Downtime in Cordoba & Wine tasting in Mendoza:  Learning to take the good with the really good!

February 22, 2012

We spent about five days in the second largest city in Argentina, Cordoba. We stayed in a fairly nice apartment style hotel. It could be called an apartment because it had a countertop with an electric tea pot, small refrigerator and a microwave for us to use.  There was a small rooftop pool where the water was a murky green and cloyingly warm.  It was the type of warm scientists would love to use for a culture medium, which is why I found it so unappealing and did not want to go near it. I was not going to add to my current illness!  There was also a gym with three pieces of equipment, every one of them broken. So to get any exercise, we walked quite a bit.  I chose to visit Cordoba initially because I had heard that it had a lot of historic appeal, and the countryside was supposed to be beautiful.   But when we became ill, it was the lack of anything that made Cordoba and our hotel a perfect resting spot for us to mark time and recuperate. 

Simply put, Cordoba is a worn out, tired looking dirty town.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of pride there that we could find.  They have a ton of second rate shoe and clothing stores that inhabit about a mile’s worth of meandering walking paths.  There are metal arbor coverings that run down the center of these paths with dead looking vines clinging on in hopes of new life and potential flowers.  Unfortunately, the arbors only serve as a safe haven for pigeons to roost and pollute the walking path below.  In addition, there are some very savvy, stray dogs who know all the safe places to sleep off a night of scavenging, and of course their deposits are intermittent land mines.  There were some historic sights to enjoy, but without anything but a city map, a lot of intermittent rain, and illness, I think we may have missed a few of these places.  We attempted to go into the travel agency but it was closing and turned us away. Our favorite place to visit was an ice cream shop that sold two scoops of delicious ice cream in a waffle cone for about $1.50.   On Sundays and Monday afternoons the town is closed up tight.  Only a few of the tiny kiosk type markets are open to sell minimal essentials. One of the last days we found a very trendy, upscale, multi-story shopping complex that satisfied our need for a quick meal and a movie.

One surprise to me was the paucity of good restaurants in a city the size of Cordoba.  There were plenty of coffee shops, pizza dives and burger joints, but not one really nice restaurant that we could find.  So we ate one dinner at our hotel one night, and to our surprise,e it turned out to be quite delicious.  We got out long enough to walk a bit, take a few pictures of some interesting churches, and go to the movies.  It was nice to get a lot of rest, which was great considering that today we have flown to the wine capital, Mendoza.

We met the nicest couple on one of our forays about Buenos Aires.  Johanne and Don are from Vancouver B.C. and by coincidence, we kept running into them in BA so we joined them for dinner near the hotel (which we, surprise, surprise, found each other staying) and began to make plans for future rendezvous.  We have now reconnected here in Mendoza.  We barely got our bags to our room this morning before we were off again to rent a car and find a winery with our new friends.  As luck would have it, we stumbled on a French winery called Terrazas, which is in the Chandon group of wineries.  The guard at the gate told us in Spanish that they normally only take reservations.  But being a persistent group, we somehow convinced them to take us in for a tour.  However, the only tour we could manage in English would be about a two hour wait, and if we were willing during our wait, they would set up a light meal and two wine pairings for us.  It was an offer we couldn’t refuse, and we were glad we didn’t. 

First we were ushered into the garden to wait where we were given an oaky chardonnay to taste, which we all thought was delicious.  Then we were led to another area of the garden where a bar area was beautifully set for four.  There we sampled more wine and were given a tray of meats and cheeses, fresh breads, and two kinds of empanadas hot from the oven.   Thinking the meal was over, we moved to some lounge chairs on the patio of the inn, and there we were treated to champagne and dessert. Before we realized it, the two hours had passed and we were gathered up by a delightful, pretty young Argentine woman who then proceeded to give us a very extensive, one hour tour followed by yet more tasting. 

Sufficiently sated and “sotted”, we cautiously found our way back to the hotel and are resting up for the next tour, which we have scheduled for tomorrow morning.  This next tour is a “Harvest Tour”, where we will learn even more about what goes into wine making from picking the grapes by hand to the fermentation and bottling.  Michael is not much of a wine drinker, but has been a good sport participating in all the activities. I could tell he really enjoyed the food and the personalities of the people conducting the tour.  So, after a couple hours spent by the pool, we have retired to our rooms where we are currently enjoying the sounds of thunder and torrential rain hitting the window. Hopefully we will drift into a very satisfied slumber thinking how much we like Mendoza already!