adventures in vino

cute little guest house

hola chicos, i do so apologize for the blogging delay.  but if you are a reader of this blog, you know that my blogging schedule is sporadic at best.  disculpame.

entonces.  maybe you are wondering how our trip to mendoza was.  i hope that you are because that is what i am going to write about today and you will be sorely disappointed if you were expecting something else.  here goes:

pool within a vineyard

mendoza is awesome.  and after a few ho-hum trips to uruguay, this was a well-deserved real vacation.

our first night there we stayed in a little guest house at a vineyard.  it was super cute and we had access to a little swimming pool surrounded by plum trees and olive groves.  adorable!  and the plums were delicious.  easily the best plums i've had in my life.  and for breakfast we were served fresh peaches with our tostadas which were also quite delicious.

the only problem with staying in a cute little guest house at a vineyard is that you are very far away from civilization.  we made the mistake of staying there on a sunday and then we were sort of stranded there and the one nearby restaurant was closed.  extremely hungry, we took a bus into town.  of course, everything in town was closed too, so we wound up buying gas station snacks, and much to our dismay, the girl at the counter refused to give us any change for the bus back.   due to this moneda shortage, we found ourselves unable to collect enough change to get back.  apparently they sell a metrocard type card for the buses, but all the kioskos that sold this card were closed on sundays.  so we went from store to store begging for change.  now, when i say "begging for change," i of course do not mean that we were asking for a free handout.  i mean that we were begging people to give us coins in exchange for bills.  often we even offered to buy something.  but it took quite a while until we were able to scrape together enough change to return to our cute little guest house.

exclusive bike parking

but once the week began and we returned to the land of the living we were able to hoard our change and ride buses and dine at fine restaurants and everything was peachy keen.

so what can you do in mendoza?

you can ride bikes to wineries and drink lots o' wine.  they even have special bike parking at all the wineries!  this biking and wine combo might seem like a bad idea, as we did have a little problem with this one time in uruguay, but the biking in mendoza was lovely.  the roads are all perfectly flat, and the drivers there seem accustomed to having tipsy tourists biking from vineyard to vineyard, so it all was very safe.

wine tasting + baked brie

we visited many vineyards, and learned a lot about how wine is made.  we also were able to visit a place that grows olives and produces olive oil, as well as a place that makes various chocolates and liquors.  but our favorite place was a vineyard called tempus alba.  they had this gorgeous roof terrace where they served food and did wine tastings.  we went there twice we liked it so much.  i recommend the baked brie if you go there .... deeeee-lish.

and of course we went on exciting adventures.  one day we did a rafting / biking combo.  we spent the morning white water rafting, and then we biked through the mountains.  while we were biking a small torrential downpour began and we needed to take cover in a tree.  yes, in a tree.  we found a tree with a nice opening in it (kind of like the tree the gummy bears live in) and we hid inside it.  we were then joined by a stray dog, also looking for shelter.  let's just say that three's a crowd when you're hiding inside a tree.

biking through the mountains

once the rain let up we resumed our biking and our canine friend began running alongside me, much like people used to run alongside departing trains in the 1950s.  have i mentioned that i do not really love dogs very much?  well, this dog was freaking me out running alongside me, and then all of a sudden he ran straight into my front tire.  i have never seen a dog do this before.  thankfully i was able to swerve out of the way without falling, but i ask you ... is there any other person who could possibly have a biking accident with a kamikaze dog?  no, only yours truly.

el bolshevik rappelling
off the side of a cliff

moving on ... once the rain subsided we saw many beautiful sights on our ride back.

on another day we decided to do a hiking/rappelling/hot springs combo ... we hiked up a mountain for about 45 minutes and then we rappelled down using ropes and harnesses and things.  now, we had done this once in belize, and you may remember that i had a minor freak out and refused to walk off the side of a cliff.  well, i was much better this time.  i'm an old pro at walking off the sides of cliffs!  so we rappelled off a few cliffs and then we walked to a nearby hot springs.

a "not that hot" hot springs,
but at least there was a view

this hot springs was way classier than the ones we visited in Colon ... it was built into the side of a cliff with lovely pools where you could sit and relax and look out on the "pre-Andes."  pretty cool.  of course, most of them were not all that hot (much like Argentine cuisine) but what can you do?  it was pretty awesome all the same.

and that was our trip to mendoza.

t-t-t-tigre! (and carmelo, uruguay)

oh dear blog readers, how i have forsaken you ... so a couple of weeks ago my beloved bolshevik and i journeyed (and by journeyed i mean we took a 50 minute train ride) to the riverside town of tigre.

tigre is super cute and kind of reminds me a bit of new england, you know ... if new england was flooded with spanish speakers.  tigre seems to be famous for two things ... rowing and markets.  due to it being kind of winter-ish here, we did not do any rowing.  but we saw the famous tigre rowing club, which was quite pretty.

the fruit markets, as they are called, are a huge complex of market stalls spanning several different blocks.  they sell furniture, art prints, antiques, old signs, mate gourds, and random things made of wicker.  and then i came across this little stall that only specializes in troll dolls?  say what?  the bolshevik refused to go inside this one because apparently he has a fear of troll dolls.  fair enough ... these guys were kinda creepy.

later, we rented bikes at our hostel and rode on a promenade that runs alongside the river.   eventually we came across a beautiful building which turned out to be the museum of tigre art.  as we did not actually go inside, i am unsure if this means it is a museum of art by tigre residents (or maybe artistic renderings of tigre) OR if it is just an art museum that is in tigre.  either way we took a gazillion pictures of it.

the following day we took a boat into carmelo, uruguay.  while we would've been happy to have another day in tigre, we needed to leave and re-enter the country in order to renew our visas.  so we took a nice ferry type boat ride and after 2 hours we docked in carmelo.

two "points of interest" at once: the bridge and the promenade

there are only 2 boats going to and from carmelo ... one arrives in carmelo at around 11 am, and then leaves at 5:30 pm.   let me tell you something about carmelo, uruguay ... it is possibly the most boring town on earth.  at around 11:05 we wondered how the hell we were possibly going to entertain ourselves for another 5 hours and 55 minutes.

at the boat terminal, we were given a small map of the town, with several little "points of interest" ... things like: bridge, plaza, fire department, new church, old church, tourist office etc.  during our 5-minute walk to the tourist office we actually passed by a large number of the sites on the map.  see that, they call that multi-tasking.

the nice man at the tourist office suggested we go to the winery.  but the winery was several miles away, and when we asked if we could take a taxi he explained that the next taxi wouldn't arrive until 1pm.  hmmm.

thankfully we noticed a whole load of bikes in the back of the office, so for the bargain price of $10 US for the entire day, we both got outfitted on some run-down bikes.

well i'll tell you dear blog readers we were infinitely happier once we got ourselves on some bikes.  we rode past farms and vineyards and horses and the four seasons golf course.

what?  yeah, apparently there is a huge luxurious four seasons in carmelo, uruguay.  we looked into hanging out there and it turns out its like hundreds of dollars for just about any activity. (little known fact ... miss fifi and her man got hitched at the four seasons in uruguay.  yup.)

my busted up bike in front of Narbona vineyards

for the first couple of miles everything was going well.  then the hunger set in.  then a few miles later we reached the hills.  oh, so many hills.  we were starting to get very disheartened that maybe we had passed the winery and would then have to go back and ride over all the hills again.

then luckily, without out any signage that can be seen from the road (really people, what are you thinking?  it's the only point of interest for miles.  invest in a sign!) we finally stumbled upon the winery.

inside the winery was a super cute little restaurant that was all dark and cozy and filled with wine.  the bolshevik and i, being starving and having just ridden about 7 miles or so on very shitty bikes up and down a variety of hills, were eyeing many menu items.  they were a bit pricey, but we figured that we deserved it (hey, we were on vacation!)  and then we realized that the prices were in US dollars and not uruguayan pesos.

and that is how the bolshevik and i wound up having the most expensive lunch we have ever eaten in our entire lives!  but we did it in style dear blog readers! we tasted several wines, tried some grappa made from honey ... all before ordering a bottle of wine, a plate o' cheese and some amazing homemade pastas. mmmmmm.

the only problem was that afterwards we had to ride 7 miles back to our boat, full of pastas and cheeses and a fair amount of vino.

i won't lie to you dear blog readers, it was rough at times.   but in the end we made it to our boat with several minutes to spare.  back in tigre we got some raised eyebrows from the border patrol, but ultimately we were allowed back into the country and no one was detained and no bribery was required.  all in all, a successful visa renewal weekend.

the end.