Peaceful and Friendly Mendoza

Annalee, Tole and Chris - downtown Mendoza.
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Tole and I began our South America trip in the best way, by visiting friends!  The Puglieses, friends of Tole´s family, live in San Rafael, about 220 kilometers south of Mendoza.  They live on a beautiful vineyard named Finca Los Nubes.  Their grapes eventually become wine bearing the Pugliese family name on the label, including bottles of the red Malbec wine for which the region is justifiably famous.  We tasted both the Pugliese Malbec and the Torrontes (a white wine from a grape varietal unique to South America), and they were fabulous.  They are available in a few places in the States and Canada, so keep your eye out for Pugliese wines from Argentina!!!

Annalee at dinner at the home of their host family.
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The Puglieses took us in for the weekend, and we got something of a crash course in some of the most well-known Argentine customs.  Mauricio cooked up an amazing asado one evening.  An asado is an Argentine cookout, but it is also an Argentine social event.  Families typically hold asados on Sundays, and everyone goes to enjoy the food and time together.  For asado, the meat is seasoned only with salt, then grilled and smoked over a lower heat and longer period of time than is usual in the States.  The result is intensely moist and flavorful.  Yum!  Carla made us a delicious Milanesa, which is similar to veal parmesan and is extremely popular in Argentina.  Carla also made phenomenal empanadas.  We are plain crazy for empanadas, which are essentially pastries filled with meat, or sometimes with cheese or vegetables.  For breakfast, we got to try Dulce de Leche, caramelized milk that Argentines are crazy about.  Obviously, I am more than down with spreading carmel on my morning toast!  But best of all, they shared their Mate with us.  Mate is a hot herb tea, drank either plain or sweeetened.  I was skeptical, but it turned out to be delicious!  Yerba Mate, known simply as Mate, is ubiquitous in Argentina.  Argentines vastly prefer it to coffee.  Everywhere you go in Argentina, people are carrying around small mugs made from gourds that they use to drink Mate.  Nearly any cafe will give you hot water so you can make your own Mate on the go, like a proper Argentinian!

meat, malbec and mate

Our happy little Spanish class.
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Mauricio also drove us through the amazing Cañon de Atuel, with awesome rock formations and colors reminiscent of those found in Utah and northern Arizona.  Afterwards, we both remarked that the infinite shapes of the rocks, like clouds, often seemed to crudely mimick the shape of a familiar thing or being.  The original "modern" art, perhaps.

Back in Mendoza, we met up with our friends Chris & Annalee, who had been bicycling for several months already, beginning in Bolivia.  Chris and Tole are good friends from all the way back in college, and we were psyched to get to spend some time on the road with him and his wife, Annalee.  See Chris and Annalee´s very cool website about their trip at http://salcedopower.com/biketrip/index.html.

Plaza de Espana, Mendoza.
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First up, we needed more Spanish classes.  Chris and Annalee located a wonderful school in Mendoza, and all four of us dove in and tried to brush up on some basic Spanish for about 2 weeks.  Tole and I had two excellent teachers, Diego and Dario.

Mendoza is a tranquil, extremely pleasant small city, so we really enjoyed just hanging out and soaking it in for a few weeks.  We stayed with two different local families who helped us with our Spanish over dinner.  We also sampled many of Mendoza´s restaurants, which were uniformly fantastic and cheap.  We ate many, many empanadas, and even got some Mexican food.  Steaks in Argentina generally cost around $5 or $6, and a bottle of Malbec about the same, so we took in plenty of those, as well.

Plaza de Espana, Mendoza.
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After two weeks, we said goodbye to Mendoza and set off for Chile.  The first few days promised to be immensely challenging, with steep climbing and at least one dirt road.  And the craziest day was going to be on our anniversary!  Well, if we can make it through that, I guess we´re in good shape.