Living in the capital, it is sometimes easy to forget that Argentina is not only about the Buenos Aires night life, tango, Malbec, great meat and empanadas. Yes, you will say, I know it is about estancias, nature and gauchos too.
But did you know that it is also has over a hundred years of polo tradition? That it is home to the world’s best polo players? That you can learn to play polo even if you never have ridden a horse before?
So there I was—a more-or-less intermediate level tango dancer, with all the bravura that a lifetime of other dance techniques has given me, which means the tendency to show off when I don’t know what I’m doing. I was in a very popular class of what is conveniently called “tango nuevo.” signifying that everyone is young and experimental and in this case, pretty good. We were learning some complicated steps and finding new possibilities with each different partner and I was trying to hold my own along with everybody else.
“A white unlike any other” was how our chauffeur, in Spanish, described the brilliance of Aconcagua’s peak. Of course, “chauffeur” is a bit of a generous term for the couple we had hitched a ride with, the beginning of a series of misadventures that ultimately should have placed my traveling companion in a hospital. But for the moment we could only stare at the icy blue-white cap, and eagerly wait for the moment that we could disembark and begin a hike through the provincial park towards that ultimate destination
Buenos Aires is a large city, and despite the fact that it may seem deceptively European at first glance, many things are different here and it will take time and effort to feel your way around. In my first week in the capital I had many pressing problems and questions that needed answering. Unfortunately, I had no one to ask where to buy baby food, find shoes that fit my big feet-size 41 or 8-or where I should send my eldest boy to kindergarten. I ended up accosting unsuspecting mothers in playgrounds, asking (nicely if with a shade of panic) to know where they sent their children to school.
The province of Mendoza bewitches her visitors in a number of ways. Some find peace in her tranquil beauty. Others are lured by the rafting, biking, and outdoor life. And many more fall in love with Mendoza’s sun-drenched wine country, and then start daydreaming how they could stay.
That’s exactly what longtime friends Dave Garrett and Michael Evans did when they traveled to Mendoza together in 2005. The result, luckily for us, is the Vines of Mendoza. A wine-centric business, it gave them an excellent reason to…
