Saturday, Oct. 9, 2010 Time to go home!

We got up and did our morning routine (got ready, ate breakfast, fed Zach, etc.) but also completely packed up for our flight back home to St. Louis. We checked out before 11am and put our bags in storage since our pick up for the airport was not until 4:30pm. We left the hostel to explore more areas of Buenos Aires. We took the subway to Retiro and the walked through various plazas until we were back in Recoleta again. This time I was determined to find the entrance to the Recoleta Cemetery. We did find it and walked around. What an interesting place...it's above ground, huge, amazing, almost like a little town. We also found Eva Peron's grave. Afterwards, we found a place for lunch and then walked a different way back to Retiro to take the subway back to the hostel so we were there for our pick up to the airport. Victoria brought us to the airport and came inside with us so she could help us talk to the people in the luggage office about our stolen items. She had previously brought the claim form in for us already on 9/21/10 but they apparently conveniently lost it. We gave it to them again and they gave us some email addresses and phone numbers to contact when we got home. I wonder if this issue will ever be addressed by delta...? Anyway, Victoria is awesome and helped us so much with this whole problem. We are very lucky she was so willing to help us. None the less, our flight left on time, both of them, from Buenos Aires to Atlanta, and Atlanta to St. Louis. Zach slept wonderfully again in the little bassinet on the 10 hour flight in the bulk head row. He also took a nap during the lay over and on the next flight. No problems with the travels back home. And our neighbor, Jeremy, was there waiting to pick us up from the airport to bring us home. Jeremy and Jennifer also took care of Loca the entire time we were gone. What amazing neighbors we have!!!!

Zach dancing- Friday, Oct.8, 2010

cont. Frid. Oct. 8, 2010

Friday Oct. 8, 2010 Estancia Santa Susana

Fri. Oct. 8, 2010 Estancic, Santa Susana

We were picked up today at 9:30am to go to an estancia (farm) in the countryside. It took awhile to pick everyone up from the various hotels (it was a fairly large group) and to drive out there so we didn't arrive until about 12pm. We were greated with meat empanadas and wine. Marc thinks these were the best empanadas of all we've had. We then went for a quick carriage ride behind the horses. No real horse rides since we had Zach with us. We explored a bit. They had a little museum showing what the farm house used to look like. The was lunch...asada...a traditional mixed grill. They have these huge open flame grills where they cook various types of meat. It looked very good on the grill but unfortunately wasn't as tasty as it looked. They had a folk music and dance show during lunch. Marc was in a rare mood and actually went and danced with Zach. Zach was having a blast pounding his hands to the music and maybe even doing a bit dancing himself. After lunch was as gaucho skill demonstration. The gauchos are the traditional cowboys of argentina. This was very good. We boarded the bus and headed back to Buenos Aires arriving around 5:30. We walked back through the financial distract (on Florida) again looking at all the street vendors. We went for dinner at Chan Chan, a peruvian restaurant which seems to be popular in BA- very good. Marc was a little shy with eating too adventurously since he had "the runs" the night before and his tummy still wasn't feeling 100%. Zach went to bed by 10:30.

Thur. Oct. 7,2010 Buenos Aires

We got up and had a somewhat leisurely morning since we didn't leave the hostal (Portal del Sur) until 10 am. They were spraying for bugs so we had to be out by then. We took the subway to Palermo where we found the office of Say Hueque, the travel agent that booked nearly everything for our trip. We stopped in to say hello and meet the people that helped us out. They were all very nice and grateful we stopped. They were even excited to meet the baby that they had made plans for. After that we had lunch at La Cabrera- excellant meat! And then walked around Palermo, poking our heads into some of the shops. It started raining too and then it down poured! Luckily we had our rain gear with us!!!! Zach slept in the carrier underneath Marc's rain jacket! We walked in the rain to the Evita Museum which was interesting. Afterwards we headed back to our hostal. We went to a Mate tasting at the hostal at 6pm. We learned how to prep the gourds with the yerba and how it's customarily drank. I still think it's a little bitter even with sugar. One of the guys was playing his guitar and Zach was loving the music and all the attention. Of course everybody loved him too! We went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant, D'Ora. The steak ravioli with malbec sauce was delicious but Zach was really tired and a little crabby.

Wed. Oct. 6.2010 Tango Show

Today was a day of walking. We started off making our way through San Telmo. We didn't stop too much, it was mostly just looking around. Sundays are when San Telmo really lights up with a huge antique fair and tango in the streets (or so we're told since we weren't in BA on a Sunday... we missed this part). We then made our way into the financial district where we had lunch at some random restaurant. We were definitely the only tourists in the restaurant and we were trying to figure out how the lunch menu was organized- a bit confusing. Anyway, we went to our hostal to get Zach down for a good nap from 4-6pm. We also went for cafe in the afternoon, as the Argentinians do. That night we were picked up at 7:45pm to go to a Tango Show. It was very touristy but a small venue and was really good. Marc even danced for a minute with one of the dancers. Zach fell asleep after we ate dinner in the carrier and was quiet during the entire show! We didn't get back to our hostal until midnight.

Just a note... strangely, every night by our hostal the sidewalks would be full of garbage. The garbage bags would be put out every night and then people would go through all the trash and the sidewalks would be littered with it! We were a bit confused by this, as people do not dig through trash in public at home. We later asked about it and found out it is an organized sort of thing. It's people who otherwise don't have jobs and they search the trash for recyclable items or anything of value. They actually have trucks that come by to pick it all up. By morning it's all cleaned up and gone!

Tues. Oct. 5, 2010 Buenos Aires

We had a half day city tour planned for 9am. We were picked up more like 9:30am but then got going. We visited Plaza de Mayo, where the Casa Rosada is. Then San Telmo, the tango capital and antique world. Then La Boca, where the Boca Jrs. soccor team plays and the colorful neighborhood. Then Puerto Madera, an old port, now swanky area. Then Palermo, a really nice residencial area, shops, and parks. Then Recoleta, also a nice residencial area, shopping and parks. The Recoleta cemetary is here and is where Eva Perron is currently buried. We were left there after the tour so we had lunch and walked around quite a bit and walked back to our hostal. We were trying very hard to keep Zach awake because we´ve tried various times to get him to take a later nap so we could have a nice dinner at a normal argentinian time (so we aren´t the only people in the restaurant). We were successful! Marc and Zach took a nap while I blogged. We went for dinner at an all you can eat meat restaurant tonight (Siga La Vaca in Puerto Madero). It was right up Marc´s alley! I don't know how he can keep eating so much beef and other meat! Buenos Aires is a very large city! It has a lot of colonial buildings and in some ways, seems like a city that might be found in the States, though the driving is a little more crazy (outside of BA, there doesn't seem to be any stop lights or signs, everyone seems to just gun it through the intersections...strangely we didn't see any accidents)!

Mon. Oct. 4, 2010 Off to Buenos Aires

Today we got up, had breakfast, and packed everything up for our flight from Salta to Buenos Aires. Since we had to check out at 10am I had some time to blog, which I did do though I still didn´t catch up. We were picked up at noon to go to the airport. We checked in, hung out, and flew to Buenos Airew without any problems. Someone was there to pick us up and bring us to our hostal (Portal del Sur). We checked in, got situated, tried to get Zach to nap in our room, failed, so went out for dinner. We walked around a bit but settled on a restaurant nearby. We actually ended up meeing some ex-pats and chatted with them for awhile before turning in for the night.

Since this is a short post I´ll comment on Zach´s eating since we´ve been here. He has continued to nurse without any problems. But his eating habits in regards to solids has changed(he thinks he´s a big boy). In the beginning he was eating as expected. We would order mashed potatoes or mashed pumkin, or he´d have cereal we brought and he´d eat it. This didn´t last long though. He apparently decided he doesn´t want to eat anything off a spoon (definitely not off the baby spoon). He seems to want to eat finger foods, things he has to chew a bit (he does have his 6 teeth after all!). So we´ve been trying to give him things off our plate that he´s eaten before that can be cut up small and given to him. So...basically he eats french fries, tomatoe, and some cheese. And that, along with some broken pieces of mum mums that we brought from home, is all he eats. We even brought some store bought baby food (the kind that comes in foil pouches) and he´ll only eat it sometimes, and only if we sqeeze it into his mouth and don´t put it on a spoon. It´ll be interesting when we get home if he´ll eat any pureed food or if he´ll just want cut up soft foods.

Sun. Oct. 3, 2010 Salta

We had nothing specifically planned today so we took it easy in the morning. The thing I wanted to do most in Salta was see the MAAM museum. I thought it opened at 10am so we were there around 10:30. It didn´t open however until 11am. The museum is on the central square so we just hung out at a cafe and had cafe con leches until it opened. We ran into Albert and Paula again, and chatted with them. We did go to the museum and it was well worth it. I think it was in 1997 they found 3 Incan children (9, 7, and 6?) at the top of Volcano LLaullaima? (I need to check the details of this) at 6700 meters. Then were naturaly preserved and intact! This museum is about the discovery, the incan culture, and it actually displays the bodies (but just one per day- and in very specific conditions so as to continue the natural preservation)! We had audio info in English which was very helpful. The people were very nice. I was having problems with my audio and then realized that it was time to feed Zach so I asked if there was a bench somewhere. They actually let me sit in one of the offices at the museum to feed him! Anyway, after the museum, we briefly went back to the hostal to pick up our laundry (which we dropped off in the morning) at the nearby laudramat. We then headed out for a walk. We went to the top of a hill for a view of the city and had lunch there. Afterwards we walked to another archeological museum that was closed. Marc wasn´t very happy about that. None the less we walked back to the hostal where Zach proptly woke up from his short nap, ensuring we would need to go for another "early" dinner. We have thus far been unsucessful in getting Zach to nap later in the day. Having said that, he has been napping during the day where ever we are and sleeping through the night so who´s complaining!?!

Sat. Oct. 2, 2010 Humahuaca gorge then back to Salta

We had breakfast at our hostal and were picked up at 9am. We drove to the other side of the Rio Grande (the other side of Iruya) to pick up Paula & Albert for our drive through the Humahuaca gorge back to Salta. Leaving Iruya was much different from our drive in. This time there was thick, thick fog. It was all white, could see probably less than 20 feet in front of us. Being that we were on cliff edges everything looked white! The real bummer of this is we missed out on all the amazing scenery on our way out. By the time we got back to the summit at 4100 meters the ground was covered in frost and we didn´t have the view we had the day before. Zach again didn´t have any problems with the altitude. Things started to clear up on our way back down on the other side. We stopped in Tilcara to visit the ruins and then for lunch. The ruins, Pucara', are another pre-incan site. These were a little more restored than those at Tastil. The views again were beautiful from the ruins too but it was really cold and windy. After lunch, we headed for Jujuy. We stopped for a short time to walk around a bit at the central square. It was a little differant than many of the other squares in that it wasn´t very commercial...no restaurants and hotels like many other citíes. Instead it had a police station and other municipal buildings. It also didn´t have the colonial buildings like Salta has. I think it was destroyed in a war along the way and was rebuilt. I don´t really feel like I saw much of Jujuy given it´s a fairly large city, but I haven´t heard all that much positive feed back from others about it so hopefully we didn´t miss much. After that, we went back to Salta. As usual, Zach was not interested in a nap when we got back so we went for a walk. We walked around the local market to check out the food and other items for sale. It was interesting, as most local markets are. We also checked out a couple of churches/cathedrals. All very beautiful. It seems like in Salta there´s a church at every other street corner. I´m told 90% of Argentinians are Catholic. We ended up having an "early" dinner to try to get Zach to bed at a reasonable time.

Friday Oct. 1, 2010 Iruya

This morning we weren´t picked up until 10am so after breakfast I went for a quick walk to the look out point again to take more pictures of the amazing mountains in Purmamarca (7 color hills). I took some yesturday too but wanted to see if the colors would be different in the morning. Just a quick note on breakfast here. It´s almost always the same...coffee or cafe con leche, bread with dulce de leche, medialunas (danishes of sort), and maybe cereal or orange juice. Anyway, at 10am Pablo picked us up. Our group was us, Paula and Albert (from Buenos Aires), and our guide Pablo. We stopped at another look out point for pictures of 7 color mountains for more pictures as well as numerous other particularly buautiful spots along the way too. We stopped at the tropic of capricorn. Lunch was in a town called Humahuaca. It was a little touristy to me but pretty none the less. We visited the church and walked around a bit. We took a little video of the stroller ane the abuse it´s been enduring on this trip. Many of the roads and sidewalks are cobble stone so the wheels look all crazy. After lunch started to portion of the drive on very narrow gravel roads as we made our way to Iruya. We went up as high as 4100 meters. The views from this point were incredible. I feel like I keep saying things like that, but seriously, the scenery has been so amazing every day! This time we put local anesthetic drops in Zach´s ears. He did do better this time, because of the drops or just because I dón´t know. The way back down to Iruya (at 2100 meters) way a bit crazy. It was switch back after switch back on a one lane gravel road. Buses take this route too so we´d intermittantly have to pull as close to the side of the mountain as possible to let the buses pass. Wow! And then we arrived in Iruya, a little tiny town snuggled between all these mountains. Iruya is also one of the few most beautiful places on our list. Truly not a lot of tourist here, as there are not a lot of restuarants or other things set up for tourists. I think they get only 2 trucks per week that bring in supplies. This weekend however there was a lot of ´traffic´in because they have an annual festival. They were setting up tons on tents (blue tarps) to get ready. The real festival was starting at noon on Saturday. We left before noon because the roads were going to be closed. Once we got settled at the hostal we had an early dinner and then went for a walk. Given the altitude, we were a little out of breath walking up even slight inclines. It was starting to get cloudy at this point and quite cold. We had to have someone come to our room that evening to start our heater because we couldn´t figure out how to start it. It was gas run, so I don´t think Marc slept well since he was a little paranoid their would be a gas leak. Anyway, all is well...no problems there.

Thur. Sept. 30, 2010 Salinas Grandes and Purmamarca

This was kind of an early start and a long day. We were picked up by 7am. Our group was small yet again, us, a couple from South Africa (Oriel & Harry), and our guide (Pablo). Our first stop for the day was in Tastil. We had a bathroom break, had a coffee and snack of emandas (we eat a lot of these- they´re quite good), and walked around a bit. Next up was the ruins of a pre-Incan town (from the 14th century AD). We walked around the ruins. There were a lot of small stone walls. Impressive, but not like the Incan ruins are (as seen in Peru). There were amazing views from the ruins as well. Next we stopped for lunch in San Antonio de los Cobres, nothing too special here...a lot of locals trying to sell their local items. We bought a small wool llama that I think we´ll use as a x-mas ornament. The next stop was Salinas Grandes, large salt flat. What a site to see...mountains on all sides, sparkling white expanse of irregularly shaped octagons. We actually drove on the salt for about 20minutes prior to making our stop. When we stopped we walked around and looked at the aqua blue pools of salt water. We also saw the large trucks being loaded up with big bags of salt. The highest point of the day was at 4000 meters. You could definitely feel it. Zach was a little unhappy on our way back down but I fed him and he settled down. Maybe it was his ears bothering him. The last stop for the day, where we spent the night, was Purmamarca (about 2000 meters). What an amazing, beautiful town!!! It is surrounded by the Seven Color Hills (mountains). This town really is one of the few on our list of incredibly beautiful places. We took a walk after checking into our hotel. We stopped at the look out point first and then walk on a trail. We took lots of pictures so you´ll be able to see them when we get home. That evening we went to a peña for dinner. A peña is a place that has folk music and dinner. The music is similar to the andean music I started listening to after my trip to Ecuador in 1997 so it´s definitely music I like! We had dinner with Oriel and Harry too. Marc had llama for the first time. He thought it tasted a little like beef but much more chewy.

Wed. Sept. 29, 2010 Cafayete, then back to Salta

We got up around 7.45, got ready, had breakfast, tried to quickly convince our clothes to dry (Marc did laundry again the night before), and then was picked up by Beto again at 10.30am. We started off with wine tasting...yeh!! First we went to a winery called Bodega Triniti, where we tried torrontes, malbec, and tannat. Torrontes is a white varietal the grows very well at these altitudes. It is the specialty of the region. It is very fruity and flowery on the nose, but dry. I really like it. This area also makes 2 red varietals that I wans´t familiar with, tannat and banardo. I haven´t had too much of the tannat or banardo, but most of what I have had I´ve liked. Next we went to Nanni an older vineyard where we had a really good tour, just us and Javier (the only other person in our group with Beto). The tasting consisted of their torrontes, a cab sav rose, malbec, and a desert torrontes. We went to one other winery, ?Viajo S....?. The tours were only in spanish and they had really big groups so we skipped and tried their torrontes and malbec. After that we were off for our journey back to Salta. This meant driving through the Cafayete Valley...yet again...wow! This time the mountains were more red, less dry, more green. I wish I could down load some of the pictures so everyone can see. You´ll just have to wait until I get home and I´ll add all the pictures into the posts. We made a lot of stops to look around and take picures. One of the stops was a natural amphitheater. It was really cool! A guy was playing music and it was amplifide in the entire area. We stopped for lunch, where I had vacuna meat in a stew (vicuna is like a llama). I was very good. Then we got back to Salta around 6.30pm.

Tues. Sept. 28, 2010 Cafayete

Today we got up at 8am, got ready and had breakfast. We checked out of our hotel and I went to blog and Marc took Zach for a walk. Zach already had his first nap of the day while I was blogging. We had lunch in Cachi-a town of 1500 people- (more regional food, I had locro-a kind of stew with beans, meat, pumkin, and tomato in it, Marc had volcan de pumkin-served in a little pumkin, quinoa risotto with cheese, and we also had an appetizer of provoleta-grilled goat cheese with seasoning on it) and then another guide, Beto, picked us up at 2pm to head on to Cafayete. We stopped at a couple small villages along the way just to see them briefly and take a couple pictures. But the guts of the trip to Cafayete was the scenery- wow! I feel like I keep thinking...ok more mountains isn´t it going to start to look the same...but no...it doesn´t. Everyday the mountains look so different. This part of the Calchaqi valley is dessert, dry, dusty, rocky, small flat cacti, whitish grey, desolate, severe, very few people, some adobe houses...something I think I might have expected to see in the middle east or northern africa. As we got closer to Cafayete (a town of 2000 people), we started to see vineyards. Cafayete has some of the highest, if not the highest, vineyards in the world, at 1700 meters. We arrived to Cafayete around 6.45pm. We checked in to our hotel and went out for dinner. We went to a parradillo???, because Marc was in the mood for one of those giant 2 inch steaks. We were there around 7.30pm and we were the only people in the restaurant! But more people started to come as we were leaving. As expected, the beef was good!

Monday, Sept. 27, 2010 Cachi

We were picked up at 7:30am for our excursion to Cachi, a small village in the mountains. Our group was just our selves, the guide and one other woman, Mariella (from Buenos Aires). Our guide spoke reasonably good English so he said everything in spanish and english so we could all understand. Having said that Mariella spoke a little english and I a little spanish so we were still able to have some conversation. It was a very enjoyable day. We made various stops along the way to take pictures of the increadibly beautiful scenery/mountains. The guide explained the history of everything along the way. One of the main stops was in Parque Nacional Los Cardones (Cacti national park). It was increadible. We were around 3000 meters up in the mountains and there were thousands of giant cacti. There were fields that seemed to just keep going on that were peppered with these huge cacti that only grow .25 cm per year. I was really cool to see. We arrived to Cachi at noon and had lunch at a local restaurant that served all local specialties. Our guide told us what we should order. It was delicious. We had a little quinoa ball that was stuffed with cheese, pototoes, and peppers. Then we had a huge green pepper stuffed with rice, tomatoes, and dried beef. And for dessert we had anchi, corn meal with large raisons, honey, and lemon juice. After lunch were checked into our hotel. Zach had a nap and then we went again searching for an 'early' dinner. We found this little cafe that was open. We had wine, empanadas, and pizza for dinner. There was a guy, Arnold, from Amsterdam, that we chit chatted with the whole time. We were actually successful in getting Zach to bed by 9pm! and he slept until 8am!

Sun. Sept. 26, 2010 Travel to Salta

This was an early morning!! Someone came to pick us up at 4am to go to the bus station. We had everything pretty much ready to go so we quickly got ready and packed up. Zach stayed in his pajamas and as usual was in his happy smiley mood. Fortunately the bus was on time and we left at 4.40am. The bus ride went smoothly. Zach slept a total of almost 6 hours, in 3 naps! We slept a little too, read a little, played with Zach, etc. The time actually went very fast. We had the cush seats again so it was very comfortable. We arrived to Salta at around 3pm and checked into our hostal. Zach and Marc took a nap while I blogged and checked email. We then went out looking for dinner. This is easier said than done as it was only a little after 6pm and restaurants really don´t open for dinner until 8pm (This is really killing the idea of getting Zach to bed at any reasonable time, but fortunately he seems to go with the flow. If he doesn´t sleep as much at night he just sleeps more during the day, usually against my chest in the baby carrier.). None the less, we got some dinner and made our way back to the hostal and got Zach in bed sleeping before Marc and I got everything ready for the next day and went to bed ourselves.

Sat. Sept. 25, 2010 Talampaya

On Saturday we a later start which was nice. We left Villa Union with our guide, Freddy, at 10am. Freddy gave us a little tour of the town before we left for Talampaya National Park. We saw a view of the town from a top a hill and the reservoir. The town looked similar to other small towns we had drove through. My impression in general, is that Argentina is poorer than I had expected. It´s not poorer than other countries we´ve visited, just more so than I expected and not that different from Guatemala in some parts. Having said that, there seems to be more up scale areas as well and we haven´t visited Buenos Aires yet either. Freddy was really nice and spoke better English than the guide on Friday (Max). We arrived a the park around 11.45. We left for our tour around 12.30 and returned back to the visitors center around 4.30. The tour this time was in a mini bus instead of everyone taking their own cars to each station. The group was small, only 7 of us. It was still only in Spanish but at least there were a few signs that gave explanations in English and because it was a small group people tried talking to us which we always enjoy. As usual, everyone loves Zach, his blue eyes and his toothy grin. We saw a lot of petroglyphs from the triassic era? (I think). We explore in the Talampaya canyon, heard ourselves echo, admired the incredible red cliffs/formations. We really enjoyed this tour!

After the tour we had to wait for another couple to take their tour before heading back to La Rioja. To say the least we were a bit upset by this. Part of the reason we broke the trip up into 2 days instead to doing them both in the same day was to get back earlier with Zach. None the less, I´ll let my travel agent know about this later. So, we didn´t get back until 8pm. Marc ran out and got sandwiches while I put Zach to bed. We a very early start the next day so we wanted to get to bed as soon as possible.

Friday, Sept. 24th, 2010 Ischigualasto

Friday we were picked up at 8am to go to Ischigualasto (moon valley), a provincial park of San Juan. It turned out to be just us and our guide, Max, a very nice guy but his english was not so good. The drive was about 2 hours before arriving to the park. At the park everyone goes in their own transportaion but as a group. We made 5 stops at which a guide from the park gives a detailed description and information. Too bad it was only in spanish and honestly couldn´t understand any of it. He spoke really fast and to a large group. In any case, I think the basic story is that all these strange and interesting formations occured over many years, many thousands of years ago. It was very desolate, beautiful and interesting rock formations. They also found dinosaur fossils in this park so we took some pictures in the museum for Boston. We had lunch at the park and then went to Villa Union where we spent the night. We had a little time in the afternoon and really wanted to have an early dinner... ha ha ha... the restaurant didn´t open until 8pm. Anyway, the meal we had was very typical argentinian food per our guide. We had a salad (though they don´t serve salad dressing, we think you´re supposed to put oil and vineger on it which is always on the table), bread, very delisious emanandas, and an unknown meat. We speculated during the meal as to what it might be. We guessed right...but we didn´t have confirmation until the next day. It was goat. Marc thought it was good. I thought it was a little dry, not a lot of meat for how much bone, cartilage, joints there were. It was all you could eat however, so Marc was happy!

Thur. Sept. 23, 2010 travel to La Rioja

Thur. was a travel day so nothing too exciting. We were picked up from our hotel at 11:30am to bring us to the bus station. Our bus was running behind which wasn´t great but it did get going. We had really nice seats... kind of like being in first class on an airplane but on a bus. Although the ride was long, about 9 hours, it really did go past fairly fast. Zach took a few naps along the way. None the less, we arrived in La Rioja around 9pm, checked into our hotel, grabbed a light bite to eat and went to bed.

Wed. Sept. 22, 2010 Uco Vally wine tour

On Wed. we had an especially wonderful day. It was a private tour of Uco Valley south of Mendoza. We went to 3 wineries. The first stop was Pulenta Estates. We started off with a glass of pinot grigio or savagnoin blanc and then went for a walk in the vineyard and a tour of the winery. We then had a tasting (more like a glass each) of a cab sav, malbec, and cab franc at a special table in the barrel room, beautiful. During this portion another group of 4 joined us. At this point, Zach was sleeping in the car and the driver was keeping an eye out in case he woke up- his first long nap in a while. We had a really nice time here. We tasted, at each winery, a variety of classes of wine, from their "young" grouping (which means it either had no time in oak or just a short time like 3 months, these wines tend to be more fruity and less oaky or complex, this doesn´t mean not good, I actually usually really liked them) to their more expensive lines.
The next bodega we went to was Benvenuto de la Serna, a very small family run winery. We toured to winery and had a tasting inside the owner´s house in the dining room. Zach enjoyed this because he was able to crawl around and flirt with the ladies as he usually does. This time it was just us, our guide, and the guide from the winey. -We tasted a viognier, sangivese, and a blend of malbec and tempranillo- all very good.

The last stop was O´Fornier. Here we had a 5 course lunch overlooking the vineyards and the mountains. Each course of food was paired with one o their wines. It was delicious and the wine was really good. Zach even had his own special food of mashed potatoes. After lunch we toured the winery and then headed back to our hotel. Zach napped again all the way back.

This evening we ate at a restaurant that again catered to Zach, making mashed pumpkin and potatoes for him, giving us extra space so we could move everything away from him (he now grabs at everything!) After dinner we stopped back at the wine tasting bar to inquire about a wine club... how lucky for us...they have one via an importor in CA (means we don´t have to pay international shipping)... so of course we joined. I couldn´t really enjoy the wines here with out knowing I could continue to enjoy them when we got home!

Tues. Sept. 21, 2010 High Andes tour

Hi everyone,

It is actually Saturday but I´m a bit behind in my posts. I haven´t either had the time or the availability to computers to post before now.

None the less, on Tues. we left Mendoza for the day to do a day trip into the andes. It was a small group of 9 of us that went with a driver and a guide. We made several stops along the way. Right now I don´t have the info in front of me to write the names of each place but I will later edit my post to give more accurate details. We did stop at the dam that the city uses to keep their water. We saw the highest mountain in the Americas, Aconcogua (6800 meters?), as well as the second highest mountain, Tapengato. We stopped in Aconcogua national park to do a small hike. Unfortunately it was very cold and windy and Zach wasn´t really in the mood for the weather so Marc went with the rest of the group and Zach and I played in the minivan. They saw a beautiful sulfar lake that was a torquise blue color flanked by the mountains. They tell me it was very beautiful. We also stopped at a natural bridge formed by calcification. It was all very yellow and interesting to see. We weren´t allowed to walk on it. All in all the trip was very good.

In the evening we went out to a wine tasting bar to have a glass of wine (we were given a ticket for a free glass of wine) and then out to a nice Italian restaurant. It was our 9th wedding anniversary!! Zach mostly behaved. He nibbled on some of the shredded cheese they had.

Zach has really learned to sleep in the carrier very well, though he does seem to like mommy better than daddy from that stand point. He´s not sleeping as long at night because the Argentinians don´t eat dinner until, at the earliest, 8pm. This is making it rather difficult to get him in bed by 7:30pm. Fortunately for us he continues to do well. He just sleeps more during the day. He´s been in really good spirits. Everyone loves him. They are especially infatuated with his blue eyes.

For the record on food here in Argentina...Marc is in love... it´s beef, beef, steak, more huge really thick steaks, pizza, pizza, and lots of empanadas, which Marc also loves!


A note about our lost/stolen items. The claim has been made with delta and they are supposed to get back to us this week sometime. The travel agent from Buenos Aires has been going to the airport to work on getting this all settled!

Mendoza, Argentina

Hi everybody,

First I´ll tell you about the not so good part which really is just a continuation of the lost luggage saga. We did receive our luggage on Monday afternoon as we expected. However, on further inspection of the contents it turns out all the electronic items were missing including... my hair straightner, the electricity converter, all the extra memory for our camera (26GB), a flash drive (32GB), the cord for the camera to connect to the computer, an extra battery for the camera, the cord to charge the iPhone, an extra battery pack for the iPhone.... it sucks!!!! Anyway, we are still trying to do the appropriate paper work ect. for Delta. Everyone, except the airline people, has been very helpful including the people at the reception at our hotel and the travel agent that booked all our stuff here. She even went to the airport in Buenos Aires to the baggage claim desk to figure out what we had to do! We were most worried about not having a battery charger for the camera. I actually thought we might need to buy a new camera. However...we met someone on a tour who had the same camera as us but had it stolen. She did however still have the battery charger...what are the chances?!?!? Her charger had a british plug so we still had to find a cord but that turned out to be easier than we expected! We also bought some extra memery for the camera and of course another hair straightner for my bangs (otherwise I´d look like I had a handle bar mustache on my forehead!). So I think we´re in good shape again.

So on to the real story...On Monday afternoon, we went on a half day wine tour. There were only 8 people in our group which was very nice and a few of them were spanish speaking so at the wineries there were only 4 in our group. First we went to Carmine Granata a small traditional winery. We tried their cab sav and malbec. Then we went to Cavas di Don Arturo where we tried their cab sav, malbec and syrah. The tour guide at this winery was strangely snobby but we still had a nice time. The last stop on this tour was an olive oil factory...very interesting as I´ve never seen this before.

Unfortunately I have to cut this short and finish later because our ride is here to take us to the bus station. We´re leaving on an 8 hour bus to La Rioja. And just so everyone knows, Zach is doing very well. He´s a flirt for sure!

We´ve arrived safely!

We arrived safely to Mendoza, Argentina yesturday. Some things went well, others not so well. Our flight from St. Louis to Atlanta was delayed but not enough to mess with our flight from Atlanta to Buenos Aires. The flight from Atlanta to Buenos Aires was a 10 hour overnight flight. We did get the bulk head row with the bassinet. Wow is that cool! It takes up a lot of space in front of you so you can´t get in and out very easily but it is sooooo nice for the baby to sleep in. It was longer than I thought it would be so Zach wasn´t so smushed in it. He fell asleep in my arms eating even before we took off and as soon as we were at altitude the stewardess put the basssinet up and I put Zach in it. He woke up once at around 2am. I fed him again (which I don´t usually do) and put him right back into the bassinet and he slept until we were about to start the descent. I fed him again and that was that!!!! How cool is that! What a champ he was!

So this is where the not so good part is... our packs/luggage didn´t come! And there´s only one flight per day so it would be at least a day before our things would arrive. Anyway, Buenos Aires wasn´t even our final destination. We had one more flight but first we had to go to another airport. We uneventfully took a taxi to the other airport where our flight was actually canceled so we were put on a flight an hour later than expected. All in all that went very well. We had a pick up scheduled in Mendoza and the driver was waiting for us there to take us to our hotel. Fortunately for us, they had a pack-n-play for Zach to sleep in (seeing as the baby sleep tent Zach was going to sleep in is in our checked bags).

We arrived around 3:30pm, got settled, went for a walk and had some dinner. There was a big festival in the park nearby, celebrating the Chilean independence day. Zach is thouroughly enjoying watching all the people on our walks! And everyone here has been very accomadating to him so far.

He slept very well last night. This morning we went for a walk again and discovered the supermarket. It seems a bit like a super Walmart but heavier on the grocery side of things. It does have diapers and wipes (though we didn´t buy any yet, hopefully our things will be here before we need to) but very little in regards to baby food aside from cereal and formula. Apparently everyone makes their own baby food here!

So now we´re 48 hours+ from when we left and still wearing the same clothes, etc. We did wash a few things in the sink last night and as we hoped, they were dry this morning. Luckily we´ve had most things that we really need in our day pack/diaper bag that we brought on board the airplane. We got confirmation that our bags will arrive here in Mendoza around 1pm. We are going to be leaving for a half day wine trip at 2pm so a taxi driver from the hotel is going to go to the airport to pick up our bags for us. So they should be here for us when we get back!!!

Sorry, no pictures this time. The cord for the camera is in our checked bags...hopefully next time!

Another trip!

So...it's been a really long time since I've posted anything here. We've been on trips but not any long ones recently. It's time again for a longer trip... that little travel bug I have has finally gotten the better of me and we're going to Argentina for 3 weeks! This, however, will be a little different from previous trips in that we have a baby and he's coming with us! Zach is a good baby and very flexible...I guess we're really going to test him now. We'll keep you posted!