella The wineries are 25 to 100 km out of town. We could pick a few wineries, rent a car and go. Or hire a driver. And there are a zillion small local companies that provide small group day tours. We chose a day tour with a company called “Wine and Trout” who…
Wine with the tennis jock
Post by Grubb. Tooling through the Luján de Cuyo vineyards noted for their Malbec, I was often, when we were seated for wine tasting, given the chair next to the traveling tennis player from Toronto. He and his young wife had flown into Mendoza from Santiago where he had played a match. We didn’t talk…