Central Argentina: wine tours and Spanish classes
Friday, November 20th, 2009It’s been a while since my last post, mostly because we haven’t been anywhere in the past two weeks nearly as captivating as Valparaíso, and because I’ve been pretty busy this week taking Spanish classes in Córdoba, losing my credit card, trying to book a trip to Antarctica, etc.
The day after my last post, we left Santiago after a brief stay and took our second trip over the Andes in as many weeks. This one wasn’t as spectacular as the first but was still quite impressive, and we emerged on the other side back in Argentina and in the city of Mendoza. Mendoza itself doesn’t really have many (any?) major tourist sights, but it is a surprisingly pleasant place, well laid out, with shady, tree-lined streets, sidewalk cafes and restaurants, and a slow pace vibe. We only stayed long enough to do the almost obligatory wine tour in the vineyards outside town, where 70 per cent of all Argentine wine is produced. We stopped at two bodegas (a small, family-run one and a larger, commercial one), a family olive oil factory, and an liquor-making house, where the tasting of the alcoholic chocolate mint drink was so good that we had no choice but to buy a bottle to take with us.
Heading north (as part of our rather unusual route that is supposed to be leading us south), we stayed a couple of nights in the town of Alta Gracia, where Che Guevara lived as a boy. His house is now a museum, and we stayed next door to it with an Argentine poet and his Cuban wife, who have turned their house into a restaurant for the museum visitors and also rent out a couple of rooms. After staying in hostels for the previous week or so, it was nice to enjoy the quirky atmosphere of a poet’s house for a couple of nights. The museum itself is well done and worth a visit, especially for Che aficionados like me. The other highlight of Alta Gracia is a Jesuit estancia complex in the centre of town, featuring a church, two open courtyards, a smithy, various residential halls etc. We liked the small-town atmosphere and good food and spent two relaxing days in Alta Gracia preparing ourselves for the upcoming week in Córdoba.
Córdoba itself is an OK place, with a few nice colonial buildings and a lot more ugly, brick high-rises. With seven universities and a strong Jesuit history, it’s one of the main learning centres of Argentina and I decided to comply. Having been pretty discouraged by my level of Spanish comprehension at the wine tour in Mendoza, I decided to take a week of classes in Córdoba to help my on my way to the ever-elusive level of fluency that I’m aiming for – in all, 15 hours of one-on-one lessons spread over five days. I’m really glad I did it, as I learned a lot and now pretty much know all the grammar that I need to know – I just need to put it all together and improve my vocabulary and everything should be fine. In the meantime, there’s no rest for the wicked, as I’m reading my first real Spanish book and loving it – the first volume of the fantasy trilogy Memorías de Idhún, and my pseudo-Spanish-teachers from afar, Ben and Marina, are launching Notes in Spanish Gold on Monday which could keep me busy for a while!
After my last class this afternoon, we’re taking an overnight bus to the Peninsula Valdés, our first taste of Patagonia, where we’re expecting to see whales as well as penguins with (hopefully) very newborn chicks. After that it’s onto the Fitzroy region and the first of several long treks.
Nick