When we were working out how to get from the Lakes District to Buenos Aires, it was actually really difficult to decide on how we were actually going to do it, and which towns we could visit given how much time we had and the various routes we could take.
- Head to Mendoza for Vendimia (Wine Harvest Festival) on 7 - 9th of March
- Have a look around Cordoba for a few days, the "Cultural Capital of the Americas"
- Get to Buenos Aires in time for the Festival of Buenos Aires, on the weekend 14 - 16th March
By it's reputation, we had to admit that we were looking forward to going to Mendoza anyway. Mendoza is the "Wine Capital of Argentina" with almost 80% of Argentinian wine being produced from this area.
The region is known for "Malbec", literally meaning "Bad Mouth", this grape had never been successfully used as a wine varietal in Europe until it was planted in Argentina's soil and climate (the "terroir") which turned out to be perfect for it. Argentina's claim to fame is producing the best Malbec in the world, similar to Australia's reputation for Shiraz.
The fact that our visit was scheduled to coincide with the wine harvest festival was even more exciting. We had visions of loads of fantastic quality, but really cheap red wine being available throughout the streets of Mendoza!
We arrived in Mendoza early on the morning of Thursday 6th after a long couple of bus rides from the Lakes District via the regional town of Neuquen (about 19 hours on the road). However, we weren't too tired as the buses in Argentina are amazingly comfortable, with meals, movies and very comfy seats that almost fully recline. They're designed to be slept on!
We wasted no time in checking-in to start exploring the town to see what the go was with the wine festival. It took us about a half day of inquiries to discover the following points:
- Vendimia actually doesn't have much to do with wine, it is more centered around crowning a Wine Festival Queen
- There were some outdoor concerts and parades, but the festival was essentially “dry”
- The highlight of the festival was the Saturday night beauty pageant parade
Ah well, we intended to at least get some wine tasting in, so we booked on the next afternoon tour out to some of the wineries around Mendoza.
The first winery we stopped at was known for producing sparkling wine, Bodega Casa Vinicola Reyter. We got shown through the winery which was very interesting as the owner also had a great art/sculpture collection.
One of the more interesting things was seeing the disgorgement and re-corking of sparkling wine being done by hand.
After the obligatory tour, we were getting ready to try some tastings – however it was with some disappointment that we ended up with only one tasting each! We also got to visit an olive plantation where they made olive oil as well as grow olives for eating and another winery with, again, just a single tasting each.
Although I appreciate what the Argentinians are doing, I think that we have the wine tasting circuit a little better developed around our side of the globe. We were reminiscing about our wine tasting that we did in Blenheim, New Zealand which cost about the same, however we had a private tour of 8 wineries with 5 or 6 tastings at each one!
Anyway, we got back to town and geared up to watch the Friday evening parade of the beauty queens. It basically consisted of a series of floats with the “princess” of each region (about 20 in all), accompanied by all of the other girls that didn't make the cut.
The following morning, there was another parade of the princesses, however this was also interspersed with gauchos and other “people of the land”, all celebrating the wine harvest and everything agricultural. The tradition is that they throw fresh fruit from each of the floats, which is fun. Especially when they're throwing rockmelons (canteloupes for our american viewers)!
They start riding early as gauchos!
In the end however, I think the thing that best exemplified the fact we were in a world standard wine region was the fact that you could get a half bottle of red wine when you ordered your McChicken at McDonalds!
By Saturday night, I have to confess we were a bit sick of beauty queens, so we boycotted the beauty parade and ended up having beer and dinner at a brewhouse! We also discovered the best “helado cereza” (cherry ice cream) that we ever had. South Americans really love their ice cream and it's been something that Steph and I have been all too prepared to try out in every town we've been in so far (Dulce de Leche ice cream is sensational).
Sunday was a quiet day, where we checked out, puttered around town and caught up on our journals before we got on our 10:15pm bus to Cordoba.
I have to confess that one of the only reasons that we headed to Cordoba was because it was featured in the Lonely Planet Blue List that Mum bought me for Christmas. As such, we weren't sure exactly what we were going to get up to there however, to make sure we had something to do, Steph decided that this was also the place where she was going to get her medical exam for her Australian residency application.
We got to our hostel early Monday morning, too early as our room was still occupied. However the great thing about where we were staying, “Baluch Backpackers”, was they had an extensive pirate DVD collection that would even make Steph's Dad green with envy.
Considering that the only TV/cinematic experience we'd had since we left the US was “Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street”, a musical about a homicidal barber set in Victorian London, we sat down to a screening of “3:15 to Yuma” (still in cinemas) while we waited to check-in to our room. The movie was a Western with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe and, although we didn't intend it to be our first Cordoba cultural experience, we enjoyed it immensly.
After we checked in and showered, we headed out the door to explore the town a bit. Cordoba has a huge “Area Peotonal” (pedestrian area) where you can get lost in the shops.
Steph discovered a gentleman busking and fell in love with how he crooned his spanish music and played guitar.
She ended up buying his CD.
We also made our way downtown to the doctor's offices where Steph could get her medical done. We were pleasantly surprised that we could book in straight away for Tuesday and Thursday and the whole thing was going to cost about US$110, significantly cheaper than either Australia or the US!
When we got back to the hostel, there were a few people up on the rooftop terrace getting the party started and Steph and I cooked some dinner than had quite a few (too many) beers with the others.
The next day, after Steph got bodily fluids taken for her medical, we headed down to the area called “Nueva Cordoba”, or the “new” area. Amongst other things, we visited a museum (as we hadn't done too much of this) and were pleasantly surprised. The building that housed the “Museo de Bella Artes” was called the “Palacio Ferreyra” and had been recently, beautifully restored.
Steph, who is now getting the reputation as the one of us that flagrantly breaks rules, got a quick snap of one of the paintings in the museum, something that is expressly forbidden. She made me stand lookout and I had to cough when the security guard was approaching us.
In any case, our visit to the museum left us feeling significantly cultured and we headed back to the hostel to participate in and watch a “genuine” Brazilian samba show. It was hilarious and again made us appreciate how difficult it is to gyrate one's body in such a fashion.
On Wednesday, we booked to head out on a rappelling/hiking excursion in Cordoba's surrounding areas. We got picked up at the hostel by our guide, Max, and met the others joining us for our tour, Yulia and Leonart. We had 5 people crammed in Max's little car, and no sooner had we started to head out of town than we got a flat tyre.
After a not-so quick tyre change (we then had to get the tyre repaired), we finally got to the village of Tanti, where we were starting our hike.
About an hour into it, our guide broke out the climbing equipment so we could have a go at rapelling down a rock face. Steph was very brave and rapelled down the cliff both backwards AND forwards!
We followed the trail further up and came to a small wading pool, where the highlight was being able to jump off a 10 metre cliff into the pool. After doing something similar in Guatemala, I just had to have a go, with Steph professionally photographing the whole thing!
We had a great day and returned to Cordoba by around 8:00pm. We decided to head out for dinner that night and went to the “Parillada de Raul”, a bit of a Cordoba institution for asado. We went with a couple of Israeli blokes from the hostel and I, once again, had to get the mixed grill. Sensational! As a little side note: they had both gone skydiving that day, and one of their parachutes didn't open. Apparently even his jumpmaster was a bit rattled as it was his first experience having to use the reserve 'chute, but this guy didn't even seem phased. I guess that's what mandatory national service in the Israeli Army does to you.... no reaction.
Thursday was a day where we tackled a few odd jobs. Steph finally got a haircut (something I've sworn off for the year) and was amazed that it cost 20 pesos, a little under $7. This was a saving of almost 95% compared to her wedding haircut!
Steph also had the medical exam portion of her assessment that evening and passed with flying colours, before we headed off to the bus station to catch our 9:45pm bus to Buenos Aires.
We had a great few days in Cordoba and, although it might not be high on people's lists compared to some of the other locations in Argentina, we'd definitely recommend it!
Buenos Aires – A City of 13 million people
We arrived early the morning of Friday 14th and our first impression of Buenos Aires was the Retiro Terminal, a massive three story structure where you can catch a bus to pretty much anywhere in Argentina, as well as many places in Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil.
Or second impression was getting scammed by the cabbie, when he gave us 30 pesos in fake notes as change from our 50 peso note. Bastard. Lesson learned: It is necessary for us to be able to differentiate real from fake notes, because they are everywhere in Buenos Aires. However, at a cost of only $10 USD, we felt like we got a pretty cheap lesson.
We were staying in a hostel called the “Obelisco Suites”, so named due to its proximity to “El Obelisco”, one of the key landmarks of BA.
We spent the day exploring the city, checking out the congress building and some of the many plazas and parks around this enormous city. A lot of the architecture is very Parisian, hence BA earning the tag of “Paris of the Americas”.
The Casa Rosada - where Evita made her famous speech
We got back to the hostel to see some of the free concert in front of the Obelisk while we munched on our new favourite food, “Choripan” (Chorizo on bread).
Some of the amazing mauseleoms in Recoleta
We had a couple of Kilkenny's at a pub called Kilkenny's, expertly poured (note the clover on the top of Steph's pint), however at 26 pesos a pint (US$8.70) we quickly switched to Heinekens (the bottle's green - therefore proxy for green beer). Happy St Patty's!
In 1952, “Evita” died from cancer at the age of 31, however she continues to be revered by Argentinians and international citizens alike (I think particularly because Andrew Lloyd Weber wrote such a catchy tune in the musical).
That afternoon, we headed to the football which was a local derby between “River Plate” (in the red and white) and “Racing” (blue and white). The oddest thing (in my opinion) about Argentinian football is the large proportion of clubs with English names.
One of the many riot police stationed around the ground
So sitting down for our first alcohol free sporting event in quite a while (I think my last one was playing on the U10s Wakehurst soccer team) we had to sit through a grueling, boring 0-0 stalemate.
Ah well, you win some, you lose some but for nil-all soccer games I just really don't have the passion to say that I'm glad that I watched it! Sorry, Timmo!
This was to be our last night in Buenos Aires for about a week as we were heading out early Monday morning for Uruguay, catching a boat across the largest river delta in the world, that of the Rio de la Plata. We spent the night fairly quietly in the hostel, having a few beers and reflecting on the amazing diversity of this amazing continent.
