March 11th, A few words from Debbie: According to our travel “bible,” The Rough Guide to Argentina, we have traveled over 1000km to reach Mendoza. (Side point from me, John. A British traveler sitting in the lobby across from me just made an unsolicited comment that the Rough Guides are the best. He said that they have an excellent guide to Greece.)We arrived yesterday afternoon and after a nearly perfect job of reading our maps and guiding John through the city, we arrived at our hotel of choice, The Aconcagua, named after the mountain which is the highest peak outside the Himalayas. It is a four star hotel,with nice rooms, large pool and terrace, etc etc breakfast and parking included all for about $70.00 a night! You just can’t beat the prices. We were hungry, so set out to find lunch and ended up at a nice outdoor cafe, La Florencia, where we had a “light” lunch : seltzer, a bottle of 2004 Salentein Malbec which was WONDERFUL, nice balance, concentrated up front fruit,and dry; it was a bit pricey at $15.00 but worth it! I (Debbie) convinced John to share the grilled goat. It was so tender and delicious with a flavor similar to lamb but not quite as strong. We also had a salad, and do I love these salads; they put everything in an ensalada mixta completa: fresh beets, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, egg, celery, sprouts, lettuce; each place seems to have some different ingredients but most everywhere there are onions, tomatoes, and fresh beets! Yummy. OH and then coffee and a shared dessert; figs and nuts in a very sweet simple syrup sauce. That folks, is a typical light lunch, otherwise we would have had two entrees and two desserts.

Anyway, I just wanted to add some interesting tidbits of information and observations for those of you who travel or who are amused by these things:

First of all you NEED small coins and bills. You need them for tipping at restaurants, the bellboys, the guys who run up and wash your windshield at the stop lights, for a bottle of water,whatever.. and you can never seem to have enough small denominations :so every time you go through a toll station on the road, GIVE THEM A BIG BILL! They have all the $ 2 pesos!

Next, there is NEVER any pepper on the tables, anywhere. You have to ask for it and then they bring a pepper mill and add the pepper for you… I love pepper, so I am tempted to bring my own pepper shaker along next time.

The women and young girls here are mostly beautiful with very shapely figures. They definitely dress to show off their shapes. They all wear very tight jeans, pants, or capris and NEVER wear shorts in public especially in the cities. Even in their jeans in the 85-90 degree temperatures, they looked “dressed up”. They wear heeled sandals, nice tops, lots of jewelry and dress to be noticed. Too bad they smoke a lot while walking down the streets.

And lastly, every hotel, cabana, etc., no matter how humble, has a bidet in the bathroom… very European. (There are MANY descendants here of Italian and Spanish origin). However, one should always carry tissues, especially when going into public restrooms. I have been in the cleanest, most functional bathrooms, only to discover there is NO toilet paper or hand towels!!

So far, we have been in Buenos Aries, Rosario, Cordoba and now Mendoza. We have tried about nine different Malbecs: Santa Julia 2005, Cuesta Del Madero a blend from San Telmo, which we loved; 2003 Finca Las Moras, 2004 Colon; 2003 Trapiche Coleccion Roble Malbec, loved this one too; La Linda 2004. As for the food, we have had Chicken, Pork, Goat ,Beef, Beef and Beef, Pasta — I wanted to try the kidneys but haven’t yet and I definitely didn’t like the small grilled intestines,but no fish at all (we can have all the great fish we want in Stonington!)I leave it to John to go into more detail if he ever wakes up this am!

I think our plan is to leave tomorrow morning for Uspallata where Seven Years in Tibet was filmed. The scenery is supposed to be breath-taking. We will be able to get a good view of Cerro Aconcagua which is, as I mentioned ,22,840 feet high (Everest is 29,035 and Mt. McKinley 20,320 while Mt Blanc 15,771) and therefore, is the highest peak in both the western and southern hemispheres. So if the day is clear it should be quite awesome sight! We are hoping to find a quiet but nice estancia to stay at for 3-4 days and then we will head back to Buenos Aries for the long plane ride home.

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