sybarites

It’s no secret that the people of Argentina and Chile adore their meat. It is available everywhere, on every menu, in several different forms, served day and night, and almost always grilled to well done. I wouldn’t want to be an animal in South America as it’s only a matter of time before you end up on a menu.
At a grocery store in Mendoza on a Saturday, a riot* of people had gathered around a meat counter that was struggling to keep up with the orders being shouted to the back. Meat is serious business and a good butcher, we’re told, is highly coveted and his address is held close to the chest. In Argentina, I thought I had reached the limit of my carnivorous consumption, but I was dead wrong; that was just the beginning.

Today’s lunch in the pretty Bellavista neighbourhood of Santiago consisted almost entirely of meat. We ordered the parrilla special for 2 and what landed on our table would’ve easily served six. Imagine a 9×9” square casserole dish filled to heaping with 2 big, grilled pork chops, 1 large, grilled steak, 2 blood sausages, 1 spicy chorizo sausage, 2 huge, grilled chicken breasts, and 2 large, boiled potatoes. That was lunch. There was some thyme on the chicken, and there was a salt shaker on the table, but that was all the seasoning that appeared. Luckily, a stray dog sleeping the shade of the next table was only too happy to eat most of what remained on my plate while the waiter wasn’t looking.

*Speaking of riots, it turns out that there was some serious rioting in Santiago the day we arrived. It was the annual Day of The Young Commbatents riot/protest staged in memory of the 1985 student riots during which many students were killed. This year’s anniversary protest was aggravated, we’re told, by some discontent with recent public transportation changes. At any rate, our afternoon arrival at the bus station, metro ride and walk through part of the downtown area was entirely uneventful; we didn’t sense the slightest whiff of unease. When we arrived at our hostel, one of the guys staying there asked, “What are the streets like out there- is it madness?” Of course we didn’t know what he was talking about and it was then that the hostel worker said that yes, there were riots, and that perhaps we should stay in the hostel that evening. The next morning, the news showed this. Santiago makes two cities now that we have visited while riots were in progress and we didn’t even know it. (The other was Budapest in September.) Stupid foreigners.

We found a small premium wine tour with Ampora Tours to the Uco Valley, the supposed “next Napa Valley” and home to the highest vineyards in the world at 1,100 to 1,300 meters. The sandy soil, sunny days, cool nights, lack of rain, and abundant spring water all create perfect conditions for great grapes with concentrated sugars and thick skins. After picking up the three other tourists we visited three vineyards of different sizes with our guide.

The tour was nearly continuous hilarity from the beginning and wine only added to the Canadian humour. Upon finding out the other tourists in the group were staying at the Park Hyatt, we started hypothesizing who would stay at this elite bastean of elegant class. I guessed Americans and Janet guessed Germans. Both wrong: two youngish Canadian women, Sharon and Linda from Vancouver, travelling on their oil and gas money. They vowed revenge if we published this picture of them. So be it.

The first vineyard, Estancia Ancon, was the smallest vineyard with a production of 90,000 bottles. The Grande Reserve de la Familia blend of cabernet sauvignon, malbec and pinot noir, a limited edition of 6,000 bottles, was our favorite wine of the day, although our palettes were still fresh at the time. The atypical blend had a pleasant smoothness from the pinot noir and oak. The property’s villa can also accommodate tourists for an undisclosed sum.

Andeluna, the second vineyard, was a little bigger. The suburban-country tasting room was warm, though a little contrived. We tried five wines with the 2005 Malbec and the 2003 Pasionado Blends being our favorites.
The last vineyard was O. Fournier. The owners told the architects that visitors should either hate it or love it, but never forget it. The ominous concrete structure fulfilled that mandate; it kind of looks like an airport terminal. To avoid pumping the wine, the lowest level is 20 meters underground. Whole grapes are crushed at the top level, then slide down to the fermentation vats on the next level, and then are aged in oak barrels on the last level. We toured the cellar on catwalks where we also viewed enourmous pieces of art from a local artist.

A highlight of the tour was the four course lunch at the winery’s by-appointment-only-restaurant. A colourful trio of warm soups—potato, pumpkin with pepper and greensquash with spring onion—were served in shot glasses and followed up with a few simple treads of julienned peppers and eggplant with oil and salt. We were surprised to find the Malbec held up to the red wine vinegar in the salmarejo, a cold gazpacho-like soup, which followed. Alfa Crux, a wine we tasted at Vines of Mendoza, accompanied the requisite beef entree. The dining room’s six meter high windows were intended to provide grand views of the Andes, but instead the clouds provided a white backdrop which only partially cleared.

After a day of wine we were noisely cracking jokes and laughing and the two Canadian women setting the pace. As the only male in a party of six, I couldn’t offset the natural tendency of the drunk women to get rowdy and talk about men. Somehow, one of the owners’ father at the next table managed to fall asleep over the ruckus at the next table. Fortunately, the ladies directed most of their interest to the driver, the waiter and the security guard, who one hoped would require sexual favors in place of a lost receipt.

Thanks to fellow Calgarians we had met in Vietnam, we had been looking forward to the bus to Mendoza for several months and the recent days of plane travel had made the idea even more appealing. The long, straight and flat roads of Argentina and their low gasoline costs make long-distance bus travel ideal. Most buses here are double-deckers with most of the seating on the upper deck and a toilet on the lower deck. Semi-sleeper seats recline 140 degrees and sleeper seats recline 160  degrees.  For our 12 hour journey from Buenos Aires, we opted for the Executive Class with large leather seats that recline a full 180 degrees to create a small bed. These are only remotely reminiscent of the sleeper buses of India with their make-shift beds, insect infestations and rattling roads.

Upon departure, the first order of business was to play bingo for a bottle of wine. Our fabulously friendly bus attendant read numbers while I tried to translate the numbers as quickly as possible. Unfortunately we lost and a pregnant woman sheepishly claimed her prize. Later we were fed a sleep-inducing three course dinner with beef and a couple of glasses of free wine. We could hardly stay awake through the first movie and slept soundly through the second.

We’re now actually looking forward to our 24 hour Executive-seat bus ride in Chile from Valparaiso to San Pedro de Atacama, especially since we booked the front row of the top deck for ideal views of the passing Andean landscape.

I can’t resist adding this post about the Sensory Tasting because it was some of the best fun we’ve had on this trip.

To learn how to properly taste wine, the Vines of Mendoza set up this flight of wine and provided us with an instructor to learn some of the finer details on how to properly taste wine. It turns out that just popping off the cork and slugging it back does not equal tasting.

The special tasting room (!!) was prepared with three different, non-blended local wines: a Torrontes, a Bonarda and a Malbec. However, in addition to the wines, there were tasting glasses filled with the flavours that one is meant to experience in each wine. For example, the glass of Bonarda was accompanied by a glass each of earth, dried leaves, quince jam, and pepper. So, after one swirls and takes notes on the wines appearance, one is meant to sniff the aroma and compare it to the raw elements. How much fun is THAT!

And then we got to taste. And taste and taste, and sniff and taste and note… yet another blissful afternoon. Funnily enough, our tolerance for alcohol seems to be increasing with our knowledge of wine.

In my present state of mind*, I find it hard to imagine a better place in the world than Mendoza. They get 300 days of sun a year, the city is filled with huge, gorgeous trees, parillas (Argentine BBQ restaurants which universally serve gargantuan steaks) hover around almost every corner, and they are surrounded by wineries. Oh, and they’re within spitting distance of the Andes, not that I would ever spit wine.

*We just returned to our hostel after having spent all day touring wineries; the last stop was for a 2-hour, 3-course lunch at a bodega’s French restaurant.

We knew we would like it here before we had even arrived because many people we had met had raved about the place. Of course, all they had to say was that the city is known as the Wine Capital of Argentina for us to visit. (Frankly, we would’ve flown to Argentina just for that.) So now we can confirm that, indeed, we do love it here. There are over 800 wineries in the near vicinity and the area is known as the Napa Valley of South America. Why is it that we had not visited sooner?

Anyway, I could go on and on about the wine but will limit myself here to talking about one particular wine tasting facility: Vines of Mendoza. I don’t really know how to label this place; it’s sort of a wine club, tasting room, wine-tour arranger, enthusiasts’ meeting place, wine promoter type place. (They make money by exporting local wines to Europe and America.) But for us, it’s just a great, relaxed place to go to taste, and learn about wine.

Within two hours of our arrival in the city, we headed straight for the Vines based on a very high recommendation from fellow world travellers from Calgary. The atmosphere was not at all pretentious – as one kind of expects when speaking of a wine-reated facility – and we were completely comfortable as soon as we walked in. We got a brief tour and then were introduced to some of the services and tastings they had on offer. It didn’t take us long to decide that we would try the flight of Reserve wines immediately, followed by a Sensory Tasting the next day, and a reservation at the Wine & Cheese night the following day. We were like tipsy flies falling happily into their viney web.

The hour and a half that followed was magnificent. We tasted five of Argentina’s Best wines, complete with an educated and friendly host who walked us through the regions, the varietals, the aging, the aromas and the tasting. (I’m edumacated in the wine, now.) After being so long in Asia without a drop of decent wine to be found, this was an absolutely exquisite way to spend the afternoon.

Really, I can’t say enough how much fun we had and how lovely the wine was, and this was only our first day! The bliss continues unabated.

P.S. If anyone cares to know which are the best reserve wines of Argentina… Angelica Zapata Malbec Alta 2003, O’Fournier Alfa Crux 2002, Bressia Profundo 2003, Carmelo Patti Gran Assemblage 2002, Yacochuya Malbec 2001.

Two random couples we met raved about La Cabrera, a barbeque restaurant in Buenos Aries, one fellow saying he would return to BA just to go there. We showed up at 9pm, an early arrival by Argentinian standards, just to ensure we could get a seat without waiting, which we barely managed.

The steaks are so big that it was recommended that we only order one to share, which we gratefully followed. Janet couldn’t even finish her half. We also ordered a salad which turned out to be nearly the size of a KFC bucket. Luckly we skipped the side of mashed potatoes with carmelized onions, which surely would have been bucket-sized as well. The steaks here were extremely good, but it is really the side dishes which made it an exceptional experience.

Most steaks in Argentina come without sides, which are ordered separately. At La Cabrera meat is served similarly to Korean food, with a dozen little ramekins filled with savory treats—antipasto, mashed potatoes, roasted garlic with a sweet sauce, carmelized pearl onions in demi glaze, sauteed mushrooms with gravy, picked beets, mashed squash, couscous and a couple of others that we didn´t even taste.

We’ll be trying to reproduce the experiece at home.

Finally, after 11 months of travelling, my pocket has been picked.

We took the subway in Buenos Aires during rush hour and, as I was being squashed on board, my skirt pocket was picked of its keys.  The keys themselves were pretty inconsequential to us (they were for our luggage locks and we have two spare sets) so I can imagine that they were entirely useless to the stealer.

Marc almost had the wallet taken from his pocket at the same time but, as he had no purse to focus on like me, he noticed the fingers reaching in and clamped his  hand over the wallet before anything went missing.

I guess it had to happen sooner or later, I’m just disappointed that it did.   I’ll try not to hold it against Buenos Aires.

One of my most perfect days of travel started when we woke up early to a crisp, sunny day in Puerto Santa Cruz, in Patagonia, and drove an hour straight out to Parque Nacional Monte Leon. We stopped first at a lookout over the ocean and the island owned and operated by the migratory cormorants. Guano was mined here for European fertilizer until about 1930 and judging by the smell, the birds have worked hard since then to replenish the supply. Fortunately, we had our trusty binoculars and so were able to see a fair bit of avian activity before setting up our cold breakfast in the picnic hut upwind of the island.  After breakfast, we decided to take a crack at seeing los penguinos. I was not optimistic because it was so warm, I thought for sure they’d be on their way someplace cooler now and would have abandoned their colony. Plus, the hike through the desert to reach the colony did not inspire confidence for a viewing. This sign was so randomly placed as to seem a joke.

Nevertheless, we continuted and not 5 minutes from that sign we spotted our first tuxedo. Actually, we spotted something black and white in the distance and then were suprised to actually look around and notice that there were penguins everywhere, within a few meters of where we were standing. It was so odd but they were all camped out under bushes, in the shade and sun, hovering around their nests on the flat, arid plain. A little “Where’s Penguino?” to play.

A little further towards the water’s edge, a look-out platform had been built so that we could see for several kilometers in either direction and right down onto the beach. There were hundreds of penguins – no kidding – all over the place. We were able to get quite close to some but resisted the temptation to step over the barriers and into their territory. The beach was off limits. The guanacos totally ignored the signs and the fences and we caught one of them on the penguins’ side red-handed.

I asked one penguin for a picture in front of the beach panorama. He posed like a Russian: arms straight by the sides, no smile, eyes front, look angry.

After much penguin stalking and spying with the binoculars, we went back to the car for a picnic lunch before hitting the beach at low tide for exploring. The weather was perfect for exploring: bright, sunny and cool. We didn’t get to see the iconic landmark of the part – La Gruta – a hollow rock formation carved out by the sea. It had collapsed. No-one told us.

Finally, we settled into our campsite for a night in the car. As per one of the previous posts, we had a great night with some fantastic sunset and sunrise views, and a middle-of-the-night sighting of the Southern Cross constellation. We’re, like, totally in the southern hemisphere, eh.

This is the kind of day that will be excrutiating to recall when I am home and job hunting.

One place in Patagonia that the tourists generally don’t go is Monte Leon National Park on the eastern edge of Argentina.  The Lonely Planet said it was pretty nice, but nobody we talked to – local or tourist – had much to say about it or encouraged us to visit.  However, the book did say there were penguins, and that’s like, half the reason we came to Patagonia and this was going to be our best shot at seeing them.  Given everyone else’s reaction to our plan to head out there, I wasn’t tremendously optimistic about actually witnessing the penguin, but at least we’d get a chance to see some different countryside, maybe some new animals and definitely the southern Atlantic.  (It turned out that I can count one of the days on this little side-trip among the best days of my life– but that’s another story.)

So, we rented a cute little Volkswagen, bought a map and a bunch of groceries and fired out onto the 297km gravel road that forms the majority of the connection between El Calafate and Puerto Santa Cruz.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so much in the middle of nowhere as we were when we hit that gravel road. 
There was nothing.  New Zealand, Mongolia, Siberia: none of them seem to match this kind of nowhere.  No towns on the way, no gas stations, no cell-phone towers, or pavement.  The only way we knew where we were was by the rusty signs with the names of estancias stuck into the side of the road.  These farms were all marked on our map, I guess because there was nothing else to record.

We saw a total of 10 cars that day but a nearly endless stream of wild animals.  There were the usual suspects of rabbits and sheep, skunks and hawks, but there were also herds and herds of guanacos (sort of like llamas but less fuzzy) and a large bird whose name I don’t know but who looks and runs like an ostrich.  Most fantastic of all, we saw a condor.  I think we are exceptionally lucky to have spotted it on the side of the road right next to the huge river valley; it took off and floated on a thermal wind up and over and around our car for about 5 minutes.  That bird is astonishingly large and to see it fly like that was amazing; this picture, nor my words, can hardly do it justice.  We were agog.

The first night on the east coast, we spent in the tiny navy town of Puerto Santa Cruz.  You wouldn’t know it from looking down all the deserted streets, the empty beach or the closed restaurants, but this village was utterly bursting with visitors.  I don’t get it.  Every hotel and inn we asked was full.  Every single one!  Where was everybody?  Very ‘Twilight Zone’.  Finally, we were able to snag a room at Pinky’s Inn, a drab and deserted little place at which we stayed quite comfortably.  Could only stay one day though- it was fully booked for the following night. (??)
At any rate, this allowed us to spend one full, sunny day at the stunning national park next door and also forced us to sleep in the car that night.  It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be:  a quiet campground, a great view, a couple bottles of wine with our picnic…  who knew I’d ever be so happy to sleep in a Golf?

There’s kind of a “set route” for tourists in Patagonia.  People generally come to this part of the planet in order to be outside and see glaciers, and the people that live in the towns of Southern Argentina have everything ready for us.  The starting point for us (and piles of other people) is El Calafate, a town of 18,000 people on the shore of a windy, glacial – and what must be terribly cold in the winter – Lake Argentino.  On a clear day, with the Andes sparkling in the background, and the lake reflecting some perfect version of cloudy aquamarine, it reminds me of a blend of Banff and Lake Louise.  I felt so at home here, and not just because of the steak nor the quaint stores and chocolate shops on Main Street nor the chilled air or fresh breeze, it was the people  that reminded me of home.  Half-tourist, half-outdoor folk, with a lot of hotels and restaurants to keep us all mingling.

Anyway, the next stop on the tourist route is El Chaltén.  It’s a four-hour bus ride (full of tourists) north towards another glacial lake in the area, to a town founded in 1985 only to keep Chile from annexing the area.  It’s wee.  A wee, expensive village and it exists in what must be the windiest corridor of the Andes.  In the three days we were there, the sun shone for approximately five minutes, and the rest of the time it was either grey sky with gale force winds or rainy or both.  Mostly both.  However, with such a short time there, we couldn’t afford to wait for the weather and so we set out with a woman we met from Iowa and a fellow from Sydney to see Cerro de Torre.  It turned out to be a lovely hike through forested area, which kept the wind and rain at bay, and we come upon some gorgeous views…

…but we didn’t see what we were supposed to see as a reward for hiking for 3 hours.  Some mountain and a glacier, I guess.

The next day, after thawing our hands and feet, we climbed through the mountains to see Mount Fitzroy, an icon of the Argentinian Andes.  Didn’t see it.  Had to turn back 30 minutes from the end due to lack of visibility due to sleet.  At least there was a micro-brewery in town in which we could sit out the stormy weather. 
We later learned that the morning we left, it cleared right up and they had the best weather they’ve had all season.  Great.

The next two places people go in Patagonia are Ushuaia, the southern-most city on the planet (that’s all it does), and Torres del Paine, which is another iconic mountain region but it belongs to Chile.  We skipped Torres del Paine (it was expensive, and its name in English sounds like ‘pain’) and we were going to skip Ushuaia, but had to connect through that city in order to fly north back to Buenos Aires.  I don’t know how we ended up on that extra long flight but at least now we can say we’ve been as far south as any human is willing to live.