Author Blog

Before leaving Bariloche, I had broken down and eaten an entire bag of cheese nachos while waiting at the airport. They made me thirsty, so I was in the restroom slurping water from the sink when I noticed a man walking behind me. Liz, you would have loved it; he paid me no mind, but I flew out of the men’s room!

Flying north to Mendoza we trade the chilly winds, lakes and green landscapes of Bariloche for the arid, Arizona-like topography of Mendoza; but one thing we don’t leave behind are the mountains. In Mendoza on most days you can see all three ranges of the Andes: the Preandes, that rise to 11,000 ft. (the foothills!) the Frontal Range at 19,000 ft., and the Border Range, the highest of which is 22,000 ft.

Mendoza is having a heat wave with temperatures near 100 degrees, but there is no humidity and so it is not enervating. This area only gets an average of eight inches a year in rainfall, and so the city and the ENORMOUS amount of acreage that is in vineyards and orchards is dependent on snowmelt from the Andes. Even before the Spaniards arrived the Incas had an irrigation system.

Now, water is strictly controlled. Buying land to create vineyards without checking on its water rights first (as Kendall-Jackson winemakers did) guarantees failure. There are many reservoirs and smaller water impoundments from which there are scheduled water releases. River and creek beds are completely dry (all their waters impounded) which is startling to the eye; canals carry the released water to its destination.

Our hotel, Entre Cielos, is super modern. It looks a bit like a concrete bunker, broken up by two-story pods with outer coverings, one of figs, one of mushrooms, etc.(see photos). The walls of the bedrooms are of poured concrete, not exactly warm and fuzzy; but it is the first hotel room I’ve ever been in that had a telescope on rollers! The best thing about Entre Cielos is its longgggg swimming pool.

I will skip our first day as we spent it in vineyards, which merit a blog entry of their own, but I don’t have time to write it now.

Our second day we spent hiking, first traveling south and west into the Preandes to the Potrerillos Valley. This is the jump off spot for lots of outdoor activities – white water rafting, windsurfing on the reservoir, swimming, and trekking.

The hike we took could have been into one of the arroyos of the Grand Canyon. It was a goat scramble to get into the little valley, but then it was a lovely hike along a stream up to a high waterfall. The fun, while there, was watching a young group repelling down the face of the cliff next to the waterfall (see photos). Hiking out it was so hot I felt like a potato crisp, and wet my hat in the stream several times to cool down. Fifteen minutes later the hat would be dry.

That evening we had dinner downtown, and were able to walk through the park at the very center of Mendoza. Unlike Bariloche, many houses in Mendoza have walled courtyards and bars on their windows, and often shops will have the sliding metal outer protection that goes up at 8 a.m., down at noon for lunch and a siesta, up at 5 p.m. and down at 9 p.m. As a result, there are four traffic jams a day, and the usual time for dinner is at 10 p.m.

In our group we have several hard-core Redskins fans determined to watch the Skins play the Seattle Seahawks Jan. 6th. They agreed to meet at 6:30 p.m. in Mary P.’s room, where plenty of beer was stashed. They had ordered pizza from the hotel kitchen and we gathered at the appointed hour, only to find that ESPN was featuring a soccer game.

Fred and I came in to watch for a while before we went for supper in the dining room. In Room 5 discontent reigned. It was a scene out of a sci-fi movie; everyone in the room was trying to get the game on THEIR appliance…and failing.

Mary P. and Betsey U had iPads; they were annoyed because the battle between iPad and Adobe meant that they didn’t have access to the Flash Player…which meant that all they could get was a schematic rendering of action on the field. The men were also stuck with only schematics, while Betsey and Mary gave by blow by blow accounts, enthusiastically cheering on the Skins early gains while trying to imagine them in their minds.

Several of us were trying to call the States with iPhones, dialing 011 for the United States and getting a Spanish speaking recording that, although we didn’t understand it, clearly was telling us we were morons.

Then Billy L. picks up his Blackberry, hits his son Philip’s number in his contacts, and instantly reaches him, AT the REDSKINS GAME! So then we get first hand comments but still can’t see the game.

Belatedly I remember I have my computer, go get it, and Mike U. GETS THE REAL GAME (not the schematic game) via NFL. Contentment reigns. Fred and I go up for dinner and some good Malbec and come back an hour later. Contentment no longer reigns. The Redskins are losing and their quarterback is hurt. We all go to bed.

On our two-hour flight from B.A. we flew across what reminded me of the badlands of Wyoming, vast, uninhabited, hilly and BROWN. Just as when approaching Jackson Hole, you begin to see snow-capped mountains in the distance, and then, suddenly, you drop into this jewel of a valley, and green, blue and white are the colors that strike you.

Green – as it is summer now, trees are out and HUGE roses are strutting their stuff everywhere. Blue – because the biggest lake in Argentina is here, as well as many smaller ones. Our guides say the color of the water is more beautiful since the Chilean volcano that spewed ash all over the area, causing some mysterious chemical change. White – because 12,000 ft. snow-capped mountains surround; to the west the Andes form the border with Chile, the same area of the plane crash described in “Alive.”

We are in a hotel on the lake which would be lovely if it weren’t an “art” hotel. Two-thirds of the art is strikingly bad. Our room has three paintings: one of a fat women in see-through underwear sitting on a man’s lap, one of a woman who looks like she is having sex with the sheet, and one of two people kissing with their tongues forming a rope of tongues outside their mouths….I am NOT kidding. Our friends got landscapes and animal portraits in their rooms….oh well.

We came on a day that in Maine would be called “a sparkler;” crystal clear and no humidity with sun glinting on far-off glaciers and on the white caps on Lake Haupti. The air is so dry that you need smotherings of sunscreen, dark glasses and water, water, water all the time.

Yesterday our guides, Diego and his two cute sidekicks Letti and Melissa, took us on what was supposed to be a mellow kayaking trip on a smaller lake that isn’t as susceptible to the Patagonian winds.

My idea of kayaking was the open, beaten up, plastic jobs which we use to gunk around in, close to the shoreline, in Maine; stopping to pick up shells or chance a swim.

Luckily, here we were in seagoing fiberglass two-seater kayaks with skirts to keep the water out and pedals to steer, and had an hour’s lesson before we set out. The first half of the trip was reasonably calm, but suddenly the wind attacked the lake. Oddly, the boats were most stable going into the wind, but at some points on the way home cross winds put a shiver down your back.

Diego admitted, when we had all safely landed, that he had been anxious when told he was in charge of this group of sixty and seventy somethings who wanted to explore the best of Patagonia, especially when his mother told him he was crazy to take us. Then when the wind came up his anxieties must have peaked. Landing in the strong current of a creek was tricky, but all landed, and Diego pronounced he was proud of us (mostly I think he was relieved).

Once I was out of the kayak, I leaned down to pick up my paddle and whoops….the swift current filled the kayaking skirt hanging down in front of me and off I would have gone, except for the swift action of Leti, who held up the paddle for me to grab. That afternoon we spent on a casual hike up to an overlook with a spectacular view over lakes and mountains.

January 5, 2013

Having spent a scant twenty-four hours in B.A. I am an unreliable source, but still will say it is an amazing city, especially on the crystal-clear, sunny, uncharacteristically non-humid, eighty-degree day we just spent there.

The topography along the huge estuary that is the Plata River is flat, flat, flat; so the city and is spreading its tentacles everywhere. Each area has its own feel and look. La Boca, the old port, has the look of West Africa, the origin of many of its forced immigrants who came to the New World enslaved. There are many two-story frame houses with neon-bright colors; colors that are often different floor to floor and window to window. These are broken up by huge public spaces such as the Boca Stadium, ground zero for soccer addicts, i.e. all Argentinians.

This is our third visit, and still the scale and beauty of the administrative “downtown” is impressive; and here the strongest influence is clearly European. The main boulevard is fourteen lanes wide, and columns abound on the facades of ministries and public buildings, with sprinklings of deep-shaded public parks. On our first visit (with a Pan Am thirty-day pass to see as much of South America as you could fit in) our hotel was in this area. I’ll never forget the shock of ironed linen sheets on our bed!

This time our small hotel was in an area they are calling the new “Soho,” with huge plane trees forming a canopy outside our window, shops and restaurants on the ground level and apartments above. Everywhere you see outdoor shutters, which keep out the sun in summer (now) and let it in in the winter.

After an endless day we went to a tango show, which seems to be first stop on the tourista schedule, but bagged it when two-thirds of our nine-person party were so seriously asleep they threatened to pitch over the balcony headfirst into the orchestra!

The Argentinian character seems to me to be the ideal Anglo-Latin cross – enough Anglo to organize things and enough Latin warmth to make them an appealing, responsive people.

I’ll end with an incident that shows how considerate and helpful Argentinians are. In a still sleep-deprived funk I left my (Patagonia!!) fuzzy jacket on the back of the seat in the airport when we got on the plane we are on now. I realized it as I got to our seats and doubled back to the stewardess to tell her. She made as much effort to find it as if it had been hers, and was very apologetic when it was not found. When we got to Bariloche a phone call revealed that it turned out to have been gathered up in a security sweep and will be held until we come back through B.A. – pretty impressive. On to Bariloche!