mendoza, argentina
we are now in Mendoza, which is in western central Argentina, 7 hours east of Santiago, Chile. We were able to find a cheaper hostal which is noisy but has a nice kitchen and we have a dorm room to ourselves, I sleep on the top bunk and Al on the bottom. We have been relaxing, cooking excellent meals accompanied with wonderful wines. The specialty of Mendoza are their Malbec wines, a dry red that is smoother than a Cabernet Sauvignon. we have been cooking pasta dishes, bruschetta, lasagna, tonight we made chicken empanadas. we have been going running in the park San Martin which has a lake with and island inside, we had a picnic on the island with our friend Lisa (who is studying abroad here) last weekend. last friday we had our first carne asado, which is the famous grilled argentine beef. we grilled 4 kilos of beef, Al and i prepared a salad and had wonderful Malbec wine and a cookie cake for dessert. dinner is cooked around 10pm, and we started the asado at 11pm, didnt eat until after midnight and did not leave until 3am. it is typical for the youth to go out dancing after an asado from 3-6am, but we were too tired so we just came back to go to sleep. on tuesday night we made empanadas, beef and veggie, with Lisa and 5 of her friends, 2 of whom are from Mendoza. that is how we learned and decided to prepare chicken empanadas tonight. we went to a gospel scripture study at the Cathedral that when we got there was all elderly people, but very friendly and were so happy that ¨the spring has arrived, the youth are here to liven us up!¨they kept saying, were very interesed in our stories of the missions we worked with in Ecuador and Peru. Al has been souvenier shopping, his flight leaves to return home in a week and a half.
on wednesday we went wine tasting in Maipu, an hour by bus from Mendoza. we walked many kilometers between different wineries, tasting and getting tours of the cellars. we ended up buying 3 bottles of wine even though we planned on buying 1. it is so cheap here we cannot help but take advantage.
tomorrow we will go running again. on wednesday we are taking a bus to Cordoba. my plans for after Al leaves are still undetermined though i am working on a few ideas. i have been invited to go to Valparaiso, Chile for 5 days at the end of May with some friends, i may do that and then head east to Buenos Aires and Uruguay? or stay closer to Mendoza/Cordoba and look for a piano to practice on? or go south into Patagonia a bit? hopefully soon i will figure out my plans for my final weeks here before flying home in June. i cannot believe its already May, when we arrived in South America in August. more than 8 months being away now and it has gone by so quickly. we have meet so many people, worked in such diverse settings, adjusted to living in dozons of hostals in 4 countries, learned to prepare so many new recipies.
i will be teaching music again at Chautauqua again this summer, moving in there a week after flying home.
hope you all are well. buenas noches.
un beso,
Annie
Tags: Travel
annieandal
Leave a Reply