Fly South: A visit with our neighbors to the East...

ARGENTINA!

MENDOZA!

Riding in the Chi-Ar minivan from Chile, we approach customs and immigration near the moutain pass into Argentina. Customs always makes me nervous. Maybe it’s the drug dogs, or the lines of policemen, or all the paperwork, or the questions in another language, or learning too much about Latin American history to not feel threatened. The bus driver pulls the van to a stop and says, “You have 10 minutes to go to the bathroom, after that come back to the van.”
Not listening and not understanding because of my customs fear, I get out and hop into the long line of people waiting to be approved to enter Argentina. After about 10 minutes, my friend Brad comes out of the bathroom, walks up to me and says, “What are you doing? This is the line for customs.”
I say, “Yeah, I know, isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing?”
He shakes his head, “No, we only got out to go to the bathroom if you need to.”
“Oh, right,” I reply. “I knew that.” I lie so convincingly.

After passing the border, we roll down the mountain pass and see beautiful formations of rock carved by ancient glaciers on each side. The landscape has very little vegetation apart from small bushes, and the mountains differ in color from the dusty clay-pot red of the southwestern U.S., to swirls of green, blue, black and grey. Next to us in the distance looms Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in South America. It is so huge that even though we have a pretty decent view, the top is still hidden somewhere in the clouds.

With us in the van are six various people of Chilean and Argentinean descent. Brad and the others slept through most of the ride, lucky for them. Across the way, I am clenching the seat arm with a grip such that can only be loosened by death, or possibly with the smell of my true love, Lou Malnati's pizza. While sitting in the front of this death van, I get a front-row view of our crazy Argentinean driver at work. He speeds up and down the slopes and around curves like he works for NASCAR. Following the lane markings is for the weak. Luckily, we don’t cliff-jump in the van, and we arrive in Mendoza at about 4 in the afternoon. We walk from one end of the city to the center, backpacks and luggage in hand, and arrive at the Zamora Hostel that friends who came before us stayed at. There are rooms available, and we check in and dump our stuff in the rooms before heading out to find some M.E.A.T. (I’m sure you’ve heard about the deliciousness of Argentine steak. If not, now you have.)

By deciphering the pictures outside restaurants, (like true foreigners everywhere) we decide on a place that looks good. At first, all the prices look extremely high, ($16 for a meal. yikes!) but after converting the price into Argentine pesos, (3 pesos = 1 dollar) we realize we actually can eat at all while we are in Argentina. We end up in a café that serves Italian food, and the special of the day, steak a lo pobre (steak with a fried egg on top.) A little dry, but on the top end of the steak chart, (sadly, better that anything in the name of steak Chile has to offer.)

The next morning, we started our bike wine tour.

Each vineyard is owned by a different family, and they are small productions and only sell in specific locations around the world, (if you’re ever in St. Louis, Missouri, ask for an Argentine selection!) We visit all four that are on the bicycle tour and by the end, we are crashing into trees, (just kidding.) We tour the vineyards, the warehouses that store huge round cement and metal cylinders where the wine ferments, cellars where the wine is aged, and sample a few sips at each vineyard. Brad, Colleen, Erin and I learn how to tell the age of the wine from the deepness of the red, how to swish it around inside the glass to form the "tears," and how to taste the wine properly. The last one was the most interesting because it is owned by an eccentric French couple. They were, in short, absolutely ridiculous. They are proud of their wine, have vats of endless knowledge about harvesting and growing grapes, and are absolute know-it-alls, but with good reason. They know how to create the classics, and they know how to experiment with mixing different grapes to create new types of wines, (one type we tried is an aged mixture of Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, and Syrah, and another looked like a sweet red, but really tasted like a Cab or Malbec.)

After ending the tour, we ate dinner at another Italian restaurant. We puzzle over the differences between Chile and Argentina. Mendoza itselfs looks like a cute little town you'd find in the suburbs of Illinois. The people are a lot more open then Chileans, supposedly because while a bunch of German immigrants emigrated to Chile, Italian immigrants came to Argentina. There is also a distinct European feel, with the clothes and the suprisingly high number of blondes. After another bottle of wine split between four, we hang out in the hostel watching T.V. and talking, and go to sleep.

The next day, we shop around the city and around artesan stands in the plaza. We found the rumor that Argentine products are cheap to be false, but it was probably because most of the stores were closed due to the day being Sunday. In Latin America, Sundays are ghosttowns. Around 2 p.m., we begin our journey back home into Chile and were greeted with Transantiago, long lines and crowds, but we were also able to find an open Internet cafe to say Happy Mother's Day to our mothers. So ended the trip to Mendoza.

Pictures on the drive to Mendoza.

Inside our hostel.

Brad and the argentino who lends bikes out to people for the day.

The side of one of the wineries (bodegas in Argentine Spanish.)

The main road.

Our bikes had special treatment for sure.

Where the Cabernet Sauvignon resides.

Wine is...
The most noble of drinks. Converts the Masses. Exhaults the table. Celebrates the Masses (in church). Seduces young People. Inspires the Muses.

An old wagon used in the 19th century to carry barrels of wine to town, and to bring grapes in from the fields.