Three Days in Mendoza and Maipu, Argentina (April 2014)

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30 March 2014 – Sunday – Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina

We were surprised to see that the Metro doesn’t start until 8am on Sunday morning and we hailed a cruising taxicab instead to get to the Tur Bus station for our journey into Argentina to the famous wine region of Mendoza. Route 7 crosses Argentina west to east and is an Argentine branch of the Pan American Highway. The 7 hour journey commenced at near sea level and rose slowly up into the Andes mountains. This route is not always open to traffic as the Andes pass often closes after heavy snowfall in the winter months, normally around late May to early September. The only snow we saw, however, were the snow-capped mountains in the distance. The ski-resorts closer to the main road looked like ghost towns awaiting a re-awakening with the winter snows. The border crossing was on a barren plateau, a kind of neutral zone between the two countries and consisted of a vast tin-roofed barn in which there were a number of two-person booths. We lined up for the Chilean official who sat on one side of the booth and he pounded an exit stamp into our passports and then we lined up again for the Argentine official who pounded an entrance stamp into our passports. While we were waiting in this line another official looked into the luggage compartment of the bus and selected a few suitcases to be opened and people were pulled out of the line to open them and remarkably ours were not selected. Cars were being searched and sealed boxes on roof racks knifed open. A small van packed to its roof was being unloaded behind a panel. There were no drug sniffer dogs. Our bus and fellow passengers passed through routinely and we drove out of the big barn and we were in Argentina.

The Andes mountains in this part of Chile and into Argentina are not as overwhelming or dramatic as we had experienced during our bus journeys further north in Colombia and Ecuador and Peru. They seemed more a combination of high plateaus between the jagged mountains of rock. The border crossing must have been at the highest point because the rest of the journey seemed to be a continual, gradual descent and soon we were driving through the famous vineyards of the Mendoza region. A quick taxi brought us from the bus station to our small apartment at a Tunkelen Apart Hotels which is very like an American-style motel with the doors from the rooms opening out on the cars parked outside. We asked the receptionist for the nearest grocery story and went immediately there to stock up our small fridge with provisions and local wine and beer, Joan made dinner and we crashed early, tired from the long distance bus journey and still recovering from the late-night jazz gig.

31 March 2014 – Monday - Mendoza, Argentina

We spent all day today getting familiar with the town of Mendoza. Mendoza is the centre of the Argentinian wine industry, for which it is world renowned. The town itself was completely devastated by an earthquake in 1861 which means there are very few buildings pre-dating that event still standing. After the earthquake it was rebuilt along a typical Spanish grid system with a number of large open square and plazas where people could congregate for safety and avoid the danger of collapsing buildings in future earthquakes. The large central plaza, called Independence plaza, and four equidistant smaller squares (San Martin, Italia, Espana, and Chile) contain fountains, statues and benches. Each of the benches in the Chile square are decorated with blue, white and red mosaics (the colours of the Chilean flag). The varying designs feature the names on one each of Chile’s cities. We assume these squares were named after countries who assisted in the rebuilding of the city after the devastating earthquake.

Mendoza is situated in an extremely dry desert region and has an extensive artificial irrigation system which allows for greenery throughout the city. It is also, of course, used in the growth of the grapes in its surrounding vineyards, of which there are over 1200 (not only 800 as previously mentioned). Most of the streets in the city have deep irrigation channels on either side of them that are periodically flooded with water diverted from the river. There are approximately 80,000 trees lining the streets and boulevards, all of which were imported and planted. They make Mendoza an attractive and relaxing city to wander on foot. We walk everywhere, if feasible ... and sometimes when it isn’t feasible!

We had lunch at Azarfan on Avienda Sarmiento. This was a restaurant that Joan had chosen from her online research. When we arrived an indifferent young waiter offered us at a sidewalk table. The dining rooms had more character and atmosphere, and a charming and eager waitress. We were quickly settled and given a shot glass amuse bouche of small cubes of goat’s cheese, rocket and shredded mushrooms marinated in a lemon and olive oil that was a welcoming touch. The lovely Irish-voice of Dido was singing in the background. I started with two empanadas, one with pork and carmelized onions and the other with black pudding (not my favourite but Joan liked it). Joan’s started was a goat’s cheese salad with a variety of fresh lettuce leaves and a vinegary dressing. We munched away on a small basket of fresh made rolls that had bits of cheese in them. The butter was infused with herbs and we were provided with a mild local olive oil. We both chose filet steaks for main courses; we were eager for some Argentine beef! They were accompanied with potato mash and grilled vegetables. While the entire meal was very good, it was more an exercise in reproducing modern cuisine as per the classroom kitchen. It was hearty and wholesome, perhaps lacking a bit of sophistication. The kitchen was partly visible and it reminded Joan of the Ballymaloe training kitchen filled with young chefs, trying hard to be trendy and creative and still learning their craft and not yet accomplished enough to create individual and unique dishes. Our dessert was a glass of ice cream; its base was covered in praline chunks and a weave of spun sugar stuck into its top.

After lunch we continued our exploration of downtown Mendoza and found a proper music store with a selection of Argentine jazz recordings. There was another customer in the store listening to a release of the classic songs from John Fogarty and Credence Clearwater Revival. He was from Mendoza but who has been living in Canada for a long time so spoke perfect English and translated for me when I asked about the possibility of live jazz, or any live music, in Mendoza. I learned that there was only tango at the weekend, but there were plans for a jazz club to open in May! I purchased one cd from an Argentine trumpet player, Juan Cruz de Urquiza. (Listening to it later that night, he has a lovely sound on the trumpet but the recording features a little too much from his electric guitarist. I will search for one with him fronting a more traditional trio line-up with piano rather than guitar.)

We walked more and found some beautiful wine shops in old restored buildings. Wine is big business in Mendoza and there are very nice stores on nearly every street selling it.

And we had our first experience with the private money changers. The Argentine Peso is an unstable currency and artificially inflated currency that is currently under much pressure. There are two means to exchange US Dollars. The official rate is about 8 pesos to the dollar and exchanges are via banks and cambio (exchange) offices. The ‘on the street’ rate can vary by up to 50% (although that is only in Buenos Aires). The cambio men (and they are all men) congregate on the street corners outside the main change bureau on San Martin Avenue. They were offering 10.3 pesos to one dollar. We approached a couple of them and they were all about the same rate. We told one of the cambio men that we had received 11.4 in Buenos Aires the previous week (we hadn’t but I had read online that was the rate there) and asked him why the rate was so much lower in Mendoza. He told me Buenos Aires was ‘a different country’ than Mendoza. When I pointed out to him that they were both cities in Argentina he offered a brief lecture on economics, supply and demand, and volume of trade (at least that is what we think he was talking about!). We had a joke with him and a bit of craic and he asked us where we were from and Joan negotiated a rate of 10.5 (1050 Pesos) for our 100 US Dollars.

We celebrated our achievement with having a lovely, strong coffee across the street at DunKen where they also had a couple glass cases filled with petit fours, of which we also partook. Joan was particularly charmed by the mini lemon meringue pies that were about the size of a silver dollar.

1 April 2014 – Tuesday - Maipu, Argentina

We bought our Red Bus pass and loaded it up with round trip fare to Maipu (pronounced ‘my-pooh) on the newish, above-ground metro line that connects Maipu to Mendoza. It is a comfortable journey of about half an hour in a trolley style carriage with narrow leather seats and chrome rails. Maipu is a small town of about 100,000 people and is at the centre of an important wine-growing region. It is a very flat landscape filled with vineyards and winerys.

Our first stop was wine tasting at Bodega Lopez which is only a few minutes’ walk from the trolley terminus. It was free and we were offered a white and a Malbec red to taste. The serving girl spoke very good English and was reasonably helpful but seemed very eager for us to finish our tasting quickly. The white was served too cold and the red, also served cold, was a bit stalky. This winery had been operation for 116 years; the son of its founder lived to the age of 96!

We walked along Avienda Ozamis to the next winery, Antigua Bodega Giol, which was founded in 18096 by two Italians, Giol Juan and Juan Bautista Gargantini. There was no one else in the tasting room. We decided to move quickly on, but only after quizzing the attendant about possible lunch restaurants. (Joan had researched and chosen a restaurant called Zucardi, also a winery, but had not google-mapped it. When she gave me the information I found that it was nearly 30 kilometers from Maipu, even though it was listed as a ‘Maipu’ destination restaurant.) The attendant suggested a family-run restaurant about 5 kilometers out of town, and strongly advised to avoid eating in the town itself. We made a note of it, but Joan was keen to eat at another vineyard restaurant as we had in the Casablanca Valley region of Chile the previous week.

We continued on into the town centre and located the tourist office on the main square. There were four young people there, and although only two of them were employed in the tourist office they all contributed answers and suggestions to our questions. At their suggestion, we decided on a restaurant called La Carmenere at the Wine Bodega Vistandes. They arranged a taxicab to take us to the winery-restaurant which was about 6 kilometres from the city centre. The taxicab was a real banger with holes in the floorboards through which we could see the tarmac.

We were the only couple in the dining room and although we have been quite happy to have a private dining experience in previous restaurants in the past, this square dining room required other diners to enhance it and it sadly lacked any sense of atmosphere or ambience. The young half-Argentine, half-American waitress tried very hard to make us comfortable, but the vibe just wasn’t happening. We started with a trio of empanadas that were tasty small parcels, one with chorizo sausage, one of minced beef and one of melted cheese. We each had a glass of sparkling wine from the winery with these starters. Joan’s main course of pork rib was very fatty, marinated in a slightly sweet sauce. My tenderloin steak, ordered medium arrived medium well done. The two meat dishes were too heavily-salted and we were constantly thirsty and drinking water for the rest of the day. We shared a bottle of cabernet sauvignon from their winery which was very nice.

Our Maipu wine map showed the Bodega Familia di Tommaso was located very close by. We walked out the front gate of Vistandes to the main road and there asked a man selling tomatoes from the back of his truck to confirm the direction of the Tommaso and he pointed up the road. We had passed another winery in the taxicab when coming to Vistandes that had many cars parked out front and were upbraiding ourselves for not going there instead for our lunch. When we arrived at the winery we found that it was not Tommaso but Bodego Trivento Argentina, closed to visitors, and that the cars belonged to its work force. We were tired and fed up and more than a little tipsy and decided just to catch a passing bus back into Maipu. A motorcycle policeman drove very slowly passed and Joan flagged him down to ask about the bus stop. He pointed some distance ahead, at the next right turn, and then continued on his patrol. By the time we reached the bus stop we saw a sign that said the town centre was only 3 kilometres away and thought we might walk the rest of the distance and try to sober up a little. We walked a little beyond the bus stop and the motorcycle copy appeared again and ushered us back to it. He hung around with us. His English was very good. His parents were living in Canada. He had a photo of his small child pinned to his breast on his uniform just beneath his badge. We chatted about the upcoming World Cup competition and Lionel Messi (the Argentine three-time world footballer of the year who is not universally loved in Argentina because he emigrated to and plays in Spain and has done so since his early teenage years, although he plays for the Argentina national team – this for my US readers who are not soccer fans!) He said he did not like Messi. I have read that this is a sentiment shared by many Argentine football fans. I asked him if Messi won the World Cup for Argentina would he then like him, and he laughed and said ‘maybe’!

The motorcycle cop hailed the bus and shepherded us onto it and informed the conductor of our destination. I used our Red Bus card but the amount of credit was insufficient and the machine hissed a noise of rejection, as the bus journey is more expensive than the metro. The bus conductor and the motorcycle cop glanced at each other and nodded and we were allowed to continue our return journey on the bockety bus back to Mendoza.

2 April 2014 – Mendoza, Argentina

I couldn’t sleep last night and was up until after 2am watching Argentine television with the sound turned off and learned of another large earthquake measuring over 8 on the Richter scale off the coast of northern Chile. Because I couldn’t sleep I went online to discover on earthquaketrack.com that Chile has had 56 earthquakes in the past week and 142 in the past month. All of these are much smaller, ranging up to about 5.5 on the Richter scale. It continues to have at least one earthquake per hour. We are no longer in northern Chile but are currently in Mendoza, Argentina – a city that was completely devastated by an earthquake in 1861! Being here makes one much more interested in this quaking earth we walk around on! No wonder I couldn’t sleep.

We had a sort of itinerary planned for today but when we finally exited our apartment we noticed immediately that the streets were very quiet and as we walked toward the city centre and our first destination we noticed that very few of the stores were open and it was nearly noontime. We approached a small square where there was a gathering of people and an army band and a man giving a speech before a painted triptych of grave markers and soldiers’ helmets. We learned a short while later that today was a memorial day to commemorate the soldiers who lost their lives in what is known here as the War of the Malvinas and which is referred to in the west as the Falklands War. The beleaguered president, Christina Fernández de Kirchner led a government rally today to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of the Malvinas Islands War Argentina and the UK fought over the sovereignty of the South Atlantic territories back in 1982. 649 Argentine and 255 British soldiers lost their lives in the 74-day conflict.

We walked to the bus station at the edge of town to explore our options for our next onward journey to Cordoba. The large bus station has over 40 ticket selling counters for both the bus companies themselves and ticket agents and there are about 20 or so bus companies. And we discovered that the prices are exactly the same from all of them on the Mendoza to Cordoba route. They only variations are the times of departure, and these seem to be very conveniently staggered about one per hour, commencing at 6am. So we chose the early bus as the journey is scheduled for 12 hours and we prefer to arrive at a new destination in daylight if possible. The bus is a double decker and we have the two front seats so should be afforded a wonderful view of Argentina unfolding before us for 600kilometers (if we can stay awake!).

From the bus station we went in search of lunch. We are always searching for the next place for lunch. We walked across town to Avienda Villaneuva as an attendant in the tourist office had recommended it as a place where a number of good restaurants were congregated. Today being a holiday, many of them were closed. Joan studied the menus of the ones that were open and we were headed into one called Milanese that offered a unique product – a flattened pancake-sized chunk of chicken in bread crumbs, pan-fried and covered with various toppings much like a pizza. When we approached the hostess we were told ‘nada’ and sent packing. The place was packed and we assume it was all reservations rather than not wanting the hassle of picky, non-Spanish-speaking gringos.

None of the other restaurants on this street excited Joan so we headed back to Paseo Sarmiento where we had had a very good lunch on Monday and where there was a cluster of more sophisticated restaurants. Joan had spotted an old time grill restaurant there during our Monday walk through. The restaurant was an offshoot of a winery called Estacion La Florencia. The waiters were the professional waiters of old, dressed in black and white, and with a slightly contemptuous attitude, the last of a dying breed. We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch. Our waiter was brusque and efficient. The atmosphere was convivial as the room was full of people taking advantage of a mid-week holiday for a lunch out with friends and family. We shared two small empanadas as a starter and Joan concluded they were the best empanadas we have yet had in South America. One was stuffed with ham and cheese and the other with basil and mozzarella. This was a grill restaurant so we went for meat: Joan a tenderloin steak medium-rare with potatoes and I had pork ribs with french fries. Both were excellent, tender and full of flavour. We shared a bottle of very quaffable cabernet sauvignon from their own vineyard and a bottle of sparkling water and the bill came to 302 Argentine Pesos (which is about 30 US dollars if you exchange your cash on the street with the cambio hawkers or 38 USD if you use the banks).

We walked off our lunch through a couple of the parks and returned to DunKen for a good strong coffee and one of their dainty petit fours. Joan used her tablet there to check emails while I thumbed through the pile of local newspapers. Wherever we go, I always enjoy browsing the local newspapers even if I can’t read a word of the writing.

We walked back to the apartment early, after a quick stop at the local grocery to stock up for tomorrow’s long journey to Cordoba.

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