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Published: June 10th 2009
WINE COUNTRY. All the wine we drank in Buenos Aires inspired us to visit Mendoza, Argentina's wine country. Although we hadn't heard of Malbec before our visit, we quickly became a fan of the delicious grape. Argentina happens to be home to the best climate on the planet for growing Malbec and one of the best for Cabernet, but Napa wears that crown. Once in Mendoza, we did some research and arranged for 2 days of wine tastings at 8 of the regions finest vineyards. A vineyard tour accompanied every visit. Contrary to our initial thoughts, there was little redundancy among the tours. However, one thing remained constant throughout. As if the fabulous wine was not enough, all the vineyards, or Bodegas, as they are referred to in Spanish, hire attractive bilingual guides to help make the visit more pleasurable; even Julie acknowledges this fact. Tommy, you missed out. I can honestly say, that the three of us walked away from each tour having learned something new about the process and with a small crush on the cute Argentine tour guides. Each of us can now speak intelligently about different aspects of the process so feel free to pepper me with
any questions you may have. Enough said. The pictures will speak to the great time we had.
BRAZIL. After a 4 days in Mendoza we parted ways. Andrew flew home and we flew to Rio (our last stop) where we played the role of professional tourist and hit every tourist trap the city offered in only 2 days. Rio was one of the most dangerous places we visited on our trip. Even though, or perhaps because we stayed on the famous Copacabana beach, we were told not to walk anywhere after dark and not to leave the hotel with anything we didn't want to have stolen. The first couple we met told us they were robbed at knife point the previous day. But hey, we're New Yorkers so we didn't let a little lawlessness get us down.
Our bus broke down on the way up the winding road to the gigantic statue of Jesus overlooking Rio so we all sang "Jesus Take The wheel" and the bus miraculously started again. Seriously, I am now a believer... not. After Julie took all the Jesus jokes I could throw at her we departed for the futbol stadium, a down town
tour, a church tour, lunch and finally Sugar Loaf. Sugar Loaf is the name of a mountain rising straight out of the sea. It's named sugar loaf because the Brazilians think it looks like a loaf of bread and the clouds above it look like sugar being sprinkled over it. Although the name is nice, I could think of a lot of other names that would more accurately describe its appearance. I'll leave it to your imagination.
We spent the evening at a Churrascaria, a Brazilian steak house. It didn't hold a candle to the one in NYC. At night we took in a performance that highlighted all of Brazil's different cultures, from the Samba to African dance.
Although we are sad that our journey through Latin America has concluded, we are happy to be back in the US where we can bathe with and drink clean water, eat our favorite foods, and speak English once again. We are looking forward to spending quality time with family and friends before we leave for Durham in 2 weeks.
4-EVA!
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