The Quieter Stuff of Travel (and another Grande Hotel)

Tonight, Barron and I are hulled up in the Andean town of Uspallata, spending one night in a strangely dated resort hotel whose name quite ironically (for us at least) is “The Gran Hotel.” We drove here this evening after a final day in the wine country, and arrived to find ourselves as interlopers in the Argentine family-ski-vacation. Deciding not to ski on this trip to South America, we will likely move on tomorrow with the hope of finding a trail in the foothills of the Andes to hike instead.

My co-author is sleeping soundly as I write, recovering from a cold caused, most likely, by our recent migration from subtropical Brazil to the Andean corridor of Argentina! Fortunately, we left San Francisco well supplied with vitamin C, herbal remedies, and ibuprofen. Nonetheless, I imagine that Barron is currently dreaming of our favorite San Francisco tea house….as finding a soothing and scrumptious cup of herbal tea in Argentina has proven nothing short of impossible.

This morning, we departed the Posada del Jamon (now known as the guesthouse of ham) in the Valle de Uco and embarked on a rather epic day of wine tasting. We began at a spectacularly-situated and small bodega  — Andeluna — where we were treated yet again to an individual tour of the fields, fermentation tanks, and barrel cave. (We opted to speak in Spanish on several of these tours…which proved to be a wonderful if slightly exhausting language immersion.) After two prior bodega visits on Sunday and Monday, which concluded without any opportunity to taste wine (!), we were delighted to be offered a full flight at Andeluna. Their wines were all phenomenal…..and we would have loved to send cases back to our faithful readers (but sadly DHL rates in South America are CARRRRRO!). We were also swept away by the space of the bodega. In contrast to the modernist architecture that we encountered at Salentein and O. Fournier (see pictures below), Andeluna embodies traditional Mendozan architecture and winemaking. The winery has a grand wood-beam pitched roof, an opulent open brick fireplace, and an inviting demonstration kitchen. (We learned, too late saldy, that the chefs offer daily cooking classes in this kitchen.) The vineyard also practices organic agriculture….prunings are used as compost and native grasses grow between the rows of vines. (This of course made me very happy!) Beyond all this, the winery sits on one of the most beautiful sites I have every seen. From nearly every point on the property, one is quite simply overwhelmed by the sight of the snowy, towering Andean mountain range.

After Andeluna, we said goodbye to the Valle de Uco and made our way northwards to the larger wine valley of Luhan de Cuyo. (If truth be told, a combination of faulty navigation on my part and persistently absent, ambivalent, or just plain dumbfounding signage on the part of the Argentine country-road-authority combined to make our journey slightly less than direct!) The Luhan valley is neither as stunning nor as sparsely-developed as Valle de Uco, but it is the site of some very famous Argentine malbecs. And we were treated to two of those malbecs this afternoon, one during a scrumptious lunch at the Ruca Malen bodega (where we had perhaps the world’s very best quinoa stew) and another at the Catena Zapata bodega. The latter was particularly significant for Barron, and our tasting of wines that Catena Zapata sells only in Argentina and Brazil was a rather poetic end to our time in the Mendoza wine country.

Yet this narrative is a digression from my original subject….the quieter stuff of travel. I logged on tonight wanting to reflect a bit on the very different quality of yesterday from today. Yesterday was one of those kind of days when traveling that are all too easy to discount, dismiss, or otherwise discredit. A day during which very little happened. A day in which we saw very little. A day in which we covered almost no ground. Yesterday, we slept late, ate a bit of toast with peach jam, decided to stay put at the Posada del Jamon for another night, visited just one winery (Clos de los Siete), ate a leisurely lunch back at Posada del Jamon, drove a bit aimlessly between small towns, mailed a few postcards, and took a walk at dusk on a gravel country road.

As I write this now, I realize that our walk yesterday at the end of a very quiet day near a very small town in the Uco Valley will be one of my favorite memories of this journey. Like our sail to Itaparicu with Bel, or our time with Ada in Pontal de Coruripe, or our lunch at La Cabrera in Buenos Aires, or our first encounter of the Igauzu Falls….walking together on a rural road in the most sublime of dusk lights with the orange-kissed Andes stretching out beside us and the occasional warm greeting from the families who live and farm there, talking about nothing in particular, has also been one of those charmed moments that travel unexpectedly drops into your lap. Reminded of Barron’s post on idleness many weeks ago from our pousada in Salvador da Bahia, I realize that I might finally be learning how very precious the quiter stuff of travel can be!

With that, I say goodnight and, as always, stay tuned…

a

The Quieter Stuff: Allison Goes All ¨Art Photographer¨ in Valle de Uco

The Quieter Stuff: Barron Searching

The Quieter Stuff: Andes Through the Trees

Wine Tasting in Mendoza Province

The Food of Mendoza (clockwise from top left): Filet Mignon at Ruca Malen; Quinoa Stew at Ruca Malen; Plate of Pork at Posada del Jamon; Dulce de Leche Dessert at Ruca Malen

“The Guesthouse of Ham,” or, “How the Author Came to Appreciate the Art of Naming Hotels after Cuts of Meat” (Dedicated to Mom and Harry)

What a strange experience — after the noise, grime and decaying opulence of Buenos Aires, the terrible beauty of the Iguazu falls, the sleepy grace of Mendoza city, and the eternal boredom of airports and bus stations and days spent waiting for the next move — to be tucked away in the Posada del Jamon (literally translated as the “Guesthouse of Ham”) near the town of Tunuyan in the Valle de Uco, one of Mendoza’s southernmost wine producing regions.

With our locomotion no longer dependent on mass transit (I mean, now that we have a car), it feels like a ridiculous luxury not to have our fate tied to a bus schedule. So here we sit, homemade lasagna and ravioli in our bellies, White Men Can’t Jump on the t.v. and a profound appreciation for once again being in the middle of bloody nowhere (and this time not having had to sweat through 3 shirts and endure the Grande Hotel to get there).

Just when we thought Argentina was a one-trick pony (or more accurately, a one-trick cow) in terms of its cuisine, Mendoza has surprised us at every turn…confirming our theory that food culture and wine culture always go hand-in-hand. Look, we’ve had some amazing food experiences thus far, with the lobsters at Ada’s and the steak at La Cabrera probably taking the cake. But the food in Mendoza is the most refined and delicious of any we’ve had. Roasted potatoes, truffles, poached eggs, wine-braised goat shank, smoked javali (wild boar), cheese and nuts and apples. It’s like being in Sicily again but without the Mafia.

And let’s not forget about the wines. Last night Allison and I ambled over to The Vines of Mendoza, a delightful wine bar in Mendoza city that puts together some brilliant flights of wine. So for over two hours we enjoyed a one-on-one tasting/lesson in the private tasting room with a woman named Fernanda. 6 glasses of wine later (each), we stumbled back to our guesthouse and crashed out, me trying to fend off a sinus cold (that finally caught up with me today) and Allison laughing hard at her own jokes.

On weekends, most wineries are closed (go figure), but today Allison managed to snag us reservations at Salentein and O. Fournier wineries, both in the Valle de Uco. These are bigger wineries that are winning all sorts of international awards and big points from magazines like Wine Snob, Vine Efete, Pompous Dick, etc. Anyway, the experience at Salentein was pretty amazing. We got a personal tour of the wine-making facility and barrel room and then tasted their reserve sauvignon blanc, pinot noir and merlot. Our guide Fernando (no relation to the aforementioned Fernanda) took very good care of us and even showed us the private tasting room where Robert Parker’s minions come every so often to make everyone at the winery sweat bullets. While O. Fournier winery was stunning in its architecture, we got lost three times trying to find it and when we finally arrived after 5:00 they rushed us through the tour and handed us a glass of their cheapest torrontes at the end and awkwardly hovered over us and watched us drink it before ushering us out the door.

We finally landed at the Posada del Jamon (I get a kick every time I say it) this evening and after some confusion about our reservation the owners fixed up a room, let us pick a bottle of wine from their cellar, brought us homemade lasagna and ravioli from their kitchen and bid us good night. As I nurse my cold and Allison watches the tube, we’re both feeling pretty swell about the next leg of our adventure…which of course will include ridiculous quantities of the finest wines available to humanity but also some light trekking in the Andes (which loom over the land here like nothing you’ve ever seen) and visits to some small mountain villages.

Wine Tasting in Mendoza City

The Stunning Salentein Winery

What Good Is Wine Without Food? (Clockwise from Top Left): Goat Shank Braised in Malbec with Roasted Potatoes at Salentein Winery; Smoked Salmon at Salentein Winery; Cheese and Meat Platter at the Vines of Mendoza; Housemade Ravioli and Lasagne Served in Our Room at the Posada del Jamon

The Architectural Marvel of O. Fournier Winery

Chillin’ on the Deck at O. Fournier Winery

Still Chillin’ on the Deck at O. Fournier Winery

Traditional Dancing Festival in Mendoza city

In the Barrell Room at Salentein Winery

Tasting at Salentein Winery

On the road…

Today we are, for the first time, renting a car for a few days to explore the Valle de Uco wine country and the Alta Montana region of the Andes. We will write as soon as we can…in between wine flights and winter hikes!

a+b

Ecological Wonder Punctuated by the Purguatory That Is Puerto Iguazu

To our faithful readers,

We realize that of late we’ve allowed pictures to stand in for words in documenting our 1,500 mile journey (with the help of three speedy but at times white-knuckled LAN airlines flights) from Buenos Aires to the Iguazu Falls back to Buenos Aires and on to Mendoza. And so, from our tranquil and cozy B&B in the tree-lined desert town of Mendoza on a somewhat wintry Argentine Saturday night, we reflect now on the past few days of our journey.

While streaming video and pictures are perhaps more apt media for conveying the wonders of the Iguazu Falls, we feel compelled to express in words our experience of the cataratas (waterfalls) that stretch across the Brazilian-Argentine border. On Monday, we arrived in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina after a short yet turbulent flight from Buenos Aires. We landed on a sunny, balmy Monday with a torrential rainstorm predicted to begin on Tuesday, and so we asked our taxi driver to take us directly to El Parque de Iguazu rather than to our hotel in town. Our decision could not have been better. After a short walk into the rainforest, we took the open-air park train 3 km from the entrance to the most famous of the cataratas….the Gargantua de Diablo, an indescribably massive, steep, and roaring waterfall that marks the termination of the gorge that separates the upper and the lower rivers in Iguazu. After walking 20 minutes or so on an elevated catwalk that takes you from the train stop over the upper river tributaries to the edge of the gorge, we found ourselves (along with perhaps 500 other late-afternoon visitors) standing at the edge of the universe. Words cannot express the power of these falls, and the gorge that creates them. As I walked out to the edge of the catwalk and stared into the belly of the Gargantua (see picture below), I felt the earth move more literally than ever before. Barron and I stood there for almost an hour, as the crowd dispersed, staring into the falls and peering over the edge of the gorge….while the most sublime of early-evening rainforest light spilled over us. Perhaps more than any other time thus far (with the possible exception of our first afternoon on the beach at Pontal de Coruripe), I wished that we could beam all of our friends and loved ones to see what we were seeing.

So, with that, we offer a few snapshots of the falls and the ecosystem in general (keep in mind that we broke our digital camera durning a drunken night out in Puerto Iguazu and Barron had to use film to capture our second and third days at the park, so as soon as we get the film developed we´ll have even more pictures that are even more astounding than these…good news is that we were able to replace the camera at the sleazy duty free shop along the Brazilian border so there will be no further interruptions in your multimedia experience):

El Gargantua de Diablo

Exploring the Rainforest at Iguazu

Allison Walking the Highwire over the Mouth of the Gargantua

El Gargantua de Diablo

The Great White Hunter Surveys Las Cataratas

Allison Stands in Awe of the Magnificence

The Catwalk that Leads to El Gargantua

Cruising on a Raft Down Rio Iguazu

An Alligator Sunning Itself on the Iguazu

The Sun Goes Down on the Iguazu River

A+B on Safari in El Parque de Iguazu

Interlude 2: You Asked for Food And Food Is What You’ll Get

We’ve gotten so many requests for more food posts and pictures that we thought we’d post a special installment on food and nightlife.

A+B Get A Little Loopy at Bar 878 in Buenos Aires

More Delicious Food (clockwise from Top Left): Grilled Bife de Lomo (Filet Mignon) and Fries at Aqua in Puerto Iguazu; French Fries Topped with Fried Eggs at Bar Uriarte in a Buenos Aires; Grilled Surubi (Iguazu River Fish) and Fries in Puerto Iguazu; Wok Cooked Veggies (To Stave Off Fry-Induced Thrombosis)

More Delicious Food (clockwise from Top Left): Salad of Wild Mushrooms, Truffles, Wilted Spinach and Poached Egg at The Winery in Mendoza; Grilled Bread with Jamon Crudo and Grilled Asparagus at The Winery; Smoked Javali (Wild Boar) at Azafran in Mendoza; Bife de Chorizo at Patio de Jesus Maria in Mendoza

Chillin’ in Bar Uriarte in Buenos Aires

A+B in Desperate Pursuit of An Almost Non-Existent Good Time in Puerto Iguazu

Interlude 1: The Dark Side of Intercontinental Travel

Lest our glowing blog posts lead you to believe that our trip has been nothing but charmed, let us share with you a few glimpses of the everyday dark side of travelling in South America:

Bad Land Development

Bad South American Cocktails

Meals on the Run

Maximum Velocity Cab Rides

Baffling Public Monuments

Waiting Out A Stomach Bug in Your Hotel Room

Lights, Camera, Action!

Okay…we’re trying out a new blog experiment…home video!

Click the screenshot below to download a 45 second video of the roaring Iguazu falls. (It may take a moment to load…so cool yer jets.)

This Waiting Room of a World

We´re passing our entire day today in the hum-drum (but strategically-situated-vis-a-vis-the-falls) town of Puerto Iguazu, biding our time until our evening flight back to Buenos Aires. (Six hours down, four more to go.) After three big days of soaking up the park and its roaring falls (and when I say soak, I mean SOAK), we´re ready to get on with things and, we think, rent a car once we land in Mendoza on Friday so that we can feel the wind in our hair and the bugs in our teeth…or something equally evocative of the literature of the great American roadtrip!

As seems to be our very good fortune these days, we were adopted by a guesthouse owner in Puerto Iguazu named John Fernandes who didn´t have any rooms available when we arrived on Monday but all the same invited us over to his house for drinks every night and even took us across the border to Brazil for dinner on Tuesday! An Indian expat, John was a commercial photographer in Buenos Aires for 25 or 30 years and then settled in Puerto Iguazu a couple of years ago to open a guesthouse and a photography gallery specializing in environmentally conscious photography. He showed us the space this morning, which is under construction, and then the three of us split a bottle of Malbec for breakfast before Allison and I ambled back across town to our clean but much less personal Hotel La Sorgente. (At least they´re letting us use the free Internet while we wait out the hours.) Anyway, gathering at John´s in the evenings for caipirinhas and garlic flatbread while discussing the days adventures (not to mention travel, art, politics, food and expatriation) made our evening downtime in Puerto Iguazu a hell of a lot more interesting than it otherwise would have been.

So consider this little posting an interlude before our full story of the Iguazu falls, complete with photographic proof of their grandeur.

Signing off…
B

8 Monkeys, 2 Alligators, and 1 Indescribable Waterfall

Barron and I are writing from our hotel in Puerto Iguazu on the Argentine border, having just returned from dinner in Brazil with the owner of a local B&B who invited us to cocktails yesterday evening after we inquired about staying at his inn (which was in fact already full). It was a bit dizzying to cross the border and return to Brazil for the evening, as we recalled our scant portuguese vocabulary to order cerveza and churrascuria.

We arrived in Iguazu yesterday afternoon and proceeded directly to the cataratas (waterfalls) to experience the park in the gorgeous sunlight. (Our timing was perfect….as one hell of a rainstorm moved in last night and unleashed a terrential downpour for nearly 11 hours.) The waterfalls are a wonder that cannot be described. A vast ecosystem of steep, powerful, rushing falls that plummet from the upper to the lower banks of the river that separates Argentina from Brazil, the cataratas have stunned us. So too have the quieter marvels of the rainforest that borders the river, which we experienced yesterday on an evening boatride (during which we encountered 2 alligators sunning on the river banks) and today on a five-mile hike into the forest (during which we were treated to a late afternoon tree-swinging romp of 8 monkeys!).

We will have much more to write about our time in iguazu, and spectacular photos to post (although not until we return to Buenos Aires on Friday). So, as always, stay tuned!

a +b

Evita’s Corpse, Mocked Public Monuments and the Rich Smell of Locro

At the moment, Allison and I are enjoying a piece of ricotta cheesecake and a cappuccino at Nucha, a café-bakery in the swank Recolata neighborhood that looks out on the small, tree-lined Lopez y Planes park. The warm weather of our first three days in Buenos Aires has given way to a brisk, wintery chill, and the arrival of Sunday has turned this vast, otherwise pulsing city into a sleeping (or at least sleepy) giant. What better time to hole up in a warm nook and set down some thoughts and impressions for our faithful readers.

We just came from lunch at Cumana, a restaurant that specializes in mouthwatering empanadas (dumplings) and cazuelas (stews) all baked to belly-warming perfection in a large wood-fired brick oven. The cazuela we had is called locro, a traditional stew of white beans, corn, sausage and bits of pork topped with a spicy sauce and diced scallions. We also had four empanadas stuffed with various and sundry combinations of cheeses, veggies, meats and sauces. To drink, we had a liter of beer. And (don’t hate us) all of this only set us back $13, including tip.

While we came to Buenos Aires having heard tall tales of how ridiculously inexpensive it is for foreign travelers to live high on the hog, we’ve found it not to be so much cheap as very affordable. But it also depends on where you go and the city’s notoriously bad and very expensive cocktails can add up quickly, as we discovered on Thursday night at this place called Dada (dude, a can of tomato juice and half a shot of Smirnov vodka do not a Bloody Mary make). Mostly though two people can eat lunch at a very good restaurant (think Zuni Café or Nopa) for about $30 to $40, including desert and three glasses or so of very good wine. I think our lunch at La Cabrera only cost us about $33. There are, of course, tons of truly cheap food options and one could theoretically forego alcohol to save money but, as the philosophers say, life is too short.

So yes, as one would expect we’ve been eating our way through Buenos Aires and loving every minute of it. So far the highlights have been La Cabrera, Cumana and this vegetarian restaurant called Bio (we too were surprised to find a veg-head eatery given BA’s worship of all foods hooved) where we had a simple salad, a dish of sautéed wild mushrooms with chiles, coconut milk, mushroom stock and jasmine rice, and probably the best coconut flan this side of coconut flan heaven. On Friday we made a pilgrimage to another famed parilla called El Obrero in this sketchy neighborhood on the south end called La Boca, home of the beloved Boca Junior futbol club. We took a cab (a mode of transportation that by American standards IS very cheap) and the driver, a nice guy who sported a Che Guevara pin on his tie, eyed us skeptically as we approached the restaurant and informed us with a lot of care and concern in his voice, “Tourists don’t come here.” We thanked him for his concern and assured him that Bono and Wim Wenders love this place and eat here whenever they’re in town. The bife chorizo, which is a lean sirloin strip steak, was by all accounts succulent and delicious. The “salad” we ordered of hardboiled egg, boiled potatoes and boiled greenbeans had all the nuance of wallpaper paste and just about as much taste. Our “salad” of undressed watercress was fine if you like undressed watercress. Lesson learned: just order the steak and be done with it.

In between meals and nights out on the town we’ve found a little time for sightseeing. On Friday morning we visited the Recoleta Cemetery where generations of Buenos Aires’ rich and powerful have flocked to be buried upon their untimely departures from the corporeal world. Evita Peron is buried there, and when we entered the cemetery a volunteer informed us that her grave is one of the country’s most important monuments. I felt in no position to argue with her.

On Saturday we went for a long run in the big park on the northeast side of the city and stopped periodically to pose for photos in front of statues. To add a new twist to this timeless tourist pastime, Allison and I would imitate the poses and aspects of the statues, much to the chagrin of the portenos who actually know something about the historical figures we appeared to be mocking. (Everyone will be relieved to know that we stopped short of imitating a statue of Jesus…last thing we needed was to be hunted down and beaten to death, to say nothing of the eternal damnation that surely would have followed.)

We’ve also been enjoying hanging out at our guesthouse (another steal at just $40 per night) and talking with the owner, Paz, and the other guests. There are two women from Sao Paulo staying at the house who are particularly cool, and pretty much every night we’ll gather for an hour or so (sometimes longer) to share wine and talk about politics, art and t.v. in a bizarre synthesis of Spanish, English, Portuguese and French.

So that pretty much covers it. Tomorrow we leave for three nights at the spectacular Iguazu falls and no doubt will have plenty more adventures to share from the road.

Some Buenos Aires Delicacies (Clockwise from Top Left: Coconut Flan at Bio; Chicken and Mashed Potatoes at Dada; Wild Mushroom and Rice at Bio; Smoked Salmon Salad at Club Museo)

The Weather Turns Wintery in Buenos Aires

Where the Rich Come to Die: Recoleta Cemetery

Mocking Historical Figures in the Park

Locro!

“What’ll It Take to Get You into This Beer Today?”

Allison Braves the World’s Worst Bloody Mary at Dada

Allison, Paz and Barron in the Yira Yira Guesthouse