Bikes and wine in Argentina
Free Tiramisu
09.12.2011 - 15.12.2011
30 °C
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Buenos Aires
After saying goodbye to Frank and Bernadette, we headed down to Buenos Aires on a refreshingly pleasant flight. Anita was recovering from her fourth bout of food poisoning (wedding diet going well!), so largely stayed in and cursed the lack of a proper internet connection, but James was fit and able so was sent out to explore Buenos Aires and bring back some good photos for the blog! As it happened, we were in town for the Presidential inauguration (of Christina Kirchner), so James watched the celebrations on the square and took photos of some of the landmark buildings in town.
We also both took a stroll around Recoleta cemetery, the place where anyone who was anyone got buried until some Puritanical spoil sport decided that spending colossal sums on ginormous statues of angels, soldiers, etc, was a touch tasteless and not all that likely to win a place in heaven after all. Eva Peron's family tomb is of course within the grounds, and is actually rather understated in the context of the others.
The upmarket Recoleta district is very reminiscent of Paris (well, the nice bits of Paris in the middle), so other than visit the cemetary we had a nice afternoon strolling about looking at design shops and drinking coffee.
Rosario
Leaving BA, we stopped en route to Mendoza in Rosario, about which there is not much to report other than it was very hot and a fashion desert. Three hours of endless trawling through shops yielded but one purchase. Both the wardrobe teams for Pretty Woman or Little House on the Prarie would have done well to send assistants to Rosario to source costumes. That minor grumble aside, we found the people to be very friendly and accommodating in Rosario and enjoyed the first of hopefully many steaks.
Mendoza
Now we find ourselves in Mendoza. On the first night we got sloshed at a wine tasting; they serve pretty generous tasting samples here.
Then we spent yesterday cycling around vineyards (someone's gotta do it!), which was thirsty work in 30 degrees of strong sunshine. We visited a few bodegas (wineries) and enjoyed a long lunch of lamb soaked in Malbec. Oh yeah!
Unbelievably they throw out the juicy bits from the grapes and only keep the skins. Some poor bugger has to pinch one grape at a time by hand for a living. I asked him why and he said that's how they do it for the premium wines. I asked why again and he just said that was the premium way. I also asked whether they sell the juicy bits to a fruit juice company as there must be a lot of grape juice to be had there and the guy just looked at me like I was crazy. And then they wonder why vineyards aren't profitable. Too much snobbery, not enough savvy. Pah.
One other thing which is very weird about Argentina so far is that no restaurant will accept a credit card (we reckon they're all on the fiddle). So when you politely grumble about this being inconvenient, they bring you a free tiramasu! How weird is that? James thinks its a bribe; they avoid tax and pay us off with dessert. Turns out we are bought that easily.
Posted by jamesandanita 16.12.2011 03:11 Archived in Argentina
Hou là ça fini bien la fin de l'année, quelques verres plus tard et tout ça à vélo!!!! Hola pas croyable!!!
Bravo!!! Toujours sympa vos photos,attendons la suite des prochains épisodes...
17.12.2011 by Colette