Argentina - Mendoza to Buenos Aires!

As you know, Chile is a very thin, long country, sharing most of its eastern border with Argentina. The easiest major Argentinian destination from Santiago is Mendoza, a fab modern and laid back city just on the other side of the Andes. It's bang in the middle of the Argentinian winelands and only about 6-7 hours in a bus from Santiago. So, although our priority has been to see as much of Chile as possible, we'd been planning since we arrived to see some of Argentina. This was our second visit, having crossed the border on foot when trekking down south, when we spent a few days in El Chalten and El Calafate. 

The bus journey across the Andes is spectacular, definitely one to do during the daytime. At this point we have to break the distressing news that Struan's SLR camera was stolen later in Buenos Aires. More on this later, but we mention it now as it explains why we have no photos of the spectacular drive across the Andes. Everything before this trip to Argentina was backed up in Santiago, but we only have a few photos from our smaller point and click, which we had, until the big camera was stolen, usually used only when we're in a bar or restaurant or something.

Mendoza is all about the wine, it's quite a modern city and doesn't have a great deal to see, though it feels like it would be a pleasant place to live if you had reason to, and is definitely a good place to go to relax and eat and drink.

As outsiders here in South America it would be remiss of us not to engage in a little cultural stereotyping. Argentina, and Argentinians, is/ are kind of like Italy/ Italians on steroids. This presumably comes from heavy Italian immigration (more so than in Chile, though there are plenty of people of Italian origin here) - apparently in parts of Buenos Aires Italian is still spoken.

(This Italiano thing is defo the popular impression Chileans have of Argentinians: the other day we were watching some Chilean comedy in which one of the (Chilean) characters was hypnotised and thought he was Argentinian - he then slicked his hair back, turned his polo shirt collar up, said "che" a lot, and started harrassing every woman in sight. More on this another time, but it's almost exactly the way the British might parody Italians.)

Anyway, cutting to the chase, this means that you can get an awesome pizza in Argentina. You can get good ones in Chile too, but if you want something that oozes with cheese and drips with garlic and is generally amazing, then Argentina it is. And steak. Although the best steak we've had (just) is still the one on Anna's birthday in Valdivia, on the way down south in Chile (although we were insane with hunger after a 10 hour bus trip from Santiago...). And ice-cream - although again, the best ice-cream we've had is in Chile, at Emporio de la Rosa in Santiago.

an Argentinian steak (from Buenos Aires not Mendoza though)

Then there's Argentinian Malbec, which is lovely red wine, though so is Chilean Carmenere. It's a shame that generally people* don't know that much about Chile, because it actually does loads of things as well as, or better than, its bigger, better known neighbour. That said, if you want to go to one place where you can get amazing steak, interesting Italian food, wine, and ice-cream - then Mendoza, Argentina is a good bet. It's also relatively inexpensive, and has an excellent laid-back atmosphere. 


*We say people, we don't mean any particular people, perhaps just us pre-Chile, but we can't be the only people to count their knowledge of Chile as knowing it's long and thin, having vague childhood memories of Pinochet on the news, recalling a law school case involving Pinochet and Amnesty International, and a strong desire to go to Patagonia because of someone's coffee table picture book. Okay maybe the third one is a little niche-interest, but the other three must be about right. 

We stayed in the city itself in a great hostel but also met up with Rob and Nomi again who, after horse-riding through the Chilean rainforest, were now recuperating in a wine lodge outside of Mendoza. They treated us to a tasting, and a lovely meal! Yay! Here's the photographic evidence.

more patagonian lamb

after dinner comfy seats, some civilised behaviour

We left Mendoza happy and with full stomachs. Our plan was then to head across to Buenos Aires, stopping at Cordoba along the way. We only spent two nights in Cordoba, and only had one full day which was a Sunday so the one thing we really wanted to see - the Jesuit Crypt - was closed! D'oh! It was a very pleasant day, and we did have loads of good photos of the fab colonial-era architecture, against a lovely blue sky - but then the camera was stolen and now we don't have them... so we'll skip over the description of a pleasant but otherwise uneventful day and go straight to Buenos Aires! 

While down south in January, halfway up a mountain in the Argentinian Parque Nacional los Glaciares, we bumped into an old friend of Struan's from law school, Danielle. She was coming down the hill, we were going up. It turns out that she is currently taking a break and living in Buenos Aires for a few months! She kindly invited us to stay in her fab apartment for a few nights before Struan's parents arrived in Buenos Aires. 

Anna and Danielle

an estate agent would say: "packed with original features", and he wouldn't be lying

it even has one of those old school cage lifts!

A really lucky meeting on a Patagonian mountain, we had an excellent few days catching up with Danielle in the southern hemisphere!

Danielle and Struan on the Buenos Aires tourist bus

Shortly after the happy photo above was taken Struan noticed that his camera had disappeared. We won't go into detail on how it happened, simply that those things you hear about "distraction robberies" (people throwing stuff on you, bumping into you etc), they're all true, and you really don't know what's going on until it's too late. We tried to remain philosophical and one can't draw conclusions from a couple of incidents, but already in Cordoba a taxi driver had tried to rip us off, so obviously and routinely that it was almost embarrassing for everyone concerned. When the camera incident occurred, we were directed to the special tourist police station - where a room full of baffled foreigners sat waiting to receive their typed and stamped report for insurers... Boo.   

Here's what the police in Buenos Aires spend their time doing: 

to be fair, he was a star, and can't really be blamed for the camera incident

vroooom!

That nasty business shouldn't take away from our time in Buenos Aires though, as we had a great time and will defo go back sometime. Here's some random pics of Buenos Aires to finish with, next post we'll have the BA cemetery, Teatro Colon, a quick trip to Uruguay, and other things!  

chao!