Mendoza

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Hola This is my first entry for South America 2007/08. I fear that I´ll get too lazy to keep up every location that i go to. So, if there start to dry up, or get condensed into entries of five cities, thats probably the reason. For those of you who dont know, it´s me and Amanda this time. The other guys are around as well but we´ll be meeting up with them later. Hopefully this change of company will result in much better grammar and spelling than previous blogs.

After a 31 hour (series of) flight(s), we finally arrived in Buenos Aires (BA) in the afternoon on the 28th. I was somewhat dissapointed that our two stop overs in South Africa had not presented enough opportunities for me to laugh at the accent, but it was good to get off the plane. BA is big, and highly developed, that was the first thing I noticed. After finding our hotel (much better that my Kolkata experience) we wandered over to find Nick and Tim across the road, and went for some coffee. That night we had a few beers and the best steak I´ve ever had. It was so good I literally felt it the next morning, a pure meat injection. After wandering around downtown for a bit, we decided to catch a bus to Mendoza, directly west of BA, right before the Andes begin, not far from Santiago Chile.

Mendoza in wine country. Argentina is the 4th largest wine producer in the world, and 70% of that originates in Mendoza. Finding a hotel was not much trouble, and we ventured to the main strip for breakfast and coffee. The strip is beautiful. Its a mall, like Burke street in Melbourne and is filled with cafes and street performers. One thing that is worth mentioning about travel in this part of the world is the language barrier. In India, like Southeast Asia for Amanda, there is enough english around to not worry about anything. Here, nobody speaks a word. It gives the whole experience a new dimension, and already we have picked up few words.

We spent most of our time in Mendoza drinking wine ($6 for a bottle of red) and coffee, reading and playing cards. Mendoza has lots of plazas and parks in its centre as well as the massive parque de San Martin on its border, which are nice to chill in. It´s a good way to start the trip, kind of taking a big breather. On the second day we went to the oldest winery in Mendoza (one of the oldest outside Europe) which we had been directed to by the official tourist agency, only to find that it was closed on Sundays. We went back to the city centre and drowned our sorrows in a bottle of wine and some good pasta. That´s the thing about Argentina- whenever it frustrates you, you can always find comfort in food. Good food. Speaking of which, I think I may have had a bit of a revelation of how good expressos are (it´s all the really drink here) I´m liking them a lot. I looked in the super market for some Roast de Internácional, but it wasn´t there.

I´m starting to develop an overall impression of Argentina wich distinguishes it from India and the other places I´ve been. Its really very developed. Although I was expecting this, it does make us feel more at home. Having said that, the language barrier presents possibly a greater challenge than those I faced else where. We´re loving it .

We left Mendoza for an Cordoba last night. The bus was nice, but cold. You'll hear from me soon, keep the comments coming.

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Photos

Drinking time
This is why you come to mendoza

Soccer field, the first we saw
I should say ´futball´

Wineries
This in a 620 litre barrel made in 1911

Comments

[Sally Wilkins]

Great to hrear from you
Hi Gorgeous. Sounds like you are having a ball - the pictures are great - can you post some of you and Amanda too? Everything OK back here - very sunny and Kev giving them heaps in Bali. Johnny conceded Bennelong this week. We're all well. BJ gets her VCE result (drama) on Monday. G got a first for her thesis. We're missing you. Have a blast and muchos funos. Mum xxxx