I'd rather be skiing...

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Mendoza

After a few days in BA, we flew up to Mendoza in the Central Andes province and spent about 5 days up there. We stayed in town for a few nights before spending a couple out in the vineyards in Maipu. Mendoza is famous for wine. Very famous, and rightfully so! It's all about Malbec. I'm also very happy to report that the Mendocinos have also worked out that kick-ass food goes well with their great juice. After we arrived and check out town, our concierge pointed us to Ocho Cepas, just a few blocks away - and wow! Such great food and the wine was just fab.
The next morning we got picked up and taken white-water rafting. Funnily enough, snow-melt rivers in the high mountains is pretty cold! Nevertheless, we had a great time.
Wanting to get check out the mountains more we then hired a car and played a little Argentine Roulette on the roads on the way to Chile to try for a glance at Cerro Aconcagua. Stunning scenery and a great parilla in some random one horse town made us relax and accidentally drive into Chile. Without our passports. Excellent! After turning around we took our place in the 7 hour cue to get processed back into Argentina - but somehow Maria talked us out of trouble and we headed back to Mendoza.
We then thought we should hit the famed vineyards of Maipu, so we booked a room at the very fancy El Aguamiel, a very nice spot. Surrounded by an 8 foot tall electric fence and the ghetto. It was nice though... We hired bikes and cruised around and sat by the pool for a bit - very nice!

First impressions: a bleak, dusty place!

buuuut, it's sort of a cool town...

the perfect climate for just sittin 'round!

Grapes & Volcanoes

ok, so we didn't exactly descend the Zambesi but there were some sections of class III!

embalse potrerillos

our lunch time pit-stop in Uspallata

I made a friend! however, it turns out, he just wanted me for some scraps

stupid photo angle, i know, but the only pic of the local trout I had for lunch - it was SO good!

beware the "single serve" portion in Argentina!

Some ski resort - los penitentes

some neat-o formations

we were woefully under-prepared for the 7hr line... no BBQ, no passport...

puente del inca

some cool limestone wash

it was pretty windy here, cold too!

chillin

Argentina's finest! Bife de Chorizo!

And we're off! note the sun rise :( didn't realise argy's got up so early!

Buenos Aires

Well, all went well, got married and all that - headed off to Buenos Aires with my wife a few weeks ago for our honeymoon! Well, it's just great over there, we had an awesome time and took hundreds of photos, so this is more of a slideshow night for those interested!
We jumped the QF17, got the right seats and after a few movies had a snooze and woke up to an ok view out the window!

Our very cool hotel room

...with our own terrace!

hanging out around Palermo Soho

Plaza de Mayo

Casa Rosada (think evita)

We went for a wander down to San Telmo through the markets...

there's some sweet stuff for sale there!

One of the more odd attractions around town is the famous Recoleta Cemetery. It's home to the who's who of Argentina's past, a surprisingly neat place to wander around for an afternoon.

The place is like a mini city, full of crypts

...including hers...

For such a modern, cosmopolitan city, the coffee there sure sucked. Despite this, we still drank gallons! They sometimes did weird things like putting ground coffee on top.

I loved how most of the city was full of tree lined, cobble-stoned streets, had a great feel to it, nice to walk around

mmm serrano.... droool

They've also got some sorta harbour precinct thingo happening here. Not much of a pulse, but nice to get some space.

Before we left, we also caught a local football match - Argentinos Jnrs V Racing (Racing won 2-1). Well, the game was pretty much everything you'd expect from a soccer match in these parts! Note the novelty oversize stadium banner above - apparently it's the biggest in the world...