Mendoza, Hasta Luego Argentina
Our final stop in Argentina landed us in Mendoza. This region is the mother of Malbecs, producing 70% of Argentinian wine. I know many of our friends will be disappointed to hear that we did not visit vineyards while in town. Instead, we spent our five days on a small hobby vineyard relaxing and sampling many of the local wines from the comfort of our borrowed home. This time was used to slow down, catch up on school and personal business, and to celebrate Louise’s 8th birthday on a small estancia on the outskirts of the city.
This rental was just what we all needed; green space to run around, beautiful scenery to enjoy, and as a special surprise for the children, a pool to splash in. After weeks of asking whether our next living arrangements would have a pool, their prayers were finally answered.
After 6 weeks of travel, even the kids were getting sick of eating out. We used this time to make all our meals at home and enjoy snacking trays poolside. Jon and Larson took daily excursions to the local greengrocers, allowing the girls to stay back and soak up the rays. Larson was essential in helping Jon navigate the roads. As you could imagine, Siri’s turn-by-turn directions could get convoluted when he would say, “In 200 meters, turn right at ‘Calle Veinte y Cinco de Mayo Oeste’… in a place where street signs rarely exist.
We have come to love and appreciate grocery shopping here. Instead of the all-in-one corporate supermarket experience. The best shopping happens at the individual small business carniceria (meat market), fruteria y verduria (greengrocer), panaderia (baker), and kiosko (pantry goods). Even with going to more places, it seems to go much quicker. The vendors take pride in their goods and handpick the best of their produce for you and give the meat a proper trim before weighing to sell.
No Argentine home is complete without an open grate charcoal grill. Jon enjoyed learning a new style of grilling on the home parillas in Argentina, but it had its share of challenges. Not having the controlled heat and lid of Jon’s usual kamado grill, the only option for cooking on the parillas is direct heat over hot coals. Grilling a steak over open flame works out really well, but trying to not burn vegetables and sausages is a different challenge. Jon learned to spread the coals out thinner and to top some of the food with a torta pan; but mostly to take it nice and slow with a glass of Argentine wine and the scenery. The ambiance and simplicity made the grilled food, especially the beautiful beef steaks, taste so much better!
It happened before our eyes. Our little Louise turned 8. Over her requested breakfast of chocolate banana pancakes, we revealed what was in store for her special day.
Outside of Buenos Aires, it seems that many locals in the country let their animals free range. The kids have always noticed the horses grazing at the roadside, and Louise had mentioned several times that she wanted to try horseback riding. For her special birthday surprise, we all saddled up and took a nice ride through the nearby vineyards. She was proud to ride all by herself and immediately afterwards insisted that we do it again soon.
After the ride, we spoiled her with every treat Jon and Larson could find at the kiosko, but what really kept the smile plastered on her face was the Facetime session with her 2nd grade classmates. Each of the kids asked her a question about her travels. “Where are you?” “What is the best food you have tried?” “What do the kids do for fun?” “Can you speak Spanish?” She took each question in stride, with the biggest smile on her face the entire time.
We finished the day off with pool time including a dance party with her favorite music that now includes some Latin American tunes.
Dinner was Louise’s choice, chicken parmesan, and no birthday is complete without a cake. Our hosts at our AirBnB estancia were very accommodating and they helped to arrange for the perfect birthday cake for Louise. It was chocolate with layers of dulce de leche and whip cream, covered in chocolate icing, and topped with fresh strawberries. It combined elements of everything Louise enjoyed in every slice.
We were worried how a birthday on the road would go, but the day full of smiles told us it was wonderful.
To our surprise, our rental also came with dogs; four of them. We were reticent at first, but they quickly became the kids’ friends. We gave them all names that we thought fit them the best and they stuck before we found out the actual names from our hosts. We named the first dog, Porter. He was a nice, calm old dog that slept just outside the front door every night since we first arrived. Whiskey was named by Colette because for pictures in Argentina, they say, “Uno, dos, tres, whiskey!” to get the posing group to smile. Jon had suggested naming the huge Belgian mastiff, Athena, because she reminded him of a war goddess, which morphed into the name Athene, after a character in the audiobook we were currently listening to called The Girl Who Drank the Moon. And lastly, Raggy Dog, was a small fluffy pup that made us laugh when she peed by lifing both her back legs up in the air. The kids were very sad leaving them on the last day and made sure to give them all special goodbyes.
We had a late flight out of Mendoza, so after checking out of our sanctuary we had some time to see the sights. We ended up at a museum of natural history, the “Museo de Ciencias Naturales y Antropológicas Juan Cornelio Moyano”. Here, we got to see dinosaur bones, taxidermized animals native to Argentina, and more. Since we knew we had quite a long bit of traveling in front of us, including an overnight in the airport, we capped the day with a viewing of Sing 2, en español, at the nearby cinema.
After 45 days in Argentina, we were not ready to move on. Although we were excited for the places we were going, we have all developed a fondness for Argentina. The people were friendly, the pace was unrushed, and the scenery was breathtaking. We touched many parts of the country, but there is still so much more we would like to discover and many places we wish we could go back to and spend more time. We will cherish the time we spent in Argentina and hope to return again in the future!