TNT Travels

Mendoza

The heart of the Cuyo region in Argentina, famed for its Malbec wine. The city is a mix of old and modern with multiple plazas.

When you arrive at the airport you have to have your hand luggage scanned before you exit the baggage hall. Absolutely no idea why. It just causes a really massive queue and makes zero sense as they don’t scan your check in luggage so you can move whatever you want between bags!

1st impressions are it’s very arid despite being at the foothills of the Andes. When you fly in, there are just flat lands for miles about. I was expecting to see a few cowboys and it to have a bit more of a spaghetti western feel. I obviously shared this point of view with ET and got the response, “it’s not bl00dy Dallas, are you expecting JR Ewing to walk around the corner.

Our AirBnB was just over a mile out of the centre. Just up the road was a beautiful boating lake. There was a rowing competition on when we were there so the place had a real buzz about it.

We had a minor setback when heading into town and the map took us to The Sheraton rather than Plaza Independencia. Fortunately it was less than a 5min walk to get to the correct destination.

The Plaza Independencia was a lovely big square. There are not many bars and restaurants in the main bit. Just market stalls mainly selling jewellery.

We headed to the pedestrianised street (Sarmiento) just off the plaza where there were lots of cafes and bars and some amazing dessert shops.

On this street, you typically pay the equivalent of £2.24 for a litre of Andes beer. It’s a popular place for people to come and ask for money from you or try and sell you sports socks. We seriously could have opened up a JD Sports given the amount of socks that come your way. Apparently it’s also rife for nicking your phone/camera off the table. Most of the beggars look genuinely in need, with the exception of one lady who was obese and came asking for money for food!

Santa Maria

A first for me, a pop up church! It was in the middle of a pedestrian precinct. It’s basically a pick up truck with a huge statue of Santa Maria in a glass case on the pull down bit at the back. Loads of men clutching rosary beads and praying/chanting out loud. With one guy on his knees leading the service via a microphone.

We used the time to look online for places to go for dinner. We found one called Magnolia which also happened to be on the busy bar street. We walked up to there as it’s 20mins from where we were passing Plaza Italia. The night time statue lighting was immense!

What also strikes you when wandering around is the size of the gutters, they are literally huge. You could live underground looking at these. It’s not only drinking and driving that would be a problem here, drinking and walking could be an issue too!

Magnolia restaurant

The starters were outstanding. Sadly another 50% strike rate with the mains. Terry had the saltiest main course ever and sent it back and the waiter came back and said the chef tasted it and agreed. Well, that’s ok then! Not sure what would have happened if he disagreed but given chefs are renowned for having egos, we were impressed he acknowledged it. If I was visiting Mendoza again, I would have another crack at it because everything else was great.

We were wondering where to go next and El Tel went and spoke to the lady ‘meet and greeter’ and said “Where do you go for a drink when you are not working?” He came back with a reco but hadn’t appreciated he sounded like he was hitting on her! The bars on Arístides Villanueva looked great but after a long day for The Smiths we called it a night.

Market

Not a patch on BA or Sao Paolo. Admittedly it’s a far smaller city but we were hoping for the electric atmosphere like the others. On a Saturday evening, there was hardly anyone there and the food stalls were like a food court you would find in a shopping centre

Santa Julia Bodega (vineyard)

We booked a tasting menu at the vineyard because apparently that’s what you are meant to do when you are in a wine region. It’s not every day your husband turns the Big 6-0 (the following day) so this was a treat from my parents.

The atmosphere was great, you had ‘La Chacha’ (a cooking legend) cooking your empanadas to start. Basically they are like having Michelin star Greggs pasties and you get 3 just as a starter. She cooks them in giant pizza type ovens in front of you and serves them up herself. They are also promoting her book, which has a heart warming back story that I won’t ruin.

This place is great value for money, they refill your wine glasses at no extra charge. The vineyard was in a beautiful setting with views of The Andes.

Where it all went belly up was when trying to get a taxi back. The restaurant wasn’t too bothered about our issue as they closed at 5pm. We tried 45mins to get an Uber with no success despite using Uber to get there.

Apparently normal taxis take cash not card. We didn’t have cash because of the issues encountered in Buenos Aires trying to withdraw money. The vineyard called a taxi for us and told him we need to go to an ATM. We had to wait for 30mins on the main road for him to arrive as the restaurant closed. He took us to the ATM where it cost us the best part of £25 to withdraw £20 via 4 different transactions. Taxi came to £21 but he let us off the £1. I think he took pity on our shell shocked faces. We looked into this a lot online after to try and understand why ATM withdrawals are nigh on impossible in Argentina and why it’s hadn’t come up in our research. It turns out it’s due to a recent change in government so I’m guessing the social media algorithms advising you on this haven’t caught up. Our advice to anyone travelling in the near future. Take US dollars and lots of them!

We then went to the supermarket and had to show ID for paying for a couple of soft drinks by card. Apparently it’s in case your card has been stolen, which is fine but makes no sense when you have just entered your pin.

Just when you think the money situation couldn’t get any worse…..

We have a Portuguese Santander account and Argentina is full of Santander branches. I think we have struck gold because we can go to the bank in the morning and get cash out so we don’t get in shite again.

We had to check out of the AirBnB at 10am but managed to get an extension so we could get to the bank to try and sort out getting cash. Today is ETs big 6-0 and we spend the 1st 2 hours scrabbling around trying to get money.

First thing on the big birthday day, we walk 15mins to Santander. With the help of the friendly cashier and google translate, we quickly establish you can’t withdraw money from the bank!!! Just the ATM and you have a max withdrawal of £20 with Santander. She said we could withdraw from a money exchange bureau and gave us the address of a Western Union 1 mile away. We called an Uber and went there. Turned up there, it had closed down. Google maps tells us there is another branch 5mins walk away. We go there, it’s now an electric shop like Scottish Power. We then find another exchange place (different company) another 5mins away. We get there and it offers currency exchange in GBP amongst many others. RESULT! Through the medium of Google Translate again (hardly anyone speaks English in South America so we defo recommend getting some poco espaniol under your belt) we established the money exchange doesn’t exchange money!!! We think this must be a tourist issue. We get told

to go to the ‘Blue market’. This basically is walking up to a guy saying ‘cambio’ on a street corner and asking him for an exchange rate. Fortunately for us we had £100 in Brazilian Reals. El Tel went and got us coffees from the neighbouring cafe whilst I did a street corner deal like a two-bit hooker. On the bright side you get a very good exchange rate. Not blowing smoke up my own @rse. I think the deal was good because you end up with the currency in 1,000 peso (£1) notes so for £100 you have 100 notes. Basically it feels like you have just been sucked into a money laundering scam but if you can’t get money from an ATM, a bank, an exchange bureau or haven’t brought it into the country, your options are limited. It would totally work if every business (mainly taxis) took card payment but they don’t!

Anyway, El Tel loved the start to his big birthday and it only took 20mins in an Uber to get to the real heart of the wine region of Lujan de Coya (home of Malbec) for a 2 night stay.

Chacras do Coria

We arrived in Chacras do Coria (a town in Lujan de Coya) by 11am and checked into Pousada Borravino.

Chacras is a sleepy hollow in early March as we have just gone out of the season.

ET’s thirsty after the stressful start to the day so we walk just over a mile (in searing heat) into town.

You need patience if you work in a bar/restaurant at this time of year because the places are empty or you are one of the only ones in there. This is pretty true for all afternoon not just when we turn up.

The first thing we do is plan the taxi to the vineyard we have booked for the BIG birthday meal on the following day. I reserve an Uber and quickly learn you can’t book one on the way back because the vineyard is ‘in the middle of nowhere’. I contacted the vineyard who give me the name of a taxi company and a 2pm limit to confirm our lunch reservation. It’s now 1.15! Fortunately at 1.58 we are home and dry! I do recommend Mendoza Roadtrip for a taxi service. They basically stay with you all afternoon because the vineyard is 1hr away. They only take cash so thank god for the street corner deal or we would have had to cancel the BIG birthday meal!

Obviously I have spent a lot of time on my phone since arriving in CdeC trying to sort out transport. Apparently I should have had this planned already given it’s a special milestone birthday 🤣🤣. Whilst researching/planning I hadn’t appreciated how much effort ET had put into drinking 1litre bottles of Patricia (local beer). It soon became apparent by 4.30pm when he started the conversation about how many male friends you know who have died before their time versus female friends. Therefore, the likelihood is that males will die earlier. Fortunately, the drinking pace slowed a bit whilst we wandered around town looking at all the bars that weren’t open.

We found a lovely cafe bar which was empty before we got there. As part of the pre-trip research, ET had read that there is a popular local Argentinan cocktail called Fernet. The warning signs were there when the waitress said it’s good for your stomach!

Post 1st sip, ET reckons it should be called Ferret. Covonia cough medicine and Coke is the closest description. It was on 2 for 1. He just had one! Best thing was, he told the waitress it was the 1st time he had tried one so she stood there and watched him slowly sip it to see if he liked it. His face was brilliant, his right eye twitched, his lips pursed and he semi-gasped the words “it’s different”. I sat quietly sipping on my aperol savouring the moment 🤣. Apparently as it’s his birthday we should have swapped drinks, I declined and he announced it was the worst birthday ever 🤣🤣

Later on, we called into a bar down the road and ordered a tortilla to soak up some of the birthday beer. We ordered one but the waitress did a sign with her hands by joining her the finger tips of her 2 hands together to show the size of one. Basically it was the size of the palm of your hand, so we ordered 2!

It turns out, we’d had a slight misread of the chalkboard. Apparently a tortilla is different to a tortita. It took about 20 chews to swallow one bites worth of tortita. Google translate doesn’t have a Spanish version of “has tha got owt moist”?

To summarise the evening, we met a Vietnam war veteran pilot who latterly flew PanAm and lots of other airlines, a lady with mental health issues (her words not mine) and a helpful waiter with a cabify App (equivalent of Uber because no Uber was available). Again the taxi only takes cash but it cost us $4 to get back to the pousada.

The BIG birthday celebration day

After my hours of meticulously planning the 1hr journey to the vineyard for the meal. The taxi turned up 1hr early. We managed (via a helpful English speaking hotel employee) to arrange for her to come at the correct time and then she turned up 15mins late. In her favour, she had a great playlist courtesy of Kenny Rogers, Miley Cyrus and a whole host more.

Bodega La Azul

Given it’s 1hr to get the vineyard we had previously dithered about doing it at all but the reviews were great. However, what the big man wants on his 60th the big man gets, especially when I benefit ☺️

There was a big contrast to the previous bodega. The last one was more intimate and formal. Whereas, we turned up at 2.30pm to this one and it’s like we gate crashed a wedding party.

It was brilliant, the atmosphere was rocking and the food/wine was great. Our advice is get there earlier. It shuts at 6 and no one turns up after 3.30 so it gets quieter throughout the afternoon.

The waiters/waitresses were great. “Hi I’m your waitress , you can call me Gisela/Gisel/Gigi.”

Terry “Hi Griselda” for some reason managed to take to calling her Griselda after the Netflix series

One waiter was learning British English and not American English so we had a 10min chat about the differences, starting with tom-art-o vs. Tom-ate-o. Naturally he told us he much preferred British English 😉.

The Saxophonist was very good and enhanced the wedding party vibe. He got summonsed to some of the tables to play ‘happy birthday’. ET said “if you tell him it’s my birthday I will stuff the saxophone up his #### so we kept the milestone occasion to ourselves 😉

A well as the atmosphere, the food was great. ET opted for the trio of starters, i went for one given the portion size everywhere we have visited in South America has been huge!

The wine is also plentiful. They just bring more when you have finished and at no extra charge.

Given the impressive backdrop of The Andes, we swiftly changed the topic to the infamous plane crash of an Uruguayan rugby team into the Andes in 1972. ET instigated the conversation of which of your friends would you eat first to survive. It turns out El Tel’s mate Mark would be the first to meet his maker on account of him not eating meat on the bone so no point wasting food.

Fortunately it was soon time for the 5pm return so we jumped back in the taxi, where he contentedly snoozed his way home.

Happy 60th El Tel 😍

Next stop, 5am alarm call to fly back to Buenos Aires to get the ferry to Uruguay 🇺🇾