Maybe you'd like to visit wine country in Argentina. You've heard about Mendoza, but you wonder: How to I go about wine tasting and touring wineries there? The options are many, but if you'd like to have a meaningful, enlightening wine tasting experience and an awesome time, here are a few tips on how to do so without blowing a ton of cash. … [Read more...]
Red Rocks and Wine Tasting: Cafayate, Argentina
Red rocks and desert. Doesn’t sound like the right conditions for a wine region, does it? The name Cafayate, another of Argentina’s winemaking regions, doesn’t quite have the same ring as Mendoza. But there’s something about the sandy soil -- good for irrigation control and filtering – that finds expression in the local grapes, including the local white wine … [Read more...]
Discovering Family in Argentina
Q: What’s the proper way to greet family you’ve never met before? A: In Argentina: with kisses, warmth -- and a heck of a lot of steak. Earlier this year, with a visit to relatives in Argentina only days away, I received my first email in Spanish from my grandmother. This may not sound noteworthy, but the fact that she wrote it in her mother tongue transformed … [Read more...]
Patagonia: Hitchhiking the Wild West of Argentine Wine
Patagonia: the home of otherworldly landscapes, uplifted granite, glaciers, unrelenting wind, and the toughened skin of a Pinot noir grape. At the region’s northern reaches, where fabled mountains yield to desert flatlands, there are wineries. We couchsurfed and hitchhiked our way to find them, and when we did, we were pleasantly surprised to find that we had … [Read more...]
A Little Bite of Buenos Aires
When we poked around Buenos Aires earlier this year, our food quests were focused not only on understanding Argentine cuisine but also seeking out various ethnic cuisines that we hadn't encountered much while traveling the Andes and Paraguay. A couple of times a week, we’d head out with a restaurant recommendation, a gigantic map of the city, and scribbled notes as to … [Read more...]
Audio Slideshow: Northwest Argentina, Road Trip Style
Some places are best suited to road trips. They speak: move at your own pace, get lost, stop off in small towns, have the flexibility to enjoy whatever experiences might come your way. The area around Salta and Jujuy in northwest Argentina is one such chunk of perfect road trip territory. Listen and watch the audio slideshow below to find out why. … [Read more...]
Argentine Food: Steak, Empanadas, Pizza, Pasta, Repeat
When I think about my first contact with the concept of Argentine cuisine, I recall a discussion twelve years ago with an unassuming foodie friend in San Francisco. “I bet the food in Argentina is great!” I offered with blind optimism as visions of gauchos stepping to a tango beat danced in my head. Argentina seemed so damn far away; therefore the food must be … [Read more...]
Three Vignettes: Beautiful Everyday People of Northwest Argentina
In a future incarnation, we will run world tours that seek to deliver extraordinary travel experiences through encounters with ordinary people. And when we do, a road trip in Northwest Argentina will be one of our first stops in South America. After stumbling upon a dazzling gaucho festival on the first day of a week-long road trip, we figured our travel karma … [Read more...]
Road Trip Northwest Argentina: Where Gauchos Go To Party
As our rental car began to drift atop a layer of windblown sand, I grabbed hold, down-shifted and noticed the hills around me were swirled in a peppermint twist. All those Ruta 40 signs in Argentina finally delivered on an implied promise: you’ll be impressed, and what once captured your imagination will now claim your full attention. But it wasn’t the fabled Route … [Read more...]
El Chalten, Argentina: A Beer, A Walk, A Patagonia Slideshow
On the topic of trekking in Patagonia, the two names most bandied about: Chile's Torres del Paine and Argentina's El Chalten. Although their hunks of uplifted granite are similar enough, the prevailing style of hikes they offer are quite different. … [Read more...]