Mendoza, Argentina is considered semi-desert (it receives only about 240 mm of rain a year) and is situated in a bowl surrounded by mountains, similar to Las Vegas. The city is artificially green like Las Vegas, with every street sporting beautiful lush trees which are watered through irrigation ditches that line every sidewalk. (The street trees and irrigation ditches are pictured below.) We also saw gated communities with cookie-cutter McMansions featuring red-tiled roofs, just as you would find in Las Vegas. And, finally, they have a few casinos in town!! (You will be happy to know that they haven’t seemed to embrace a love of neon, however.)

The intense agriculture that occurs in this arid region is entirely due to irrigation from local rivers since the surrounding area exists in the rain shadow of the Andes mountains and would not normally support much farming.

In fact, it is this ability to control vine water consumption along with the warm days and cold nights during the ripening season that allows growers to produce such flavorful grapes for wine production.

We chose to visit a very small boutique winery owned by Carmelo Patti (he is a local celebrity). His small one-man winery is usually mobbed with tourists, so we were lucky to have him all to ourselves because it was late in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve.

Carmelo’s grandfather made wine for the family in Siciliy, and his father did the same when they moved to Mendoza, Argentina. Carmelo went into the trade professionally and has been a winemaker for some 47 years, in one fashion or another.

As we were deep in the warehouse with Mr. Patti, a tremendously powerful thunderstorm hit and due to a clogged gutter, Mr. Patti’s tasting room began to flood badly. It was raining from the ceiling and pouring out the door like a raging stream. His paperwork and memorabilia were sopping, his giant ancient leather guestbook was soaked, the power went out, and the place was trashed.

Carmelo climbed a rickety ladder to the roof to unclog the gutter. We dropped everything and went into action. The girls worked the squeegees in the tasting room with Ian. Tom and I rescued paperwork, set it out to dry, and began blotting the ancient book. It was crazy.

Not surprisingly, the Zs thought it was the coolest wine tour ever!

Our first stop was one of the larger plazas in the city, Plaza San Martin, the site of the Iglesia Catedral (the back of which is pictured here). We expected the plaza to be a vibrant meeting place for the city’s residents. Unfortunately, it was filled mostly with the three “Ps”: police, pick pockets, and prostitutes.

Córdoba has some excellent examples of 17th and 18th century architecture, which are easily walkable to view in a day. Unfortunately for us, all of the sites were closed. After what we dubbed our “sightseeing death march in the sun,” we gave up and spent the next 7 hours in a cafe eating, surfing, and synchronizing a multi-computer viewing of War Games (all of us using headphones).

Both outings were fabulous. While in the Land Rover, we traversed a completely broken-down trail that was traveled by priests with pack horses from Nono to Cordoba; in those days, the trip would take 5 days. (Now, by car, it takes about 3 hours.) As you can see in the photo below, we were amazed at what our driver, Alejandro, was able to successfully negotiate!

The vista as we descended into the valley was incredible. It was rainy season, so there is more greenery and wild flowers than you would expect in such a rocky mountain environment.

We started for Montevideo on the Saturday before Christmas, leaving Punta del Diablo at 11:15 a.m. (pictured here at the bus stop). The car that we were counting on to help schlep our bags into town wasn’t available, so we had to sprint, in the sun, over dirt/sand roads, with our suitcases to make it to the bus stop on time! The bus trip to Montevideo was long and hot, but generally uneventful, thank God!

Sunday, at mid-day, we took a boat from Montevideo to Buenos Aires, Argentina. In BA (which felt like home) we had a 7 hour layover, during which we had to run a zillion frantic Christmas and travel errands. At 10:30 pm on Sunday, our overnight bus left Buenos Aires for Cordoba, where we arrived at about 7:30 a.m. in the morning on Monday.

After an hour at the Cordoba bus station, we were preparing to depart for Nono, Argentina when Zelda somehow managed to fall into a giant grease slick, getting herself and her bag covered with a thick coating of engine oil (about 2 minutes before our bus left). We boarded the micro (small bus) and began our journey on a long winding road that climbed up through the clouds into rocky terrain. Really beautiful. Unfortunately, the bumpy ride with cloudy visibility whilst sitting in the back of the bus on twisting switchbacks caused Zelda to get sick, really sick. (Luckily, all of Zelda’s childhood illnesses involved massive amounts of vomiting, so she’s pretty nonchalant about the whole thing…and rather neat as well! Poor bean.)

Upon our arrival in Nono (Zelda sporting a combination of grease and vomit), we took a local taxi over rocky roads, gravel, through a creek, and after about 20 or 25 minutes, we arrived at our final destination: the estancia La Lejania. (It only took 51 hours of traveling from Punta del Diablo.)

What is the first thing that we did at the estancia? I’m afraid that we accidentally locked Ian in the cabaña. He had to escape out a window with a pretty big drop off. Needless to say, he wasn’t too pleased.

[And apologies for the posting blackout, we were without Internet access this past week.]

Should you decide to visit, we have our own guidebook observations below.

• Pack some warm layers. The wind really howls and it’s cold at night.
• Don’t expect a super fine white sandy beach with clear water, a la Mexico or the Carribean. The sand is nice, but can get a little bit rocky as you enter the water. And the waves–a pounding Atlantic surf that is cool when you first submerge yourself. (Kind of reminds me of Oregon a bit, actually.)
• The town is spread out, so if you rent a cabin, make sure that you are close to the grocery store and the beach, otherwise you might be doing more walking than you anticipated.
• Make sure that your rental accommodations come with sheets and towels. (Something we learned the hard way!)
• Even though we didn’t stay at the El Diablo Tranquilo Hostel, we would recommend them highly. We ate at their restaurant nearly every night, we rented their surf boards, they made an awesome birthday cake for Zoe’s birthday, and they let us buy some WIFI time. Top notch organization.

Photos courtesy of Tom and his morning sunrise walk!

THINGS WE’RE GLAD WE PACKED

1. Tampons (I laid in an 8 month supply!)
2. Pans (We brought two All Clad pans with us, a stock pot and a frying pan.)
3. Chef’s Knife
4. Paring Knife

THINGS WE WISH WE HAD PACKED

1. Glide Floss
2. Leopard DVD (Tom could have then restored his MAC operating system in English after his hard drive died.)
3. Y Adapter (So the girls could both listen to a movie or music on one device.)
4. More US Bills (Moving and traveling require cash money.)

THINGS WE DIDN’T NEED TO PACK

1. Formal Clothes. (Everyone goes on and on about the formality of the populace in Baires, but the truth is, it’s like any other international city…unless you’re going to work or hanging out in a trendy bar, jeans and a regular shirt are SOP. I would have packed far less “nice” clothing and more t-shirts.)

THINGS WE ARE TRAVELING WITH NOW

1. Immersion Blender (pictured above). We bought this little jobby in Baires and I love it. I haven’t used an immersion blender forever, and they’ve come a long way baby. Truly, this is a power tool! We have taken it with us on our summer sojourn and we try to make smoothies most mornings, no matter where we are staying!!! ]]> 1