Last two weeks in BA and Mendoza

¡Hola chicos y chicas!

My month in Buenos Aires is already over, but it has been a fantastic experience. I met really cool people there and fell in love with the atmosphere of this great city. Buenos Aires is a town I could easily live in, and it’ll be good to come back here in December.

In my last two weeks there, I...:

- tried and failed to watch a game of Independiente - it got cancelled two hours before kick-off because of some hooligans causing trouble around the stadium. Note that they had confirmed the match only the day before, a good example of the way things work in Argentina... Organisation is not one of their key strengths!

- managed to go to El Monumental watch the Albiceleste (Argentina national football team) against Peru. 3-1, good game but not the atmosphere I expected, because the stadium was half empty: They were already qualified and, more important, Messi wasn't there, which makes a BIG difference for Argentinian fans.

El Monumental

- finally visited Recoleta cemetery. I kept hearing about it, and indeed it is quite impressive. It's a must for rich Porteños to have their own huge tomb there, and in the end you get the feeling of walking in a ghost city, with proper streets but no living soul.

Recoleta cemetary

- discovered some of BA's trendiest and most exciting nightspots, crowded with some of South America hottest girls (and by the way, even if Argentinian women are among the most beautiful on earth, they truly deserve their reputation of having a strong character... beware!)

- got my plaster cast removed in La Plata, capital of the region of Buenos Aires. The city is mostly famous its cathedral and, more surprisingly, for the shape of its map: La Plata, seen from the sky, looks like a perfect square and its streets and plazas are evenly organised, as if an extremely rigorous German had planned this city. Many cities here actually follow this kind of grid map organisation, and history tells us the reason behind that: when Spaniards settled in Latin America, they introduced a huge set of rules on how to govern these territories, including rules about how to organise cities. But La Plata is probably the only one crossed by diagonals, and everyone seems so disturbed by this fact that the place was nicknamed "the city of diagonals". Check it out on Google maps and you'll understand.

La Plata cathedral

- had a go with Robin at the best burger in town (Robin is a Belgium friend from Imperial College who happened to be traveling in South America at that time, before heading to Japan. I know, this doesn't seem to make any sense, but everyone has his own travel plan!)

Playing high-level Jinga in a bar with Robin (red shirt), a Brit and an Australian guy

- ate even more exquisite beef, whether at Parillas  (restaurants specialised in grilled meat) or simply at home (They don't understand de concept of "rare meat", so you're often better off buying the most expensive beef steak - still very cheap compared to London - and cooking it by yourself)

Anyways, now that I'm finally on the road, let's talk about the rest of the continent: BA is without doubts the most European place in Argentina, it's now time to dig deeper into the South American culture!

I stayed four days in Mendoza, a city located at the Andes feet and surrounded by vineyards, where most of Argentinan wine is produced. I got there by bus (14 hours, but in the best night bus I've seen so far in my life) and arrived in the morning. I spent the first day with Sonia and her family, a very nice lady living in Mendoza I met in the plane from Paris to Buenos Aires. She has two sons, both fans of Boca Juniors, who spend their weekends watching football, but are otherwise really cool.

The whole city is located in the middle of a desert, and the dusty and dry air reminds it well enough. But an ingenious irrigation system inherited from the Huarpes (indigenous inhabitants of the region) made life, and later viticulture, possible. Nowadays, the region produces 70% of Argentina’s total wine production, most of it being Malbec.

Vine next to San Martin, Mendoza region

Coming from BA, Mendoza really feels like being in the countryside: smaller buildings, lot of trees, not the constant buzz of the city and a perhaps more tellingly, people drive much slower than in Buenos Aires!

I was staying in a nice medium-sized hostel, full of people from BA at the beginning (They had a three-day weekend) but rapidly deserted. Staying in such places when you travel is a good way to meet people from all over the world, and from diverse backgrounds: many European students, an Australian doctor and his friends, a Canadian electrician and his eco-terrorist sister, plus of course many Argentinians to practice Spanish!

Another day was spent visiting beautiful mountains surrounding Mendoza. What stroke me the most was the impression of immensity and emptiness. You can drive hundreds of kilometers and only come across a few towns or villages, surrounded by landscapes showing no sign of human life. With only 41 million inhabitants (40% of them living in Buenos Aires or its surroundings) and a country nearly as big as twice the size of France, Spain and Italy together, Argentina is full of low-density areas like these. I've attached a few pictures because there's no point trying to describe it in lengthy words:

Mendoza region - Precordillera

Mendoza region - Andes (1)

Mendoza region - Andes (2)

The highest point in South America 

Mendoza region - Natural bridge and a lot of rocks oxydation

But my favourite day was definitely the last one. Sonia's elder son, Antonio, came to pick me up at the hostel and drove me to one of their friend's bodega (winery) located about 50 km far from Mendoza. The oenologist there explained me all the different wine production steps and we discussed quite a bit with him and with Ernesto, the bodega owner, about the wine culture in Argentina and all the challenges inherent in wine production. The wine industry, like most agricultural activities, is in crisis, being hardly hit by trade restrictions imposed by the government and by their unfair sector-wide taxes and subsidies system. It's becoming ridiculously difficult to import or export anything in this country, and all these very populist and protectionist measures clearly hinder the fulfilment of Argentina huge potential as a wine exporter, but also as a global food supplier. The elections scheduled for the last weekend of October will be quite interesting to follow, even if many Argentinians seem to have lost faith in their politicians.

Anyways, driving through his 22 acres of vine, Ernesto then brought us to the vineyard next door, for a true Argentinian asado among winegrowers. Good wine, warm and sunny weather, incredible meat, and succulent fish (Yes, they sometimes vary their protein sources), talking about football and Argentina... What a good way to spend a Tuesday afternoon!

Proper lunch in the vineyard

Antonio then brought me to Gabutti, a firm producing olive oil (another local speciality) and owned by a friend of Ernesto, who explained us all the process of making a good extra virgin olive oil. 

I left Mendoza after that, taking a night bus to Santiago de Chile. After a three-hour ride, we had to cross the worst border control ever: It took us about 5 hours (4 more than expected), in the middle of the Andes (so as you can imagine, high above sea level, and therefore in a freezing cold) to get our passports stamped and our luggage scanned. I got all my luggage fully checked, first because I supposedly had too many medicines in my backpack, and then because I had forgotten an apple in my bag (and apparently I was lucky not to get fined, even though the guy at the customs tried to take my NYU cap as a bribe!). They also checked a woman carrying three or four dozens of lotions, creams and cleaning products in her bags, but when it's 4 am, nothing surprises you anymore. 

Anyways, I'll leave Chile for another post, you already wasted too much time reading this article!

Besos from Santiago,

El Ritonos