True to my word, I went back to the Parrillada for the meat lover´s meal. This one had a little of every kind of meat you could think of.
Which might have been a little aggressive considering the delicate state of my GI tract. I stuffed as much food down my gullett as I could stand, and tried a different Malbec. Pure heaven, Mate.
Here´s a cool looking building in Mendoza.
So I jumped a bus for the Maipu, the wine region, this morning and met some chicks studying abroad in BA but on a weekend getaway here in Mendoza. Sunday is the worst day to tour the vinyards here, as all but one is closed. We rented bikes for $5, and they were new and in great condiition. Here´s a shot of the girls getting bikes.
Now I forget each one of their names, but lets just call them Trixie, Daphne, Corrine, Janie, Jackie and Wanda. Here´s a shot half way to the Bodega with the snow covered Andes in the background.
As we were riding to the Bodega, EVERY carload of guys whistled, hooted or honked at the girls. Machismo is alive and well in Mendoza. The girls say they´re used to it, and don´t even realize it happening anymore.
We even had our own police escort with lights. All kiding aside.
You can see the cop, back right in the pic stopping traffic through the circle as we went through. Now if I could just get love from the police on a saturday morning group ride in Del Mar, I´d be awe-stricken with disbelief and amazement.
Here´s Trixie and Janey doing "glamour shots" on the bikes
and again just goofing off, they had a lot of personality, which is refreshing.
Finally we arrived at Carinae, a small boutique winery specializing in Cab Sav and Malbecs. Its good to know that it was "Opened"
Starting the tour
The wine is made artesanal style here, with little modern technology. The weather is very dry (you could feel it in the air) but water runs freely from the Andes down small aquaducts next to the road.
Heres the inside of the winery with the exopy lined fermentation vessels right and left.
Interesting to note that they only use the french oak barrels 5 times before getting rid of them. The newer the oak barrel the more oak flavor it imparts on the wine, which is exactly the opposite for whiskey and tequila. The more used the barrel, the more oak flavor.
Here´s our guide Andrea
Barrels as far as the eye can see plus a stained glass crest of the winerys logo in the background. Carinae is a constellation in the solar system and all the areas of the vinyard are named afters stars and solar systems.
Instead of budget hotels, I d be happy with a sleeping bag, a spigot and funnel in here. The smell of wine was intoxicating in and of itself.
and finally the wine tasting... ahhh...
While the Malbec is big here, "possibly ginormous," they also make a pretty good Cab Sav, and a very interesting Cab Sav Mablec blend. Normally, being the beer wine purist that I am, blends seem a little like mixing italian and blue cheese dressing ,which actually I do from time to time. But the Malbec, while a little grapey in flavor, blends really well with the Cab Sav, balancing it between dry and fruity. In addition to that It almost sounds like I know what Im talking about.
After the tasting we were all pretty hungry so we hit up Kiosko Omar for a boatload of empanadas. They were really good. I grabbed a few for tonights bus ride.
Here´s a shot of Fred and me on the way back.
Fred´s a journalist from France on vacation for a month here in Argentina. Fred is possibly cheaper...ummm rather more "minimalmist" then I. I told him I was spending 80 pesos ($19) a night on a hotel room and he almost had a heart attack. Of course he´s sweating it out in a 8 person dorm with a few snor-a-saurouses.
Its interesting, everyone I meet here says "Are you on Facebook." My answer is always, "reluctantly, yes." Facebook kind of annoys me because it seems like its a game to see how many possible "friends" you can have. "Juan has 353 friends" maybe 2 of which he´d recognize if they approached on the street. Really, do you want the internet connected population of the world to know you´re camping this weekend and steal your flatscreen, dog and your grandmothers three handled moss covered family grudunza?
It also seems disingenious to me because you cant always say what you feel. I mean do really want the whole world to know everything you´re feeling? For example, a post that starts like "I feel like shit today, my dog died" might be followed with a thumbs up that says "5 people like this." Does that seem "genuine" to you? Boo to that, I say.
That being said, I´m starting to come around to Facebook a little, here comes the about face, ready?) Its kind of handy to keep in touch with people you´ve just met traveling and whos path you might cross again, at least in the world of wishful thinking anyway. So while I´m not a believer, lets just say I´m keeping an open mind to the possibiliites.
One word on the PSDS. I´m very excitied to report that after cafeful scrutinization, I´m raising the PSDS, (Paul´s Spainish Defcon Scale) to a rich optimistic 6 on the 1 to 10 scale. I´ve started to understand the spoken word here a little better and calle and cashe not longer confuse me. Also, while hardly scientific, Ive encountered many people that also thought they could speak Spainish "until coming to Argentina." While this does reflect a small one point drop in PSDS from where it was at the start of this trip, it also means that cats and dogs are safe from crossbreeding and religous fanatics the world over can keep killing each other in the name of god without fear of the apocolypse.
After the worlds worst bus ride, I quite possibly had the best ever last night. A bus cama, no seat next to me and sleep the entire ride.
I´m now in Rosario, Argentina and I´ve got to say, this is quite possibly my favorite city in Argentina. It has all the big city feel of BA, without being too big, culture and architecture and a beach culture on the rio Parana.
Heres my $19 a night hotel room, and the word "budget" is starting to get a little... TOO budget.
So I´m down to my last 2 nights in South America and seriously considering some luxury for my final night here.
I guess wine bikes and police do mix after all, whod da thunk it?
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