A flurry of updates well worth the wait...
A Brief Monologue.
Ben: Hey Sam. Welcome back, how was Mendoza?
Sam: Excellent. Have you seen Mike? It doesn’t look like he’s been here since I left on Thursday.
Ben: Probably true, I think he’s been staying with his friend that’s here for spring break.
Sam: Oh yeah, the dude with the girl’s name I met last week. What was his name? Like Hailey or Hallie or something?
Ben: It was Hallie, like Hallie Joel Osmet.
Sam: Oh yeeaah. Exactly like that. Weird choice in examples.
Ben: No, it was Hallie Joel Osmet.
Sam: Wait… Seriously? That scruffy little dude chilling around my dorm room for the last week was actually Hallie Joel Osmet?!?!
Ben: Yeah, you didn’t realize?
Sam: How would I have realized, I haven’t seen the kid’s face since the 6th Sense!?!?
{Sam proceeds to pee pants laughing}
Ben: I thought you’d think that was funny.
Wine Country for the Weekend.
Wow, wine country for the weekend, and a whirlwind tour at that.
I’m all for these weekend getaways, seeing as I don’t have much else in terms of options to see all the great places in Argentina and the surround, but damn does it get exhausting. Spring Break is going to a be a much appreciated real vacation.
So how did we get to Mendoza?
Well I guess first we should start with who?
Basically, the same group of people that I went to Punta Del Este, plus Sam from across the street, a guy here from South Carolina that I hang out with a lot (We’re going to Radiohead tomorrow, WHOLE NOTHER STORY) and Ilyana, whom is one of the 3 people I’m going on to Tierra del Fuego with. I guess you would say these 10 people are my good friends here, and definitely good travel buddies, up-for-anything-types, so really I couldn’t be happier that I’ve found these people. As for who these people are, I’m sure most of you will get the chance to meet some of them, as they are likely going to be visiting me in Ann Arbor this coming term, as part of my critera for selecting the friends is the fact that these are the guys and girls who when I get pumped to go watch Michigan play Iowa in the Big Ten Basketball tourney say, “How do we get there?” as opposed to the other swath of NYU kids who say, “Why the hell would you want to watch that?” but this again, is a whole nother story.
At this point I have to say, Go Blue! Great Season, Long Live Belein, y
¡Queme los Barcos!
An expression with which I think I have a special appreciation. I haven’t gotten to watch the Michigan-Clemson game yet (I’ve finally finished downloading it), but I was getting text updates from a friend at the bar while I was on the bus and when I got, “Go Blue, Michigan wins” I may or may not have sang the Victors on a bus flying across the Argentine interior… which I must say is a kinda cool experience.
But why was I on a bus flinging itself across the width of Argentina, from the coast of the Atlantic a few thousand kilometers to the base of the Andes? To go to wine country, of course?
It’s a 15 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, which we began at 8:45 Thursday night and arrived in Mendoza around 11:00 am on Friday. Quite a ride. Even though the busses are way more comfortable and spacious than an American tour bus, it was still pretty dificult to sleep solidly. But who would ever let that stop them, seeing as our return bus trip was approx. 31 hours away Saturday evening.
So! 6 of grabbed the first bus to Maipu (yup, pronounced My-Poo and b. yes another bus, it’s kinda a theme of this weekend) and an hour later had ourselves some bikes with which to ride around wine country.
Well, the bikes were a little bit harder than that. We told the bus driver we wanted to go to Mr. Hugo’s, the most reputable and well known bike rental place in Maipu. However, he instead waited until everyone else had gotten off the bus, and then seeminly drove us to his friends house/rental shop… but mostly just house. Luckily, this boludo had 6 bikes, for cheap as all get up, so we were on our way (and only two of the bikes broke down during the course of the day, woo!!! But, he did come and bring a new bike everytime, so that was legit.)
This first day, we actually only biked to one vineyard successfully, but for me it was the best of the whole trip. It was called El Rural and it is the oldest vineyard in Argentina, it was a really cool museum of wine, a great tour of the grounds, and best of all, a tour of the entire winemaking process. I actually learned about what makes more expensive/better wines, grapes in hand, so that we really cool. We got to try a glass from a 100 dollar a bottle wine too, so that was really cool.
So I don’t feel tempted to say it a thousand times in this:
Mendoza = Malbec.
The grape doesn’t grow anywhere else in the world even remotely as well as it does in Mendoza, a microclimate desert, and no other variety of wine here, while good, even come close to how great a 2002 Mendoza Melbec, aged in 1st use oak barrels tastes. (HA!)
After the tour, we tried to bike to Trapiche, the biggest and most industrial yet big-epic-scale beautiful in Argentina, but it was closed to the public that day (as it would be when we tried to go back the next day). We had really wanted to go there, because at our local corner bar, Malouva, we almost always buy a Trapiche Malbec. But alas.
That night we went to a big all-you-could-eat asado (grill-out) thrown by our hostel. Highlights included:
ALL YOU CAN EAT STEAK FOR 7 DOLLARS!
and
Playing drinking games with the british kids staying with us (We whooped them in Flip-Cup)
We followed up our day of wine touring with…
A DAY OF WINE TASTING!
We spent all day from 10am till around 5:30 hopping from antique/botique Bodega (vineyard) to Bodega all day, trying wine after wine after wine of every type. Don’t worry Mom, I’ll be sending you home a case before I come home this summer. It was too good not to.
Oh, and we went to a tiny little chocolate/liquour/jelly “factory” that was really just a kitchen and a dining room right before we came back to the bus. Unreal fudge, and fudge/dolce de leche flavored liqour. Like whoa!
So anywhoo, that was Mendoza. A whirlwind tour of wine country. Beautiful views of the Andes and the Pampas along the way, and now back to school. Pretty solid 72 hours right?
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