We woke in the morning and were sad to leave Postales. Laura, Ursula, Betiana, and Italia had been so sweet to us… During breakfast we received a call from American Airlines saying that our bag was at the Mendoza airport and that we could go get it (and you say, “But wait! Didn’t AA say that they couldn’t call out?” Why yes they did!). I told them that we’d already been to the airport once because they’d told us it was there and it wasn’t. And that if it wasn’t there again, they would have to ship it to us BACK in Buenos Aires, because that evening we’d be taking the overnight bus back to BA. Arrrgg.
After breakfast a car came to pick us up and take us on a bit of a trip up into the mountains. Since the Valle de Uco is closer to the base of the Andes than Mendoza proper, we wanted to take advantage of the proximity and get some mountain time.
About 20k from Postales is a historical site called “Manzana Historica.” It is a very, very small town with a little museum, a convenience store, a medical building, and a few houses. The museum and historical site were built to memorialize San Martin. The story is that he sat below an apple tree (Manzana = apple) and contemplated liberation for the South American people from Spain in the early 1800's. This is Sarah and I also contemplating liberty for the Argentinean people under the apple tree. Though I doubt much will come of it.
After about 30 minutes of walking around the park, the driver started taking us higher up into the mountains. We stopped for a few photos:
We drove a ways farther up until he wasn’t comfortable taking his car much higher (those little Fiat coups aren’t built for mountain dirt roads) and so we stopped at an old resort location. It was a bit run down and no one was there except for the owner (I think it is a place that locals may go during the summer). It was about lunch time and the driver asked the owner if she would consider feeding us lunch in their restaurant. Obviously she hadn’t planned on guests, but she was very accommodating and said she’d whip up some empanadas for us.
We walked around the property a bit before lunch:
A meat/cheese plate is a very common lunch dish. I took this photo because of the jamon (ham) in the center: it was like our lunch meat ham, but mixed into it were hardboiled eggs, olives, and carrots.
Then the empanadas came – they do these very, very well. Usually it’s ground beef with a lot of chili powder and a bit of cumin, white or yellow onions, and bits of green olive. Then they’re lightly buttered and baked until golden brown. The view wasn’t too shabby either.
After lunch the driver took us back to Chacras (Mendoza) which was about 1.5 hour trip. Chacras is a southern suburb of Mendoza – about 25 minutes from the city center – where there are wineries much closer together than in the Valle De Uco. They are close enough in proximity that you can bike to quite a few and not mess with hiring a driver.
We arrived at our hotel – Lares de Chacras and got set up in our room. This was one of the two true “hotels” we stayed in, so we had to lay out at the pool in the afternoon. They are having a very hot spring so it was nice to take advantage of the water.
Every evening Lares has a Welcome Wine Tasting down in their basement cellar. We sat with two other couples, one from San Diego and one from Brazil and chatted about our experiences so far. The couple from San Diego (Matt and Nicole) were super nice and doing a vacation that was basically the reverse of ours (Buenos Aires first, then Mendoza); so we exchanged tips over a bottle of wine compliments of Lares.
For dinner we were in the mood for something more simple – since we’d had night after night of 5 course meals and very rich food (rough life eh?) We’d read about a hole in the wall Mexican food restaurant walking distance from our hotel called “The Taco Bar.” It was perfect. We were the only tourists, most of the silverware was plastic ware. But they made a mean guacamole, some great tacos, and tasty margaritas. Plus they had a funny/fun music mix. Sarah and I particularly enjoyed Video Killed The Radio Star and needed to remember that:
Back to the hotel for Election coverage! While the local stations were covering it, we didn’t understand quite enough Spanish to stick with that. So we watched the BBC. We had to stay up pretty late since Mendoza is 2 hours ahead of Eastern time. It was really interesting watching a British news channel cover the American election. They were pretty unabashed about saying that the US would benefit in its foreign diplomacy by electing Obama. Annnnnnnd with that, bed time.
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