3 Mendoza, Argentina

Miles of vineyards. The backdrop of the snowcapped Andes. Bottles and bottles of red wine. Mendoza is famous for being the heart of Argentinian wine country. It will be infamous for us as the place Patrick learned to ride a bike.
There are several options for exploring the wineries of the area. Most tourist offices offer an inexpensive afternoon group trip that visits two wineries and one olive oil factory in about five hours. They can also arrange for a private guide to take you out for the whole day, normally priced around 170-200 Pesos per person ($40-$50). We were weighing our options when we learned about the bicycle alternative: there is a large cluster of wineries within a 10 kilometer area called the Route of Wine, and it is easy to rent a bike and give yourself a self-guided tour. We were immediately sold on this much more romantic image of our day in wine country.

Some of these bike rental companies will arrange for your transportation from downtown Mendoza to their offices, but they charge about double cost for this convenience. Taking the local bus is much more economical. However, gathering the bus fare is a major challenge. Like in Russia, getting change when making a purchase becomes an ordeal. The Argentinian issue is very coin-focused. Storekeepers tend to round their prices up or down at the cash register to avoid parting with quarters and dimes, but they have no problem breaking hundreds with a variety of 2 and 5 Peso bills. Unfortunately the local buses only take change and so to collect the 3.60 Peso combined fare for us took very calculated shopping. Victorious in our change hoarding, we hopped the #10 bus to the Route of Wine in Maipu.

There are several bike rental companies at the north end of the Route of Wine and our bus driver selected his favorite to let us off the bus: Mr. Hugo. And boy did Mr. Hugo take care of us! 25 Pesos each (about $7 USD) got us two bicycles for the entire day and a map of the wineries in the area with Mrs. Hugo's personal recommendations. Fully equipped, we hit the road.

But we didn't get very far. Patrick had warned Katrina that he hadn't ridden a bike since he was 12 and didn't really know how, but she figured he just didn't have a lot of confidence since it had been so long. They say "it's just like riding a bike" for a reason, right? Katrina did not realize the magnitude of the issue until she watched Patrick teeter back and forth trying to get enough balance to move at all. It was a slow start to the day but with some practice, some coaching, and much persistence Patrick was zooming down the roads of Argentina.

His riding ability took a giant leap forward after his first glass of wine. We started at the Museo del Vino which is an industrial wine manufacturer in addition to a museum displaying old and new winemaking equipment. We made a pass through the exhibit before getting our complimentary glass. Patrick knocked his back and was ready to get back on the Route of Wine, riding much more confidently this time.

We decided to bike to the end of the Route and work our way back, which meant we started with Carinae. This small winery was started by a retired French couple in 2003 and uses old-fashioned wine production methods and solely French oak barrels for aging. The name comes from a constellation that can only be seen during harvest season. We tasted three of their delicious wines--their malbec/cabernet blend was Katrina's favorite wine of the day.

To be fair, after another winery and a few more glasses it was hard to tell the difference. Familia di Tommaso was our next stop. We did another tour, tasted some more of their standard selections, and then joined with some other bicyclists in buying a bottle of their finest wine to share together. This particular 2007 malbec was produced in a limited quantity of only 4,000 and we got bottle 1,021. We made great new friends over that bottle of wine and decided to continue the Route together.

By the time Laura, Shannon, Marco, Christian, Rafael and we got to the Tempus Alba winery we decided we'd had enough of the tours, were basically experts, and could just concentrate on tasting wine. We sat on the beautiful roof deck and enjoyed a sensational syrah and tasty temperilla. After polishing off those bottles we crossed the road to El Cerno and purchased another two, plus a few glasses of their bubbly, and enjoyed the last rays of sunlight sitting in one of the vineyard's irrigation ditches.
It turns out that while one glass of wine vastly improved Patrick's bicycle skills, multiple did not. Our stumbling along the road back caught the attention of the local police who decided to provide us an escort. We finally made it back to Mr. Hugo who greeted us with a warm smile and two glasses of wine. Back in town, our crew enjoyed a delicious steak dinner off the Plaza Independencia, toasting to a wonderful day and new friends--with, of course, another bottle of wine.

The next morning we dragged our hungover bodies out of bed to catch the bus to Valparaiso, Chile. This was made easier by the fact that our tiny $20 room at Hotel Laser was pretty depressing with sagging bed, peeling wallpaper, and no hot water. Not exactly where we wanted to spend a day lounging in bed. The bus had driven about two hours west when we came to a roadblock: there was a storm brewing in the Andes and we would try to wait it out there. But after an hour it was still looking ugly, so we turned around and headed back to Mendoza.

With an unexpected afternoon on our hands and not much to do in Mendoza besides drink wine, we decided to nurse our hangovers with a splurge on a hotel room. Hotel Horcones was twice the price but also twice as nice. $40 bought us an even mattress, TV with English channels showing both old and new 90210, and a clean bathroom with hot shower (and our first bathtub shower in a long time). The room was still generally dingy and faded, but it did the trick. Braving the curving mountain roads to Chile was a million times more pleasant the next day.

View more pictures from Mendoza here.

7 Buenos Aires, Argentina

We're not sure if it was the food, the beautiful buildings, or the extremely favorable exchange rate, but we immediately fell in love with Buenos Aires. The city is made up of distinct neighborhoods, each with its own character, in a way that reminded us of Boston. Bohemian Palermo Viejo is filled with chic clothing boutiques and outdoor restaurants. San Telmo has a very European feel with its cobblestone streets, colonial architecture, and central plaza that hosts a massive flea market every Sunday. And the port enclave of Boca marked by its vibrantly colorful buildings, painted with leftovers from the ships that dock there, is so surreal it looks almost like it belongs in Disney World. Unfortunately the residents have realized this appeal and it's impossible to walk down the street in Boca without aggressive invitations to shops, restaurants, or for a photo in a cheesy tango cutout.
The best part about visiting each neighborhood is that the City of Buenos Aires has installed signs at notable landmarks with a map of your location in the neighborhood on one side and a diagram of the particular landmark you are at on the other. Both sides have translations in three languages (including English) as well as a 5 digit number you can call on your cell phone for presumably an audio description to be read to you.

The neighborhood in which we stayed was the Avenida de Mayo. This tree-lined main boulevard runs from the National Congress to the Casa Rosada (or Pink House, which is Argentina's equivalent of the White House) and is notorious for its political demonstrations. We witnessed plenty of them during our stay--from parades down the avenue with music and balloons to camp-out like protests on the park in front of Casa Rosada. It seemed like something was always going on, even a movie filming one night.

Touring the historical buildings on either end of the Avenida de Mayo is surprisingly free, but they are only open during certain hours and only as part of a group tour led by a provided guide. The English tours are scarce so we smiled and nodded our way through a tour at each place in Spanish . Luckily Patrick was able to pick up a good portion of the information about the Argentinian political system to fill in Katrina later. On the Plaza de Mayo there is also the Revolution Museum to visit (which costs 1 peso or 25 U.S. cents but is less interesting if you can't read the Spanish descriptions of the various exhibits) and the National Cathedral where Argentina's George Washington, General San Martin, is buried. The beautiful tiling alone makes the cathedral worth a visit. Another great thing about the city is that there is no need to visit an art museum because around every street corner there seems to be a beautiful work of art, whether it be a statue, mural, or mosaic.

Our hotel, the Cecil, is well located right on the Avenida de Mayo. The huge door to our room, unlocked by old school key, opened to reveal a rundown space with lots of...um...let's call it character. The sheets and towels all bore the Cecil Hotel monogram, but hadn't been updated in likely a decade or three. The ceiling fan noisily rocked with each rotation. And our favorite was that the entire bathroom with bidet became the shower when you turned on the head in the middle of the room--which we found pleasantly spacious, but just had to remember to keep the toilet paper in the bedroom while showering! The lack of a window just added to the musty charm. We also had free wifi and a TV that got more English channels than we used to get at home. Quite a steal for $25 per night. We loved every minute of our stay in room uno uno uno, probably our favorite accommodations of the trip so far.

It also helped that two blocks away was a fantastic pastry shop, Piazza de Buenos Aires. On more than one morning we went in to point and choose a collection of pastries priced at $3.50 per dozen. Even better than their moist apple danishes and tasty scones were their mouthwatering alfajores: typical Argentinian cookies sandwiched around dulce de leche or jam and covered in chocolate or icing. Alfajores were our second favorite discovery in Buenos Aires after empanadas. We relied on these little meat pies for sustenance as snacks or meals throughout our stay. They were always easy to find as restaurant after restaurant advertised "pizza y empanadas". And we ate a lot of pizza, too, although that was not as delicious. It seemed to be the standard practice for pizzerias to use prebaked, Boboli-like crusts instead of making the pies from scratch. But Argentina isn't known for its pizza--it's known for its beef! The mini lomos (steaks) we had at Rustico in Palermo Viejo were absolutely melt-in-your-mouth. We didn't know beef could be so tender--and especially not at $6 a plate.

Argentina's other great claim to fame is, of course, tango! Our first attempt to see some dancing was at Lo Roberto, which was recently named a historic bar by the national government and is known to be a great place to see authentic tango for free. Unfortunately no performers showed up the night we went, but the floor to ceiling shelves of dusty bottles made for a neat atmosphere to finish off a bottle of $4 red wine.

Luckily for us, a huge tango festival and competition coincided with our stay. We took in a glorious afternoon of tango at the Harrod's cultural center on the Florida pedestrian street with professional musicians and dancers on stage, tango-ers of all levels strutting their stuff on the dance floor, and even joining in a lesson ourselves! Lets just say you shouldn't expect to see us on Dancing with the Stars anytime soon.

On our last day in Buenos Aires we did what we were still bitter about missing in Rio two years ago: we went to a South American soccer match! It was a high scoring, back and forth affair between the home team, River Plate, and a club recently promoted to the primera division, Chacarita. In the final five minutes River Plate's star player scored a dramatic goal that sent the crowd into a singing, shirt-waving hysteria and put River ahead for good 4-3. We were kept penned in the stadium for nearly half an hour after the match to allow for the visiting fans to exit first without incident. Which was probably a good thing because Katrina was looking for a fight.

View more pictures from Buenos Aires here.

4 Puerto Iguazu, Argentina

A gloomy, rainy day greeted us on our arrival in Foz do Iguacu. Undeterred, we made our way by local bus to the falls, and the weather made for a dramatic setting for our first glimpse of the waterfalls. We hiked along the Cataratas Trail in Brazil's national park, turned the corner, and were greeted by a breathtaking view of part of the falls across the way in Argentina. As we continued along more was slowly revealed and by the end, we were looking at the most massive, incredible network of waterfalls we have ever seen (there are 275 individual waterfalls in total). The best part was the dock-like walkway that leads far out into Devil's Throat; we were completely alone, water pounding around us, rain and mist drenching us. It was a fantastic introduction to the falls.

The Brazilian side is all about the sweeping, panoramic views. Across the river in Argentina is where you can get up close and personal. We took a $1 bus ride across the border (where we experienced one of the easiest passport controls yet) to explore the falls further.

Argentina's national park has a more extensive collection of trails that take you above, below and through the falls. We started at the top, looking down on the falls from the point where the calm waters suddenly drop, before working all the way down to the river. Here we took a boat ride that got us our closest views of the falls yet--and then so close we couldn't see anything as we drove under the falls themselves. It was a thrilling and very very wet ride! Luckily we dried off quickly since the clouds disappeared during our time on the Argentinian side. The shining sun also made for a plethora of vibrant rainbows glowing throughout the park.

At night we stayed in Puerto Iguazu on the Argentinian side. It's a small town filled with amenities for tourists: hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops, but not much else. We were treated well at Residencial Los Rios where our room was large and comfy, everything was kept impeccably clean, and breakfast fueled us for the day. For our other meals we began our explorations into Argentinian cuisine. Which means meat. Most restaurants offered in addition to their a la carte menu a mixed grill option, which included appetizers, starch, and a massive skillet full of steaks, sausages, chicken, and Patrick's new favorite: intestines! Our insides were coated with grease by the time we polished it off, but it certainly was delicious!

View more pictures from Iguazu Falls here.