Wine Country

Yes, we are finally in wine country.  Forget Peru and Bolivia and their beer offerings, we arrived in Argentina ready to drink wine, wine, and more wine (and then some steak with our wine). 

Our first stop was Mendoza.  In 4 days we managed to try 35 different types of wine.  We thought we may be wined-out after such a feat but it was not to be so.  Our first day in Mendoza we signed up for an asado (Argentinean barbeque) at our hostel.  It was a very nice welcome to Argentina.  Our server/bbq master Roberto brought out chorizo and then cut after cut of steak, each one more delicious and tender than the last.  I´m not sure that we have ever eaten so much beef in our lives.  There was also free-flowing wine which never hurts.  Our second day we went to Maipu to rent bikes and do a self-guided winery tour.  We managed to hit a few different wineries and were quite pleased with all of the wines we tried.  When we finished our tour we rushed back to Mendoza for a futbol match.  We sat in the ¨popular¨ section with the hard-core Mendoza Godoy Cruz fans so it was quite the experience.  Luckily the home team tied up the game in the last 10 minutes so the fans weren´t too crazy after the game! 

Lunch break by the vineyard. Salami sandwiches... yum yum yum.

Paula getting her pat-down before the game. She looked like more of a threat .

On my wonderful and intelligent sister Andrea´s recommendation, we also did a guided wine tour in Lujan de Cuyo with Ampora Wine Tours.  It was quite a magical day - we tried 18 different types of mid-to-top shelf wines and had a gourmet 5 course meal with a wine pairing for each dish.  Needless to say, we were very ready for a nap when we got back to the hostel!

Lunch. The Argentine hot dog aka Super Pancho.

A much needed trim. 

After Mendoza, we headed to Cordoba for a few days.  It was a really beautiful city to stroll around in and they had a great artisans market on Sunday evening.  From Cordoba we did a day trip to Villa General Belgrano - a small German village.  It was quite interesting to arrive in a small town in Argentina filled with wooden buildings, signs, and German souveneirs.  We took our pick of the many German restaurants in town and had some Goulash and Bratwurst for lunch before heading back to Cordoba.

Our next stop was Rosario on the river Parana.  Although I wouldn´t call the river itself beautiful, it had a nice beach in the north part of town with very soft sand.  We spent a nice day at the beach and were amazed at how many people around us had mate in hand.  Argentineans really do love their mate (as do we now that we have been enlightened)!  There was also a huge cultural and food festival on in Rosario while we were there.  Our last night we wondered around the different booths of food and watched various cultural dances from Brazil to Syria.

We are now in Buenos Aires for a couple of weeks and it feels quite nice to relax in one place for a while.  We visited some markets in San Telmo and Palermo yesterday, and had without a doubt the best steak of our lives at Des Nivel along with the chorizo, grilled provolone and flan. We went to Recoleta today and wandered around the cemetary with Eva Peron´s grave.  We plan to take in a few tango shows while we are here and hopefully a couple more futbol matches.  You´ll hear from us again soon!