Cold In Cordoba & The Malbecs Of Mendoza

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November 8th 2015

Published: December 5th 2015

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Delek Delek

Vineyard, Norton Estate

One of Norton's many picturesque vineyards.

With no direct buses or other cheap modes of transport to get from Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay to Cordoba in Argentina, I was back on the ferry back to Buenos Aires with Merian in tow. I would have to spend another night at Milhouse - Avenue this time rather than Hipo - before jumping on an overnight bus to Cordoba.

Although I didn't think BA was my favourite city after my first visit there and although I wasn't too enamoured about having to return, there are indeed worse places to have to spend a night.
Boca Juniors won the Argentinian football league the night we arrived and Merian and I flocked, like almost every Boca fan in the city, to the obelisk on Avenida 9 de Juilo to witness the celebrations. A sea of blue and yellow full of drunken and jubilant fans of all ages stretched back about two-to-three blocks in every direction. It was so spontaneous and boisterous - this kind of thing would never happen in New Zealand, even after winning the World Cup! It was a cool but slightly nervy thing to witness and to be in the thick of.

My day in Buenos Aires was an

Bikes & Wine

Preparing to ride to the next vineyard outside of Mendoza.

administrative one where I sadly missed out on a train ticket to Cordoba. The train is ridiculously cheap - AR$70, which is like £3-£4 - which is why they sell out way in advance. As a result I was booked on an overnight bus for AR$625 - so almost ten times the price of the train. It's funny how this is the case - in Europe it is usually the train that costs way more than the bus.
I enjoyed a final but very nice Peruvian meal - I am looking forward very much to eating more cerviche when I get to Peru - with Merian before bidding her farewell and taking a taxi to the sketchy-at-night Retiro bus terminal. It was a little sad leaving Merian behind - hopefully we'll catch up again sometime later on in my trip.
The overnight bus again was fine - comfortable and without any dramas - and I arrived at a cold and wet Cordoba at around 7am.

With seven universities there, I had heard that Cordoba was a student town - walking around the streets on my first day it certainly seemed like it!
Helpfully guided by Orlando - the Scottish

Iglesia Cathedral

Cordoba's cathedral on Plaza San Martin.

hostel worker who could speak English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese (!) - I walked to the main square, Plaza San Martin, before taking a tour of the Museo de la Memoria which documented the kidnappings, incarcerations, torture and executions that happened in Cordoba - on the exact site the museum is now located in on Plaza San Martin - in the 70s under Argentina's military dictatorship. I have to say that I am not particularly versed in the history of South American countries so it was a good to learn a bit more about it, albeit the bad, sad bits. Having previously visited places like Auschwitz and Cambodia, it was a similar story that I had unfortunately heard about far too many times before.

On my second day, I decided to make the most of Free Museum Wednesday by visiting a couple more of them and to get out of the rain.
Paseo del Buen Pastor is a nice complex of galleries, gardens, bars and restaurants, but was unfortunately closed; Palacio Ferreyra is a beautiful old mansion housing a fine arts gallery that had a couple of interesting paintings; the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Emilio Caraffa has

Wine Tasting

The first one at the Dante Robino Estate.

a really long name and some interesting contemporary art, with Jorge Simes in particular catching my eye, but otherwise I think I have seen galleries with pieces that have affected me more, like the ones in London.
The thing is though, I really only have a parting interest in art so I rely a lot on the subtitles and text provided at galleries to try and interpret things. I don't always understand what the subtitles are trying to say, since art usually deals with concepts difficult to explain with words - and that is when the subtitles are in English. So when everything is in Spanish, it is really only the artist biographies that I am able to understand, which doesn't really help me to understand and appreciate what I am looking at. I appreciate that art is subjective and that one should try to make their own interpretations - but I'm not a trained art student so it's not always something I am able to do.

I realised that night that the final of the Copa Argentina between Rosario Central and Boca Juniors was being played in Cordoba that night. Maybe I might be able to get to

Chess In Cordoba

Two players having a game behind Plaza San Martin.

get to an Argentinian football match after all. Not for AR$1500 I didn't have though.
Which highlighted my money problems again. Argentina has proved to be more expensive than I thought it would be and I was flying through my cash. I realised the next day that I would need to make another Azimo transfer before leaving Argentina for Chile. Argentina's prices and it's currency situation was really starting to annoy me now. In a town of students, I had to become like one to stem the outflow of cash - it was to be home-cooked pasta for a couple of nights!
I didn't even have enough money to test Cordoba's much vaunted nightlife - although one thing I have realised about nightlife is that is while I am always keen to check it out in all the different places that I go, there has got to be a place that is really special and unique for me to make a night out mandatory. Otherwise there generally isn't much to distinguish one bar or club from the next. And you need the right conditions and mood for a good night out - it's not something you can really force. Mlihouse

Paseo del Buen Pastor, Cordoba

Inside an art gallery / restaurant/cafe / garden complex.

back in Buenos Aires certainly knew how to generate these conditions!
So instead of attending a football match or hitting Cordoba's bars and clubs, I instead saved the AR$390 I had left and spent a cold, wet night practicing my Spanish with some Argentinians at the hostel, something I felt I needed to do. I have mostly been hanging out with fellow backpackers where English is the primary language spoken so I haven't had the chance to practice my Spanish as much as I would like. Able to have a decent conversations with these locals, I definitely got a confidence boost. I find that I need to warm up my 'Spanish motor' in my brain before I am able to talk properly - so catch me when I am tired or haven't spoken it for a day or so and I will appear like a novice - so I want to get it to the level where it rolls off my tongue a bit easier.
Which it did for Orlando, gee-whiz. As well as the Argentinians, there were three French people as well as a couple of English speakers and he could switch between the three languages effortlessly. I wish

Inside The Palacio Ferreyra

As well as showcasing art, this art gallery in Cordoba puts on live music too.

to be able to do that one day. It was cool to be in a hostel where English wasn't the dominant language for a change.

Speaking of the hostel, it was a bit run-down and was very cold. The place was falling a part a little and I was told that I would not be able to extend my stay here if I wanted to - my decision was made pretty quickly that I would be getting out of there after my two nights on an overnight bus to Mendoza, even though I had stayed at a different place for each of my last six nights.
There is a nice family-like atmosphere here at the hostel though - there are a few people who are staying here long term, including some backpacking volunteers working there. I maybe didn't socialise as much here as I normally might either as the majority of the people staying there were Spanish speakers so I wasn't as confident about starting conversations as I normally would be.

Before catching my bus the next day, I had the stress of picking a hostel and arranging another cash transfer to pick up in Mendoza. It was

Plaza San Martin

The heart of Cordoba.

like trying to withdraw cash overseas in the 50s, before the invention of ATMs. So over this.
I also went on a guided tour of the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, the oldest in Argentina. The tour was done in English although the guide's accent was so thick and he spoke so fast that he might as well have done the tour in Spanish. It was interesting however, to learn that Argentina as we know it today started from Cordoba - and that the Jesuits started their missions from here as well, the ruins of one I visited while I was in Paraguay.
Overall though, it was a bit underwhelming in keeping with my general experience in Cordoba - there isn't much to see and do and I don't think the shitty, cold and wet weather, nor the hostel helped either. Probably worth skipping to be honest.

My bus ride to Mendoza was the first uncomfortable ride that I had – there wasn’t much leg room on the bus and the leg rest of my semi-cama didn’t go horizontal enough. The bus was freezing as well and I only got about 4-5 hours sleep. I did get to see the

Plaza Independencia

The centre of Mendoza, Plaza Independencia also has four other smaller plazas on each of its corners about a block away while the city is set up like a grid.

Argentinian countryside for the first time though – I didn’t know what to expect and in the end it was rather boring, with just lots of shrubs as far as the eye could see. The highlight was seeing the snow-capped Andes for the first time ever as we came into Mendoza.

Arriving in Mendoza around 8am and getting to the hostel around 9am I was able to have the hostel breakfast which included pancakes and eggs cooked just for you by a chef. Over breakfast I recognised a familiar face in Teo, a Swedish guy I had briefly met at Milhouse. I also had a chat with Celine, an American who enlightened me a bit about the state of the Argentinian economy.
It was only after Celine had told me about the tight restrictions on imports that I realised that I hadn’t seen any luxury brands in Argentina – no Gucci, Prada, Cartier or anything like that. You can’t even buy anything Apple here either. Having traditionally been a left-wing country since the popular reign of Juan Peron and Evita, Argentina has ended up with a protected economy – one that protects local jobs by trying to create as

Parque General San Martin

Beautifully kept part of what is generally quite a wild park, next to the river.

many consumer goods within the country as possible. For example, if you want to buy a car from overseas, all the parts must be shipped into Argentina and the car must be assembled here. Many goods have the “Industria Argentina” stamp on them to encourage people to buy locally made stuff. It is questionable how sustainable this is long-term, but I think the government – whoever is elected after the ongoing elections – will dare not open up Argentina’s economy to the world as this will cause a bit of a shitstorm. There is already quite a bit of poverty here and taking away a whole lot of local jobs is going to make inequality go through the roof. Such a proud country, it will take a brave government to shift Argentina away from its Peronist ideals.

My newly-made friend Teo and I then decided to go for a walk around the city.
Mendoza is a pleasant city, nice enough to look at and with a fairly laid back vibe. With the way it was laid out, the width of the footpaths and the age and style of many of the buildings, it kind of reminded me of Hamilton

Cerro de la Gloria, Mendoza

Teo and I sweated blood to get up here.

back in New Zealand, rather bizarrely.
There isn’t too much to see however – we did a hard slog to get up to the Cerro de la Gloria in our trousers under the hot sun to get a beautiful view over the city and of the mountains. There are some beautifully-manicured parts of the sprawling Parque General San Martin, picturesque plazas and lots of tree-lined streets – but there isn’t too much else to the city.
After walking around for six hours following exhausting overnight bus rides for both of us the night before, we were both absolutely knackered.

The main reason that people come here however is because Mendoza is right in the middle of some of the best wine country in the world. Bike and wine tours like the one I did earlier this year in Stellenbosch are very popular and it was on one of these that I was joined by Teo, Brit Nicola and Dutch couple Sybe and Fleur.
The first vineyard that we visit is that of Dante Robino. After having the wine-making process explained to us, and being shown the gigantic 20,000 litre barrels and 500,000 litre concrete ‘rooms’ which hold wine, it

Vineyard, Dante Robino Estate

With the Andes in the background.

was on to the first tasting. The bonarda was the first wine we tried, a red one. It was rather spicy and quite acidic which wasn’t to my liking – the acidity is apparently deliberately kept high to maintain the flavour of the wine. The cabernet sauvignon – which I learned was a mix of cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc grapes, was a lot smoother and sweeter than the first. Both were reservas and are required by law to be kept on the vineyard for two years before they can be sold as reserve wines. We finish the tasting with a very sweet espumante sparkling wine which almost tasted like a dessert wine.
After a short five minute cycle, we were at the Adrover vineyard, which is a small, family-run, organic vineyard. The first wine we tasted here was a barbera which grapes are of an Italian origin. It had a good, spicy smell but not much actual taste and I didn’t like the aftertaste that it left either. We were then treated to a 2002 reserve cabernet which smelt old (rather unsurprisingly perhaps), did not taste great, but was smooth.
Starting to feel a little tipsy, we then cycled

Dante Robino Estate

Each of these barrels can hold 20,000 litres of wine.

for around fifteen minutes to the final winery – the Norton estate. You’ve probably drank a Norton wine in your lifetime and if not, you have probably heard of or seen them in the shops. As a result, the Norton winery was the most pimped out and had the best views, with the snow-capped Andes in the background. After a boozy lunch consisting of cheese, bread and cured meats that was accompanied by two bottles of red wine that was mainly shared between Teo, Sybe, Fleur and myself, we got to the actual tastings. By this stage, I honestly don’t remember much about the wines I tasted here – but I do remember that we ‘tasted’ the same wine from different points of the wine-making process. The wine got more alcoholic (though it didn’t seem to taste so), yet smoother the further it got through the process. Invitations to tip out the remainder of our glasses each time were not taken up. After tasting a white wine and a sparkling wine, it was now safe to say that most of us were well on our way now and we were all having loads of laughs. Sybe in particular is a

Norton Estate

The most pimped of the estates that we visited. Did you know that it is owned by the same guy who owns Swarovski?

really funny guy, always laughing and happy. It was great fun and probably the most fun thing I have done so far on the trip.
I was a little disappointed not to have done more actual cycling – we only rode for about twenty actual minutes all day and there was a huge imbalance with the “bike” portion of the tour significantly smaller than the “wine” portion. Not that anyone was really complaining in all honesty! In saying that, perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to be riding back into Mendoza after drinking three bottles of wine each over the course of an afternoon – we had a few casualties passed out on the drive home.

A common feature among many of the hostels in Mendoza is the offer of free wine every night – a happy hour, if you will, which we got back just in time for after the tour. As the wine continued to flow, so did the fun. Teo, Sybe, Fleur and I seemed to have our own circle of laughs that seemed to draw other people in – good times.
Most of us signed up for the hostel asado too, cooked by the hostel

Sampling Wine

Straight out of the vat.

chef. It was good steak, maybe just a tad too salty. The chef kept the steaks coming throughout our meal and pushed us to eat more and more – I reckon that I ate at least a kilo of steak that night. There was even ice cream at the end for dessert.
The asado came with yet more free wine so we kept on drinking – as bad as the wine was, we couldn’t let any go to waste!

Our tour guide had told us about a house party happening that night at our driver’s house, so a few of us went out to that once we had finished the free asado wine. Once there, we were treated to yet more wine, although this time it came in the form of sangria. It wasn’t a banging party by any means and it was a pretty low-key affair. The highlight was when a dude opened a bottle of beer by kicking the top off the bottle. It was all locals at the party apart from us so it was good to meet non-backpackers and to practice some drunken Spanish but we left at around 3am. I was fading badly having

Jump Photo Fail

Didn't quite get the timer and the timing right for this shot of our bike and wine crew on the Norton Estate.

now been on the piss for 15 hours, having been drunk for about 12 of them. Overall though, it was a great day out although it might be a while before I drink red wine again!

It was a great way to bring down the curtain on my visit to Argentina – I had a lot of fun in Argentina although there were aspects of the country that I didn’t like too much. I drank way too much alcohol here and had my fair share of parties but acquiring Argentine pesos was a real pain in the ass and I didn’t like the general vibe given off by the people here, particularly in Buenos Aires.

I’ll be hoping for a friendlier environment in the next country I am visiting; Chile.

Hasta luego,
Derek

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