Thomas Locke Hobbs
| Currently: Buenos Aires |
Trip to Mendoza
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| Last week we took off from Buenos Aires to visit the western province of Mendoza where most of Argentina's wines are grown. This avenue of trees is from Parque General San Martin, by far the nicest park in all of Latin America. It was designed by Carlos Thays who did numerous parks and plazas in Buenos Aires but his work in Mendoza is on a much grander scale. The park, which also comprises a stadium, sports complex and Griffith Park-style wild terrain occupies over a third of the central city. |
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| Ultra-modern O. Fournier Bodega in Valle de Uco, about 100km south of Mendoza. It looks like a spaceship. The roof is apparently meant to cut thru the brutal Zonda, a hot wind that rushes down from the Andes and drives the residents crazy. It sounds like a similar phenomena to LA's Santa Ana winds. Actually, a lot of the geography in Mendoza reminded me of Southern California with the principal difference being that the mountains are twice as tall. The bodega uses a gravity process whereby the wine descends from one level to another without the use of pumps which stresses or oxygenates the wine or something like that. It seems cool but also like a little bit of bullshit. |
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| Their cava is a massive chamber decorated with art and naturally lit by skylights which form a cross and give the name to their top wine, Alfa Crux. It was off season so we were the only people at the winery visiting. It was a creepy but also cool as it felt like we owned the place. We paid $5 for a basic tasting and got ample samples of all the wines plus a bunch of sips from a much more expensive bottle that happened to be open already. |
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| This is the tasting room at Bodegas Don Arturo, a more traditional place in Maipu that we saw on an organized tour. It was advertised as an "artisinal" bodega but as far as I could tell it just meant their equipment was old. I wasn't a fan of the wine we tasted their either. |
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| Santiago, Chile is maybe only 100km from Mendoza as the crow flies but requires crossing the highest part of the Andes. The road, a narrow 2 lane route filled with switch backs and topping out at 3200m is completely clogged with trucks coming from as far as Brazil heading to the Pacific to export their goods. We were stuck in Mendoza for two days as white-out conditions closed the pass. |
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| Puente del Inca is just off the route. It's a natural bridge and sulfer springs and is very well-known in Argentina. Blogger A Texan in Argentina has a number of posts on this area with a lot of great photos; Alta Montaña, Stuck in Customs [very true], Aconcagua, and Villavicencio |
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| Palacio de La Moneda in Santiago, Chile. This is Chile's seat of presidential power and where Allende died in the coup in 1973. The name literally means "Coin Palace" and it was Vagner's idea to take the photo above. |
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| We stayed in the lovely Hostal Casa Grande, a rambling old wood house with tall ceilings and big rooms. Vagner was a fan of the green and yellow color scheme as it reminded him of the Brazilian flag. I liked the addition of the red fire extinguisher and Vag's blue jacket. |
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| Santiago reminds me a lot of Mexico City but cleaner and better organized. The smog, though, is just as bad. |
Signs of Inflation
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| The commodities boom, slack investment and a loose fiscal policy have driven Argentina's inflation rate to 20-30% annually. Everywhere you go new, higher prices are taped, scribbled, and painted over the old ones. In economics they talk about "menu costs", that is, the reluctance to raise prices since it means you have to print up new menus. Well, there's always white-out.
As a side note, not to sound like too much of an old fart, on my first visit to Buenos Aires in 1997 the pizzas at Ugi's were $2. They were cheap, I was poor and I'd save my hunger all day to eat one of these things before returning to the hostel near Costitucion. Of course the peso back then was worth three times what it's worth today--still the cost in dollars has gone up. For whatever reason, cheese is one of the products whose price has increased the most. |
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| On the one hand I like the expediency of simply slapping a new price on the sign but at the same time lament the defacing of carefully hand-painted signs. |
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| It's a little harder to see the paint-over on this sign. They did a good job. I guess if they're advertising image make-overs they need to make sure their communication stays on message. I like the idea that I can renovate my image for 40 pesos. Who should I become? |
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| Stairwell in the Biblioteca Nacional, a brutalist structure that reminds me of the Boston City Hall. |
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| Deco style building in the Microcentro, I think on Viamonte and Maipu but I'm always sloppy with my notes. |
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| A stencil graffiti promising a return to the Faulkland Islands (or Malvinas as they are known here). Pictured are the islands themselves, a shape very familiar to all Argentines. |
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| Luc, Marcos & Vagner
I have to thank Marcos for driving us out to the Feria de Mataderos. It's in Liniers / Mataderos, on the far edge of Buenos Aires from where we are currently living. I also want to apologize for the sporadic posting. Our current apartment doesn't have internet. Even worse Blogger hasn't been making nice with my web host and I only seem to be able to get the posts published once every week or two. |
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| Vagner & Luc
Leaving the Feria de Mataderos the smokey skies over Buenos Aires in the afternoon made for some excellent light. |
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| Outside the Feria de Mataderos is a sports complex and a dried-up pond that was being used by a street performer.
Photo by Luc Garcia |
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| The feria de Mataderos is this Guacho themed arts fair featuring a lot of parrillas, folk dancing and guys on horseback participating in Sotijo, a traditional game that requies them to pluck a dangling ring from an arc while galloping at full speed. It's quite something to watch as these guys are riding at easily 30mph while keeping their upper bodies totally still.
Photo by Luc Garcia |
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 | Hi. I'm a 32 year-old American currently living in Buenos Aires. Before that I lived in California, Sao Paulo and New York and if you browse through the archives below you can see photos of all those places. I also have an old geocities page with some outdated information but also more photos of Buenos Aires, friends and my 9/11 pictures. |