August-September 2013: Walking England Sea to Sea

Since we write a lot about travel, if you read our "normal" blog, you may like to read some about our hike across England.....some years ago.   No obligation of course:

Paul and Lou Walk England Coast to Coast

Cheers!

July 12-15, 2019: London Town: Uncle Neil, Bobby Dee, Lee Kasner, Birdlife and Kew Gardens

Bob Dylan and Neil Young rock Hyde Park's world in their duo tour. They did not sing together as Kilkenny, but still-- pretty righteous.

London, thou art the flower of cities all! Gemme of all joy, jasper of jocunditie. 

-William Dunbar

The pirate spent approximately 18 summers of his life having fun and chasing an obscure concert series started in London by the dearly departed guitarist Derek Bailey which turned into much more as time passed. So it is no surprise he would make up virtually any excuse to come to London in the summer. And this year, it was a better than average excuse, since Bob Dylan and Neil Young are on tour and playing Hyde Park. So instead of going home after our South American sojourn, we were off across the pond. Delta delayed our arrival by having a variety of issues complete with lost luggage as well, but we made it to part of Neil Young and all of Dylan. The outdoor show was sold out with an audience of 65,000. Neither artist said a danged word to the crowd, but they both managed to belt out their signature music. Dylan played a variety of songs, including Girl from the North Country, Highway 61 and Blowin' in the Wind. Over the years, he has stripped many of his renditions down to bare-bones as far as the singing (if you want to call it that) goes, but I think his backup band and even his own enthusiasm are why the "never-ending tour" could also be called the never boring tour. The pirate will likely have more erudite commentary below. 

The next day, we went to the Barbican Museum which never fails to have an interesting exhibit. In fact, the last three times we have been to London, Barbican has been on the menu. This time they had an exhibit of Lee Krasner's work. Unfortunately, as she will herself point out, most people know her as Jackson Pollock's wife. But that is a truly unfair characterization of this abstract artist whose work can certainly stand in its own right. 

Born Leonore Krasner in Brooklyn at the turn of the century, she knew as an early teen, she wanted to be an artist. Getting an art education was a struggle for women in her era. Hans Hoffman who was her teacher paid her the compliment/insult of stating her work was so good, "you wouldn't know a woman did it."

The pirate admires a large work from her "umber" series which she performed at night in her barn in Spring, New York. She was suffering from insomnia and didn't want to use black while painting indoors.

Her specialty is seen here: collage. She would tear up her old work and make new pieces from it.

When Jackson Pollock who was suffering from alcoholism and was having an affair with Ruth Klugman,  was killed in an automobile wreck in 1956, Lee Krasner returned to from a visit to friends in Paris to  Spring, New York and her work. She had been painting a large series which she named Prophecy. 

She called this one Three in Two. Not sure if it was a reference to the wreck with killed Pollock and another female artist friend, but spared Ruth Klugman. I think it looks like mangled bodies, but that's probably just me.

This was the first piece in the exhibit and it has a lot of texture. Even though Pollock and Krasner trained in separate schools and she didn't know him at the start of her career, their styles have certain noticeable similarities. 

A mosaic table by Lee Kasner made from a wagon wheel.

It was a very educational to see the work of this artist and there is a 20 minute interview with her in which she is asked quite a lot about her approach to art and life. Her answers are very refreshing and honest. I really enjoyed the exhibit and the film. 

Another exhibit at Barbican which was sold out and we couldn't attend was called AI. However, outside the exhibit, they had this bartender robot. It was fun watching it make a Negroni. Stay tuned. The pirate might install one at 713 that makes gin and tonics!

From here, we were off to our dinner at a restaurant we discovered by accident while staying in Dalston a few years ago: Salut! Started by a pair of German brothers who trained at world reknown Noma in Copenhagen, the restaurant recently changed chefs...and it is still excellent. I would describe the food as modern European cuisine and the chef is pretty playful, as well as an artist of sorts himself. The restaurant is small and has 10-12 tables. The kitchen is open and it is fun to watch them create the menu items. Salut! can mean either hello or goodbye, and I'm always game to say HOWDY to this food and the friendly staff. If you go there, salute the manager Danny for us!

Food at Salut is never boring or ugly!

We were fortunate to have amazing weather our entire stay with lows in the low 50s and highs only to the mid 70s at most, overcast at times, but no rain! THe week before London had a heat wave. So although we love the museums, being outdoors was very appealing and that's how we approached the rest of the short sojourn. A few years back when the pirate was working in London and I was tagging along, I saw an advertisement for the London Wetland Park. It rained that time, and I didn't make it out there to Putney to see it, but not so this time. This area is a wildlife preserve and it is reachable by train from central London. When you exit Putney Bridge station there is a very nice walk on the Thames path out to the preserve which host many migratory birds and water fowl. Putney is the start of the Oxford vs Cambridge boat races, so you pass all the various college boathouses and a fair number of bars as well along the way. Opened in 2000, the site is composed of four disused Victorian era ponds at the side of the Thames. There are numerous towers and hides for better observation. 

The white-headed goose must be related to surgeons, as it can sleep standing up!

We saw lots of mamas with babies in the park.

Butterflies were abundant as well

If I were a duck, I think I would find these canals and ponds quite suitable.

A little birdie told me.

Although not  a botanical garden per se, the plant life was beautiful.

Mama Marsh hen feeds her chicks.



Pirate Bird

This golden eye chick opposed having his image captured.

After our lovely day out, we caught a jazz show at the stunning Wigmore Hall with Django Bates Trio and the inimitable and amazing Evan Parker playing a repertoire of Charlie Parker compositions. It lasted about 90 minutes, celebrating the 99th birthday of Charlie Parker and the 75th for Evan Parker. It was a great show. Django Bates is a very melodic pianist and it's always fun to watch Evan Parker go to town on the sax while practicing circular breathing. Too much fun!

The artists weren't keen on photos of them, but I did get one of the ceiling of Wigmore Hall.

We kept dinner local to the Marleybone neighborhood and enjoyed "elevated British fare" at Ivy Café. I had a very tasty lemon sole and Paul had steak. While the restaurant is very meat-centric, I think my favorite dish was the watermelon and tomato salad.

This salad is as delicious as it is attractive!

For our last day in London, we went to Kew Gardens which is always a treat. We took the boat down the Thames and enjoyed a commentary regarding all the buildings. Pirate and I both see many modern buildings, particularly residences, either replacing or rehabbing what was there twenty years back.  As for Kew, it's probably best if I let the photos do the talking.

I haven't ridden on the London Eye yet, although I saw it when it was still on the ground.

House of Parliament

Last summer I saw Chilhuly at the Biltmore. This year, it Kew-Chihuly. Lovely anywhere!

Indoor Kew exhibit with Chilhuly

Perhaps my favorite thing at Kew Gardens are the ginormous trees.

Pagoda in summer

Another large Chilhuly installation



Sculpture in the rose garden. I wish you could smell this area!

You can't blame the bee for flying into this!



Colors galore

Pirate loves flowers ...and ice cream.

This is a relatively new sculpture in the Kew Gardens called the Hive.

We ended our London vacation with a trip to another favorite restaurant, Portland. It's small, about 20 tables, and we have been there so often, they stuff us with food. Delicious food. We highly recommend the tasting menu with wine pairings. Don't eat before you go and walk at least 10 miles!

The open kitchen of Portland Restaurant with one Michelin star. So yummy.

We will be sad to leave London, but happy to get home. Here are a couple of London signs we enjoyed along the way.

This gave us a laugh.

I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity? -Charlotte Brontë

Paul's Ponderings:   London is probably my favorite big city worldwide....it's an embarrassment of riches as they say and this time was no exception.    This time sort of was a bookend to my early visits with Derek Bailey's long gone "Company Week" festival, since we saw his long time collaborator Evan Parker (although they did not play together for a long time prior to Derek's passing).   I won't belabor the history of either since it's easily found online other than to add that I first read this quote in Bailey's book titled "Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music".   It's probably my all-time favorite quote about improvising and this seems like a good spot to share it.

The composer and improviser, Frederic Rzewski tells the story of running into Steve Lacy, the great soprano player, on the street and quizzing Lacy for his opinion on the difference between composing and improvising.   (Note:  Yes, that may be an odd question to ask on the street, but hey, it's Steve Lacy.)  

Rzewski says: In 1968 I ran into Steve Lacy on the streets in Rome. I took out my pocket tape recorder and asked him to describe in fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation. He answered: ‘In fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds.’ His answer lasted exactly fifteen seconds and it is still the best formulation of the question I know. 

I'm lucky to have seen Fred Rzewski, Steve Lacy, and Derek Bailey all perform, the latter two in particular many times.

Quotations aside, Kew Gardens is always a pleasure and we had the added fun of the Lee Krasner exhibition.   I'm certainly guilty of only knowing her through Jackson Pollock, but that's no longer the case!    

Top that off with some fabulous food and what's not to like.    We now head home for a few weeks, but soon we'll be providing some updates from the southern part of Africa if all goes to plan.

They had the pirate at "pi"

July 7 and 8, 2019 Iguazu Falls: That A Whole Lotta Watta

Yes that is a real rainbow at the foot of "the Devil's Throat" at Iguazu Falls

"Makes Niagara look like the kitchen sink."

---Eleanor Roosevelt

In 1991, I travelled to Buenos Aires to present a paper to the PanAmerican Trauma Conference. I was with my work partner, Kennan Buechter and his then wife, Ruth Higdon and with an OB/GYN colleague friend of Ruth’s, Carlos, who just wanted to hitch along on a friend trip. We stayed an extra 4-5 days after the conference to explore Buenos Aires. Sort of. Basically, the boys were predominantly interested in drinking and people watching, and Ruth, who was about to take her Gynecologic Oncology boards was interested in visiting cathedrals and praying at altars and getting holy water sprinkled on her and touching the tomb of Eva Peron in the Recolata cemetery for whatever mystical power it held for passing medical certification tests.. This is particularly amazing, since she is a failed RLDS and for all I can tell, at the very best, agnostic. Nonetheless, she was (and for all I can tell is) a very spirited and convincing trip companion.  Iguazu Falls is on my bucket list and was then, but instead of going there, I was a team player who went searching for Nazis in Tigre and San Isidro (I don’t think there are any. Our first guide on this trip told me they were in Bariloche.) and for  a visit to the Holy Cathedral of Lujan, a large Gothic style cathedral with gargoyles and flying buttresses in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Or at least in 1991, Lujan wasn’t much of a town.

This church has a wooden crying Mary in it and is a place you go for miracles. 

I totally missed out on Igauzu and have been kicking myself ever since. So this time, I made sure that did NOT happen again. And it is now easily reached via commercial aircraft. 

Boy am I glad I took the time to come here. It is really hard to describe this wonder (which isn’t on most 7 natural wonders of the world lists, but perhaps should be). At the confluence of Brazil, Argentina and sorta kinda Paraguay, the Iguazu, Parana, and San Antonio Rivers coalesce to form a huge Delta and the falls pour over the rocks there to form the largest waterfall system in the world. 

Igauzu which means "big water" in Guarani spans a chasm 1.7 miles long, contains 150-300 separate falls, depending on rainfall and water levels. Most of the falls are 200-250 feet high.

 I can give you some facts about it and will do so, but there is really no way to accurately portray what you will see and hear at Iguazu using words or photos. You just have to go there and observe it. And please do it soon, because the gargantuan amount of water pouring over those falls is slowly eroding out the underlying rock and one day (probably not in our lifetime), it will just be a big bad river with no water falls. Indigenous peoples obviously were aware of the falls long before Spanish explorer, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca placed them on a map for Europeans in 1541. The area became Argentina's first national park in 1934. The Park has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1984.  Most of the waterfalls are on the Argentinian side, but much like Niagara, the view is better in another country, in this case, Brazil. The falls can be best seen by accessing the walking paths on both Argentinian and Brazilian sides of the park. There is an eco-train on the Argentina side to help get folks out to the falls area and generally avoid the onslaught of cars into the fragile environs. 

This train is your ride to various trailheads.

There is also a boat ride—a Maids of the Mists copycat, that will drench and thrill the riders. We didn’t take it but those who did found it exhilarating and a good way to get closer to the falls for photos. A summation of seeing the falls is go to Brazil to see the beauty and Argentina to understand the power.

A plush-crested jay

This Greta Oto clear winged butterfly took up residence initially on Paul's ballcap and then it rode it my hand for about 30 minutes before getting camera shy from onlookers.

The park is also a refuge for wildlife including jaguar, puma, many species of butterflies and birds and the coati.

The coati are fed by the tourists (which is illegal, but no one seems to stop them from doing it) and therefore are something of an annoyance. They can hear a Doritos bag opening a mile away and will barrage the unsuspecting eater. We were told NOT to take any food with us while out hiking to keep them off of us, as they sometimes bite and injure people. That seemed like advice well-taken!

 

The very cute, moderately annoying, and sometimes dangerous coati of Iguazu

We stayed in the town of Puerto de Igauzu on the Argentinian side which is anything but a cosmopolitan mecca. It is quite small and rural. There are plenty of hotels, posadas and even hostels of varying degrees of luxury or basicness. In fact, one of the hotels made the Conde Nast top 50 hotels in the world this year! Unfortunately, we were not staying at that one. We were at Panoramic Hotel which did indeed have a lovely view of the Parana River. It was clean and it had hot water, so in my opinion, a score!

Not exactly the 5 star property it was advertised as, but clean and comfy (after they finally turned the heat on). Too cold for the pool!

The restaurants in this tiny village were actually quite good. The first night we went to Aqva was showcasing regional food such as the river fish, parrilla meats, and the ever present pasta. Paul had gnocchi made of yucca and I had local river fish-- it was good. We shared a fresh heart of palm salad as well which was delicious. The second night we went to Il Tuscano which was totally Italian and featured housemade pastas. If there was an eatery in this town we’d tell you not to miss, it would be Il Tuscano. Service and food were excellent. We also enjoyed some lovely Argentinian pinot noirs, as the pirate has been on a “kick” to try that instead of Malbec. I think I enjoyed the pinots even more than the ever-present Malbecs and found them to be softer and more like the French style as compared to the very fruit forward California version.

 

My classic dish at Il Tuscano--sphaghetti mixed in a cheese wheel with lit cognac

Pasta hanging to dry with chefs in the background at Il Tuscano

There is a Gran Melia hotel inside the Argentinian side of the Park and a beautiful pink hotel on the Brazilian side that I might select if I were to come back and not go on an organized tour. I would recommend at least 2 days there to cover both Brazilian and Argentinian opportunities well. A third day wouldn’t hurt, but I doubt you’d need more than that.

 

The pirate offers a toast to the wonders of Igauzu

We enjoyed two beautiful days in I can’t urge you strongly enough to go there and enjoy this amazing place.

A borrowed panorama shot. There is really only one place along the hike to see it all.

 "It is said that a beautiful maiden named Naipí lived in a village near the river. Her great beauty caused even the gods to fall in love with her. A god disguised as a mere boy approached her parents and requested her hand in marriage. Finding him suitable, the parents immediately agreed. To the god's misfortune, Naipí had a mortal lover, Tarobá, with whom she fled in a canoe through the Iguazu River. In rage, the god sliced the river forming the abysses of the cataracts and creating the waterfalls, condemning the lovers to eternal misery.  Some say that Naipí was turned into a rock next to the great waterfall, while her lover, Tarobá, was turned into a palm tree on the waters' banks, ever to gaze at his lover without being able to touch her. Others end the tale saying the couple fell into the gorge and perished. The mighty Iguazu Falls rage are the continuous tears of the rejected god." ---Native legend. 

Paul's Ponderings:   Wow, what a great time at Iguazu....this was among the trip highlights.   The falls are incredible and well worth a visit.    The town is small and pretty manageable and the Italian restaurant was just fabulous in particular.     This ends our Agentinian sojourn, mostly, other than the return.    Now it's off to the UK, with a lengthy airplane ride in between of course!

July 4 and 5,2019: Mendoza Mentations--So Much More than Wine

Although I cannot imagine a more picturesque place for a vineyard, Mendoza is so much more than malbec.

LA DIFUNTA CORREA
She died & from
her breasts
her newborn babe
sucked life.

Her sanctuary
at the Inca’s lake
still fills
the flattened earth.

And here Cecilia offers
rocks & roses
where two condors bow to us
guarding the sky.

For a couple of days, the pirate and I set out to find the real Mendoza mostly on foot. And it was a wonderful adventure. 

Travelers tip: GOOD NEWS--If you come to Mendoza in the winter season, all the wineries are open and serving tastings. BAD NEWS--the art museums are closed. So after making a really nice long walk to the doorways of the cities three most mentioned art museums, only to find them closed for the winter school holiday period around their independence day, the curator at the Annexo museum took pity on us and told us to go to the Foundation Museum. We thought this was private art museum (silly us), but it was instead a museum about the founding of the city located at the spot on which the Spanish founded the original city in the 1500s. The plaza mayor contained the usual structures of the Spanish plaza, including the cabildo and church. There was also a market there and at one point a butcher shop. We learned a tremendous amount about the irrigation system (acequias) from the Mendoza River that made the settlement possible. Of course, the system copied what the local Harpe indigenous people were doing to irrigate their crops.Amazingly, the remnants of these initial canals are still visible on the city streets. Mendoza started with just twelve people. Current population is about a million.

A depiction of what the city might have looked like around 1800.

It is estimated that fewer than 80 Spanish settlers lived in the area before 1600, but later prosperity increased due to the use of indigenous and slave labor, and the Jesuit presence in the region. When nearby rivers were tapped as a source of irrigation in 1788 agricultural production increased. The extra revenues generated from this, and the ensuing additional trade with Buenos Aires, no doubt led to the creation of the state of Cuyo.

Indigenous beads in the museum

The pirate compares his fashion sense with inhabitants of the 17th century.

A slaughterhouse was once located on Plaza Mayor.

Water filtration system from days gone by. 

The museum is literally the site of excavation of the foundation of the cabildo.

Mendoza suffered a severe earthquake, aftershocks and subsequent fires in 1861 that killed at least 5,000 people. The Plaza Mayor was almost completely destroyed and the Jesuit church (which had been converted to a Franciscan church based on Jesuit objection to slavery of the indigenous people) still has its skeleton on the corner of the property. (P.S. Go Jesuits!)

The remains of the original church in Plaza Mayor.

The St Francis Church has been rebuilt closer to the new center of Mendoza and features the late Pope John Paul II and a statue of the virgin at the altar.

Pope John Paul II in the new St Francis Cathedral

St Francis cathedral wall

Since I’m tangentially on a religious subject, there is a saint in Argentina that I find fascinating. She isn’t recognized by the Roman Catholic Church,but she has many followers in parts of Argentina and Uruguay. Difunta Correa (the Dead Correa) was Deolinda Correa who went to find her husband who was involuntarily conscripted into battle. She became aware that he was injured and she attempted to cross the desert with her infant son to find her spouse. Unfortunately, during the transit, she ran out of water and died. According to the legend, days later she was found deceased by passing gauchos (apparently one of the gauchos was also a forensic pathologist who determined the time of death 😊),BUT the infant son was alive and still feeding from her breast. Her body is buried at the shrine city of Vallecita, near San Juan, and supplicants pray to her. If their prayer is answered, they bring emblems to her grave at Vallecita (things such as their wedding dress, a scale model of their home, a model car, etc.) and leave her water. The hillside where she rests in peace is littered with water bottles to quench her eternal thirst. There are also roadside shrines to her of which we saw many in San Juan province and people leave water bottles there as well. She is the patron saint of gauchos and truck drivers and there is an annual festival attended by up to 200,000 people. It’s one of the weirdest legends I have heard, but apparently a significant number of Argentinians are into a dead woman. By the way, in theory, the baby boy survived and lived a long and obscure life. His mother’s experience is reflected in the poem at the beginning of this post. 

When the city was rebuilt around a series of city squares specifically designed to increase survival should there be more seismic activity. The squares are equidistant empty in the middle , except for a fountain or occasional statue and lined by tall trees to keep buildings from falling onto the square. They are large and have central space for people to escape falling buildings and to gather in an emergency. We visited several of the squares and they are the centers of social life.

Plaza Independencia lit up at night is now the main city square about a mile from the original Plaza Mayor. 

From here, we proceeded to the San Martin Park which is a huge city park with many features including sports stadiums, eco-park, a rowing club, a large lake and statues and trees galore. The crowning glory of the park is the hilltop featuring a huge statue commemorating the battle in which Argentina gained its freedom from Spanish rule called Cerro de Gloria. That was our goal, but we saw many beautiful sights in between.

The gates of the city park were manufactured in Scotland for a Saudi sheik who then decided he didn't want them. They were purchased from a surplus catalogue by the city of Mendoza

One of many park fountains. This one installed during the Victorian era was almost removed due to mermaid nudity

We saw these Patagonian mara in the park.

The view from Cerro de Gloria

One of two stadiums in the park

The huge statue commemorating San Martin's victory and independence for Argentina (and later Chile and Peru.)

The pirate has clouds in his coffee on Cerro de Gloria.

San Martin is a larger than life sort of figure for both Chile and Argentina, as like Simon Bolivar (whom he assisted) in the northern countries of South America, he is the liberator . Argentinians celebrate their independence day on July 9^th. San Martin was born in Malaga and educated formally, then moved to Argentina where he became involved in their war for independence. Along with several other generals and the Army of the Andes, they were able to wrest Chile and Argentina (once a single nation) out of the hands of the crown. For this victory, San Martin was offered the political leadership of Argentina, but declined it and instead, moved to the coast of France. (Sounds wise to me!). He died in northern France after living a reasonably long and subsequently battle-free life. I am pretty sure the dude was NOT welcome in his homeland of Spain.  This very large and complicated statue pays tribute to San Martin and the Army of the Andes. There were multiple sculptors involved, but the principal sculptor was Uruguayan. This stands on top of the highest hill inside of the city limits of Mendoza and at the pinnacle of the large San Martin city park. There is a walking path to help get you up or down the hill , as the area is inaccessible to buses (but passable to cars and taxis!)

Dining in Mendoza is a really enjoyable experience and there are many excellent foodie choices. Think Napa Valley in that there are many world class restaurants, some of which you’ll find in wine magazines like Wine Enthusiast (which the pirate subscribes to.)  Most of us think Mendoza and Malbec comes immediately to mind, but they are purveyors of many types of distilled grape juices and grow both standard Rhone and Burgundy crops as well as unique ones such as Bonarda. We chose to eat at a lovely restaurant called Azafran which started as a grocery store and grew into an amazing culinary experience in which there are many open bottles of small production, non-exported Mendozan wines in the restaurant and you are welcome to drink from any of them. Take our advice and let the sommelier pair with your food choices. You can’t go wrong. Another nice feature of Azafran is that they accommodate numerous dining styles--- You can have the elaborate mega-tasting menu, a six course tasting menu, or they allow you to pick any number of courses and they just charge by the number you choose. Paul and I did a three course menu each and then traded plates halfway through. We weren’t able to eat it all, mind you, but we enjoyed what we had.^th century and after World War II. Consequently, Italian food is all over nearly every menu and you can get a pizza and gelato on every corner. Crazy delicious fresh pasta dishes populate every restaurant menu. Which leads me to the last restaurant we ate in in Mendoza—Maria Antioneta. This is a very small establishment right next to our second hotel (more about that in a minute). This is house made pastas and antipasto at its finest in a quiet intimate setting and we highly recommend it.

Dessert wines at Azafran from small producers.

A couple of things that bear mentioning here are:1. Argentine restaurants imbue you with generous East Tennessee size portions. Amazingly, obesity doesn’t appear to be a major issue. But I guess they aren’t eating every night in Azafran. At any rate, no need to order too many courses unless you have a gargantuan appetite. 2.  Italian immigrants flooded Argentina both at the turn of the 20th century and after World War II. So nearly every town, even the smallest,  is flooded with Italian restaurants and every restaurant has pasta on the menu.

Carrot ravioli at Josefina restaurant. Yes, carrot. And it was yummy.

Squash and burrata salad

Which leads me to another observation about Argentina (subtitle A Not So Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Airport). We were supposed to leave and go to Buenos Aires by aircraft on July 5^th, but on the way to the airport, we were informed that the pilots of the national airline, Aerolineas Argentina, decided to strike and ground all flights into Buenos Aires. Since we are on a group trip and have 43 people, the airline could not promise accommodation for such a large group (We have 43 people in the tour group)…and no one knew when the strike would end. They did arrange an express bus —to take a 14 hour overnight bus ride! The pirate and I discovered we could fly out on Norwegian Air the next morning (early) , so we opted out of the bus ride from hell. Actually, most of the group enjoyed the ride (they got in after us the following morning) and stayed up all night partying with bottles of wine they bought in Mendoza.  Sounds like they had fun, but I don’t think Paul and I would fit in all that well with an all night wine party anyway. We gratefully slept in a nice hotel room (the Diplomat) and got to B.A. on a two hour flight. That said, airline strikes are not uncommon in Argentina and typically last 1-2 days and nearly always, for purposes of making a point to the government, are scheduled at the beginning of a long holiday weekend. So if you travelling to Argentina and it is near a holiday, we don’t recommend you use Aerolineas Argentina. Fortunately, we had the $ to take care of the problem, enjoyed an extra night in Mendoza and enjoyed a nice Italian meal. My pocketbook is a bit lighter , but all’s well that ends that way, right?

"But, of all the people I met in South America, the Argentines were the least interested in the outside world or in any subject that did not directly concern Argentina. They shared this quality with white South Africans; the seemed to imply that they were stuck at the bottom of the world and surrounded by savages."

 Paul Theroux

Paul's Ponderings:  Mendoza is a pretty impressive place and we had a great time there, with a sort of "bonus" due to the airline strike.     It's a lovely tree lined place, quite South American, and not as bustling or European as Buenos Aires.     We had some great meals in town as well.   

It was a bit cold the second day, but we wandered about to the tune of about 10 miles of walking and it wasn't too bad overall.    Lots of closed museums as it turned out, but we hit a winner on the one about the city founding.    Then it was up the big hill to see the San Martin monument which was a very impressive thing and then a walk back down to the hotel but through the giant park and the university campus.   

Mendoza is definitely a place I'd come back to!