Two Americans in Chile

The best day since a week ago

Day after Thanksgiving, in Mendoza. I think this is my favorite day of the whole trip.
It started out bad: raining. Hard.
We had planned to do a bicycle tour of the vineyards near town. Bicycle tour cancelled.
We slowly and grudgingly finished the worst coffee of the continent at our continental breakfast and tried to formulate plan B.
We hit the streets with rain jackets and no real plan. We wandered into a couple shops and headed toward the bike rental place to move our reservation to the following day and on the way we saw the happy red square reading “Illy”. Translation: good coffee, even by Steve’s standards. Turns out this Illy sign lived at a fancy wine bar with a beautiful courtyard, fountain, olive trees, bocce court, restaurant and bright white gift shop rooms each filled with different wine paraphernalia in minimalist packaging and separated by french doors.

“Ristretto por favor”
For those less snobby about their coffee, a ristretto is like a smaller, even more concentrated sip of coffee than an espresso. Very tasty. And, down here, always when you order a coffee, it comes with a little cookie or a chocolate, and a small glass of carbonated water. Bueno.

By the time we finished our coffee and toured around the beautiful rooms, the rain had completely stopped and even dried up most of the streets–which meant it was getting hot again. But, much more bearable than yesterday. With this change, we hustled over to the bike rental place and asked to have our tour re-instated. They picked us up at our hotel 15 minutes later (which is even more amazing for this laid back, I’ll get around to it eventually culture).

The pictures can tell the story of the wine tasting adventure. It was really one of the best days of my life, for sure. We had lunch at this vineyard and when we arrived this woman welcomed us, saying we must be hungry and we should sit in the shade next to these bird cages and look at the menu, then we could do the wine tour and tasting while they prepared our lunch from the fresh garden.

We made it to 4 wineries I think.
Then everyone knows what comes after the wine tour:

Wait, what beer is that? (tribute to the newlyweds: Steve and Sarilyn ANDES)

Alright, so we had worked up an appetite again and decided to head back to our favorite Illy sign, this time for more traditional Argentine fair. To keep from the ill effects of wine (falling asleep too early) we enjoyed a little friendly Bocce competition.

Team Andes edged us out, dispite a brilliant performance I choked in the clutch moment. But, then there were fireworks up in the sky for some reason and I forgot all about the defeat.

I should have photographed my meal as well. It was top 5 of my life–a beef rib that was very tender and had this salad on top of it with lots of cilantro. Perfecto.

And then the tango dancers came out.

Muchos Kudos to my friend Emily Hartford who told us about the bike/wine tour. It was the ultimate and I really appreciate you sharing all your tips on South America.