After a bumpy chicken bus ride, we finally arrived at the lake’s edge. The sun was just coming up and we were among the very few people there.

Open up the panorama to see Quilotoa Lake for yourself.

Panorama: Quilotoa Crater Lake, Ecuador

For best panorama viewing results, press fullscreen (four arrows) and navigate around with your mouse.

If you are staying in Chugchilan (we enjoyed Cloud Hostel), consider hiking back from Quilotoa Lake. The route is not very well marked as local guides conveniently pull out trail signs to create demand for their guide services. It still remains doable on your own without a guide. Ask your guest house to draw you a map and keep asking locals you meet along the way to be sure you are headed in the right direction.

An extremely satisfying day, and most definitely worth the early morning rise.

Articles About Ecuador

Ecuador, More Than Just the Galapagos Islands

8 Days in the Galapagos Islands: A Photo Tour

Dating Advice from Galapagos Birds

Gringo Monologues: Conspiracy Theories in the Valley of Longevity

More Photos from Ecuador

Quilotoa Loop – Saquisili, Zumbahua, Laguna Quilotoa

Northern Ecuador – Quito, Otavalo, Ibarra

Southern Ecuador – Cuenca, Vilcabamba and the Coast

Galapagos Islands: Highlights

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 14 comments

And those pentagonal designs you see on the ground? All natural. Mother nature’s design eye. Open the panorama below to see this surreal landscape for yourself.

Panorama: Salinas Grande (salt flats) in northwestern Argentina

For best panorama viewing results, press fullscreen (four arrows) and navigate around with your mouse.

Articles About Argentina

Audio Slideshow: Northwest Argentina, Road Trip Style

Argentine Food: Steak, Empanadas, Pizza, Pasta, Repeat

Wine Tasting in Mendoza, Argentina: Going Beyond Malbec and Loving It

Discovering Family in Argentina

More Photos from Argentina

Argentina, from North to South

A Look at Argentine Food

Patagonia Highlights

Road Trip Northwest Argentina

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 9 comments

The turquoise hue of Lake Pehoe in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile certainly falls into this category. Open up the panorama below to see for yourself.

Panorama: Lake Pehoe — Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

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Articles About Chile

A Hot Dog Hunt in Valparaiso

Torres del Paine Trek: 6 Days, 6 Lessons, Many Photos

Unspoken Patagonia

Offline in Patagonia

More Photos from Chile

Chile Travel Photos

Santiago Photos

Torres del Paine Trek

Valparaiso: Of Markets and Graffiti

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 10 comments

And although the selection of meats throughout Peru and Ecuador has (thankfully) expanded substantially, guinea pig remains a prized meal.

As part of a microfinance project we profiled in a village outside of Huancavelica, Peru, we took the opportunity to visit a local, yet fairly large-scale guinea pig farm. The rate at which guinea pigs multiplied here makes rabbits look tame. In the course of only a few months, the guinea pig population in the breeding center had expanded from a few dozen to over 1600. We tried to get our heads around the math and gave up.

After our guinea pig eating experience in Ecuador, we declined another offer even though our Peruvian friends insisted their cuy was much better than Ecuadoran cuy. Neighborly rivalries — even when it comes to guinea pig — run deep.

Panorama: Guinea Pig Farm in Huancavelica, Peru

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Articles About Peru

Keep Peru on Your Bucket List: Here’s Why

The Salkantay Trek: From Glaciers to Machu Picchu

Peruvian Food: More than Just Ceviche

Machu Picchu? Not Yet. A Slideshow of the Real Peru

More Photos from Peru

Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu

Incan Ruins of Machu Picchu

Microfinance in Mountains of Peru

Peruvian Cuisine

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 15 comments

Throw in a few parks, dramatic staircases, and a few of Quito’s impressive colonial churches like San Francisco Church below, and you’ve got yourself a visual that you just might never forget.

And no, that sky is not photoshopped.

Panorama: San Francisco Church in Quito, Ecuador

For best panorama viewing results, press fullscreen (four arrows) and navigate around with your mouse.

Articles About Ecuador

Ecuador, More Than Just the Galapagos Islands

8 Days in the Galapagos Islands: A Photo Tour

Dating Advice from Galapagos Birds

Gringo Monologues: Conspiracy Theories in the Valley of Longevity

More Photos from Ecuador

Galapagos Islands: Highlights

Quilotoa Loop – Saquisili, Zumbahua, Laguna Quilotoa

Northern Ecuador – Quito, Otavalo, Ibarra

Southern Ecuador – Cuenca, Vilcabamba and the Coast

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 16 comments

From move to move, continent to continent, the gaucho came with us everywhere my family went. He was an Argentine cowboy: proud, rugged, and weathered — much like the land and culture I imagined behind those wide sweeps of charcoal on handmade paper.

Fast forward several decades, and I finally had a chance to see Argentina for myself. I’ll never forget the gaucho on the wall, but now I carry with me images of a real-life gaucho — and all those hills, glaciers, red rock deserts, empanadas, wines and waterfalls to fill in the gaps.

Slideshow: Argentina from North to South

If you don’t have a high-speed connection or you’d like to read the captions, you can view our Argentina Photos, North to South photo essay.

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 16 comments

When we visited Argentina, we saved Mendoza, the country’s oldest and best-known wine region, for our last stop. Mendoza is one of those familiar names — it’s the epicenter of Malbec, Argentina’s most famous red wine varietal, and as the autumn harvest begins to fade into winter, the snow-covered Andes frame something simply stunning.

But there’s always hype, isn’t there? Due to feedback from other travelers, we’d tempered our expectations of Mendoza prior to our visit. In actual experience, we were pleasantly surprised to find not only some excellent wines but also some warm, passionate people working in the industry who were keen to open their world to us.

How did we do this? We took a three-pronged approach: seek out a tasting room for orientation, go deep with a public transport tour of Lujan de Cuyo, and wind things up on a bicycle down the wine roads of Maipu Valley. For sure, we’d taste Malbec, but we also went offbeat with Cabernet, Bonarda, Petit Verdot and Viognier, too.

Whatever you choose to do in Mendoza and wherever you choose to go, we offer this general bit of advice: show your curiosity, don’t be afraid of exposing your inexperience, ask lots of questions and always seek out tastings beyond the standard offer.

Note: Many wineries close down over the weekend. If your stay overlaps with a weekend, do your research or call in advance to be sure the winery you want to visit is indeed open.

1) An Orientation: Vines of Mendoza Tasting Room

When you first arrive in Mendoza, make a beeline to this place. With close to 100 wines by the glass served by savvy sommeliers, Vines of Mendoza Tasting Room is the place to go for an orientation on Mendoza wine regions, wineries, wines and varietals. However deep or broad you’d like to go, Vines of Mendoza is thorough and approachable.

Take a seat at the bar up close to the action, and let the fun begin.

In our experience, the bartender-sommeliers are what seal the experience. The ones we’d spoken to weren’t just trying to push the most expensive glasses of wine our way. They spoke intelligently and passionately, but never to the point of overdoing it. They had fun and so did we.

Tell them what you’re looking for in a wine and they’ll usually recommend three to four wines to try. If you ask nicely, they will give you small tasting of each (a sort of mini-flight) so that you can choose the one you like most. Buy a full, generously poured glass. You’ll be surprised; it’s often not the most expensive wine you’ll choose. The whole process works particularly well for couples and small groups.

On our first day, we were drawn to a Viognier, a white wine varietal. An unlikely pick in a country known mainly for its reds, but that Viognier (Lorca Poetico 2008, 40% oaked) would remain with us as one of our favorites. We made our way through various styles of Malbecs (we had to, didn’t we?) and we went further afield to Bonarda, a traditional blending varietal we’d become fond of.

The standard tasting flight costs 60 pesos ($15), while wines by the glass run from 15 pesos ($4) upwards to 80 ($20) pesos. Although flights offer an overview, wines by the glass (particularly those that happen to be on daily special) are ones that will likely leave a chop-licking impression.

Vines of Mendoza also hands out nifty maps of Maipu and Lujan de Cuyo which include recommended wineries and restaurants. The Vines of Mendoza staff will even give hints as to which vineyards to visit, depending on what type of wines you are looking to experience.

If you really adore a specific wine or winemaker, they can also arrange shipping around the world.

Address: Espejo 567, Mendoza; tel: +54 (261)4381031

Helpful Tips:
- Time your visits to Vines of Mendoza on Happy Hour evenings, from 7-9 PM which feature a 50% off list of select wines by the glass. Happy Hour days change (Wednesday and Saturday during our visit; last we heard, Tuesday and Friday), so call in advance to confirm.
- Visit the Vines of Mendoza location at the Hilton Mendoza on Thursday nights for all you can eat tapas and two glasses of wine for 45 pesos ($12). A terrific value — and an experience that left us feeling spiffier and more refined than we actually are.

Tasting highlights:

• 2006 Bonarda Marrena: red fruit and a hint of spice
• Sagre de los Andes, Malbec 2008: smoke, leather, flowers, even a faint essence of elastic bandages (we kid, sort of)
• Rothschild, Flecha de los Andes, 2008 Gran Malbec: mmm, chocolate
• Lorca Poetico, 2008 Viognier: fresh hints of citrus fruit, 40% aged in oak barrels, lending the wine body and firmness

2) Wineries in Lujan de Cuyo

Outside of Uco Valley, Lujan de Cuyo is the highest quality wine-growing sub-region in Mendoza. It’s also a place where a slew of mid- and high-end wineries operate. Although having a car will make things easier, it is possible to get to Lujan by public bus from Mendoza (just ask at your guest house or hotel). After the bus drops you off in town, things can get a bit tricky. This is where you’ll have to walk and ask questions for wineries in town, or hire a taxi to take you to the vineyards on the town’s outskirts.

If you plan to visit several wineries, our suggestion would be to hire a taxi for the day to drive you around as distances between wineries can be vast.

Among the Lujan wineries we visited below, all export wine abroad, with Alta Vista wines being the easiest to find in the U.S.

Achaval Ferrar
Achaval Ferrer is an example of one of the boutique high-end wineries emerging in this area. The Argentine owners came from backgrounds altogether different than wine (the cement business), but they decided to follow their passion. They understood their limitations and brought in talent from Italy and Argentina to craft the high-end wines they envisioned.

Achaval Ferrer operates vineyards in both Lujan and Uco Valleys, their wines drawing characteristics from old vines, distinct soil types and high-altitude climates — all of which find expression in a more subtle French style rather than the bold, fruit-forward one common to many Argentine wines. Achaval Ferrer wines are geared toward longevity and export, so the winemaker keeps alcohol levels low.

Achaval Ferrer seems also to be on the itinerary of big wine buyers and spectators (i.e., those with private drivers and deeper pockets), but the atmosphere was not at all stuffy. The hosts were very welcoming to two independent travelers like us who showed up at the door without a reservation. And there is a nice personal touch: one of the owners led us on the tour and through the tasting.

Tour and Tasting: Call ahead to make a reservation or find out when tours are scheduled. We lucked out and arrived five minutes before a tour was set to begin. English language tours are available. Our tour was free, but the Achaval Ferrer website now indicates that tastings cost $10.
Tasting highlights: Quimera Blend (Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot),
Contact information: Calle Cobos 2601, Pedriel (about 10 km outside Lujan de Cuyo), tel: +54 9 261 5 53 55 65 (Patricia Lambert)

Carmelo Patti
Running a one-man-show winery doesn’t leave much time for the details, including putting up a sign outside. But if you are looking for character, story and some unique quality wine, you’ll have to pay Carmelo Patti a visit. Just as we entered the courtyard, Carmelo walked out from a garage with a thief full of young Cabernet Sauvignon taken straight from the barrel. Without skipping a beat, he handed it to Audrey as if they’d been old friends: “Try it. It will be a good wine, but it needs time. Maybe another year or more.”

He was of course right in all respects.

As Carmelo explains it, his marketing is all boca a boca (word of mouth); it’s the quality of his wines and the energy of charismatic personality that has thrust his one-man operation into the pages of the major press and wine magazine circuit.

Even after working his whole life in the wine industry (and working very hard, if our visit was any indication), Carmelo Patti struck us as passionate as ever about wine. To age like this, the stuff of dreams.

Tour and Tasting: Free. Show up during the day and Carmelo will take you around the entire operation (he and his helper were cleaning the tanks from the crush when we arrived). Carmelo doesn’t speak much English, although he’s so friendly that we imagine language is hardly a barrier to non-Spanish speakers.
Tasting highlights: Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 ($17) – smooth, sophisticated, and very much a product of the soil the vines are grown in.
Contact information: San Martin 2614, Lujan de Cuyo, (0261)498-1379/155601020

Alta Vista
AltaVista was by far the largest of the wineries we’d visited that day. We arrived late and had seen more than our share of winery facilities that week. We skipped the tour and went straight for the tasting, which included four wines in the low and mid range of AltaVista’s vast offerings. This was OK, but we asked some questions to poke around the possibilities of tasting something else by the glass.

We’re glad we did.

Sensing our curiosity, our hostess told us about Los Escasos, a limited line of inexpensive estate wines. The line was a result of deliberate experimentation — winemakers had free range to create their dream wines. Each label was designed with a character to express the personality of the varietal inside. We were intrigued, but unfortunately the wine we wanted to try most – the Petit Verdot – was not on the wines-by-the-glass menu.

Sensing our disappointment, our hostess looked around, shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “What the heck?” and reached for the corkscrew.

She poured herself a glass as well. As she swirled it and took in the aroma, you could tell she was thoroughly enjoying herself. She confided with a smile, “This is a really unique wine, my favorite of the group. Good choice.”

Tour and Tasting: Standard tasting is 30 pesos. Tours available throughout the day.
Tasting Highlights:

• Terrior Selection, Malbec 2007: nice body and tannins, a good reliable Malbec
• Los Escasos Petit Verdot 2004: tropical, red fruit, lot of tannins, needs time to open
• Los Escasos Cabernet Sauvignon 2005: unique and fruity. We shared a bottle of this with a Mendoza-based caterer who prepares dishes expressly for wine-pairing. And judging by his reaction, he was quite impressed. Not bad for a $10 bottle.
• Alta Vista Temporal Blend 2007: tasty, well-balanced tannins and fruit ($15)

Contact information: Alzaga 3972, Lujan de Cuyo; Tel: +54 261 496 4684

Other wineries that were recommended to us, but we missed: Luigi Bosca, Lagarde.

3) A Leisurely Cycle-and-Taste in Maipu Valley

Biking from winery to winery, with tastings in between, is fun and oddly amusing. Keep in mind, however, that we recommend this more for the overall experience rather than the quality of many of the wines you’ll taste along this route.

The truth is this: because of the large quantity of travelers taking this route, tours and tastings can be crowded. We also found that many of the groups of travelers we ran into seemed more interested in the quantity of wine they could down, rather than the quality of wine they’d be exposed to. The wineries obviously understand this and many often serve their lowest quality stuff.

Can you really blame them?

So if you have a sincere interest in wine tasting and getting a better feel for the wines in Maipu, ask for a wines-by-the-glass menu (often reasonably priced), allow the crowds to scatter, and enjoy a taste or two of something a bit higher quality.

Whatever wineries you choose to visit on your biking path, consider stopping off at Tempus Alba for lunch. Their rooftop restaurant features a nice view of the vineyards, a calm atmosphere and a rather excellent lamb burger and steak sandwich.

Order a tasting flight to go along with your meal and enjoy a nice break (we particularly enjoyed the Tempus Pleno — a Cabernet-Malbec blend — and a rather unusual Malbec Rose). Beware though; you may not be able to leave without a barrage of kisses and hugs from Christian, one of the winemakers.

Uco Valley
If we had more time in Mendoza, we would have gone to Uco Valley (and probably done so first). It’s a bit further afield, but because of the high altitude, wines made from grapes grown here are said to generally be among the best that Mendoza has to offer.

Rent a car or driver for the day or book tickets on the Bus Viniviticola that visits several wineries in the course of the day for 100 pesos ($25).

—-

Mendoza could indeed keep you for weeks with its collection of wineries and wine bars. Even if you only have a couple of days, you can still get a solid overview and taste of some excellent wines. And the whole experience just might change the way you think about the sophistication and diversity of Argentine wines.

In fact, you may just find that there’s more to Mendoza than Malbec.

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 21 comments

I was so excited in fact that I told anyone headed to Chile that they must visit Valparaiso, if only for the hot dogs. I even remember writing about it with urgency on a friend’s Facebook wall when I heard she was flying into Santiago. “Go to Valparaiso for the avocado-topped hot dogs. Best in Chile,” I said, my hot dog excitement getting well ahead of me — and the fact that I had little to no basis to make this recommendation.

I was on a mission. And I would make it everyone’s mission.

And oddly enough, I don’t even really like hot dogs.

Fast forward a few months and we finally arrive in Santiago. We’re hanging out with our virtual-now-real life friends, Eileen and Margaret, and I mention my in-mind Valparaiso hot dog obsession.

Confused looks.

Keep in mind that these gals know Chile, having lived there for something like (I hope I’m getting this right), 7 and 20 years respectively. So you could say, they know the place well.

Shoulder shrugs. Valparaiso had hot dogs just like anywhere else in Chile. But my hopes of a Chile dog to beat all dogs? Temporarily dashed.

We day-tripped to Valparaiso anyway. But it was sketchy, a dangerous sort of place to look for hot dogs.

We’d been warned of Valparaiso, perhaps most so by the people on its streets. Passers-by would eye our cameras and bag and point — no, not to steal them, but to suggest that we should put them away so that no one else would. As we walked into the hills above Plaza Sotomayor, just about every person we passed pointed up in the direction we were headed, shook their heads and said something to the order of “Peligroso.” (Dangerous.)

As we climbed further still, a crazy guy shook his arms, did something like a rain dance, shouted “Police, police!” and drew his finger across this throat. Against our better judgment, we climbed further still.

Suffice to say, we survived to discover a fascinating neighborhood, one of Valparaiso’s many.

But no hot dogs.

Valparaiso is a port town, with a down-at-the-heels underbelly feel to it. But well beyond that, it has a spirit. It’s offbeat and wickedly artistic with its knock-your-socks-off street art. The people on the streets and at Mercado Cardinal, one of Valparaiso’s fresh markets, were warm and colorful. The photos in the slideshow below tell it best.

And although we had only one day, we enjoyed our visit immensely. For its aesthetic and most of all for its people, Valparaiso stands as one of my South America favorites.

Photo Essay of Valparaiso, Chile

If you don’t have a high-speed connection or want to read the captions, you can view the photo set here.

But wait a minute. You dragged me through this sketchy, charismatic city, but I signed up for a piece about hot dogs. What gives? I want hot dog intelligence.

As it happens, we got our Chilean hot dog fix at La Vega market in Santiago. Logs of pure mystery meat (as hot dogs apparently ought to be) were smothered in rich, creamy avocado, mayonnaise and chopped tomato salsa. Chile does in fact take hot dogs to a new culinary level (this, from a kid who grew up on deli dogs and Texas wieners with chili and mustard in Scranton, Pennsylvania). So in my limited hot dog experience, Chile delivered the best dog in Latin America. (Yes, yes Brazil, I know you’ve got something mad and over-the-top, too. But, that’s for our next visit.)

Hot dog trivia: any guesses why the avocado, mayonnaise and tomato-topped hot dog is called a completo Italiano?

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 41 comments

So when we rented a car with friends and drove around northwestern Argentina for a week, we made sure to spend a little time sampling the local vintage in Cafayate. The outskirts of town is flush with vineyards while Cafayate itself is scattered with tasting rooms.

Torrontes: A Nice Surprise
While Mendoza is known for its Malbec and Patagonia for its Pinot Noir, Cafayate is known for Torrontes, a white wine varietal closely identified with the region. Upon first sniff, the Torrontes aroma is virtually unmistakable. Jasmines, peaches, roses and bits of citrus hints are so aromatic and fresh that you might be tricked into thinking you are about to drink something sweet. The result: something understated and dry.

Refreshing and unique, Torrontes is fast becoming one of the new adored babies of the wine tasting world.

Wine Tasting and Winery Visits in Cafayate
Although Cafayate is experiencing a bit of a tourism boom and appearing on more and more itineraries these days, there’s still a markedly laid back feel to it. When we approached the local tourism office, we found a woman half asleep at a table outside the office kiosk in main square. We inquired as to wine tasting opportunities; she laboriously lifted her index finger and pointed to a faded photocopy list of wineries and tasting schedules taped to a side window of the kiosk.

Sun-bleached and dated, the paper didn’t look very reassuring. So we coaxed a winery map from her and she was kind enough to note wineries nearby that offered daily tastings.

Here’s what we found.

1. Bodegas Etchart
One of the largest and oldest wineries in the area with production dating back to 1850. Although the facilities are imposing, the tour and tasting makes Bodegas Etchart worth a stop. Their standard tastings don’t feature any of their reserve wines, but you’ll have the opportunity to understand the Cafayate approach to winemaking and sample several wines made from an array of grape varietals.

If you arrive at the same time as a large group of locals (as we did), ask for a tour in English and you’ll likely be treated to a more intimate personal tour.

Cost: Free
Location: Route 40, KM 1047 (south of Cafayate). A couple of kilometers outside of town towards Quilmes. Rent a bike, walk or take a taxi.
Times: Monday-Friday: 9-12, 13-17, tours start at 13:15, 14:15, 15:15; Saturdays: 9-12
Highlights: Cafayate Reserve Torrontes 2009. Light and fruity aroma like a Gewurtzteminer, but a dry and bodied taste.
Malbec: OK, but not aged in Oak
Cafayate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon: More body & tannen
(Note: Some of these lines change names and labels for export)

2. Bodega Nanni
A small, organic winery that runs its winemaking operations right in the middle of the town of Cafayate. Our friends in Salta had introduced us to Nanni wines and we were curious to taste more.

Cost: 5 pesos, but if you buy a bottle this can be used toward a purchase. Note: Nanni offers the option to take a tour, taste wines or both.
Location: Silverio Chavarria 171, Cafayate (a few blocks from the main plaza)
Times: 14:30 – 18:30
Highlights: The Rose was the best of the tasting. The Tannat is also good and unusual.

3. El Transito
The night before visiting El Transito, we purchased a bottle of their Pietro Marini Malbec from a local wine shop (yes, we were somewhat drawn by the old man on the label) and had really enjoyed it.

So we decided to pay the winery a visit to see what else they offered.

We asked about the man on the label and were told that this was indeed Pietro Marini, the great-grandfather of the current owner of the winery. He had come to Argentina from Italy in the late 19th century and built a winery in Cafayate. He obviously remains an inspiration as his image is just about everywhere in the winery and on its labels.

While we enjoyed some of their wines, the tasting was so stingy as to almost be absurd. It would have been impossible to pour any less into our glasses. And, when we asked about tasting reserve wines — even offering to pay for a glass – our request was met with a stiff, resolute “not possible.”

Cost: Free
Location: Belgrano 102, Cafayate
Times: 9-13:00, 15-20:00
Tasting highlights: Our favorite here is the 2007 Pietro Marini Malbec. Smooth, nice fruit and a decent finish for a relatively inexpensive bottle. The 2007 Cabernet, while not quite on the level of the Malbec, exhibited even more fruit.

We bought the oaked (Roble) Malbec-Cabernet Sauvignon blend at the tasting room out of curiosity and found it disappointing and flat in comparison to the unoaked Malbec. Another lesson in “Never judge a wine by its price.”

4. El Porvenir
We had tried a bottle of El Porvenir wine the week before with our friends in Salta and thought it was excellent. The 2005 Amauta Cabernet Merlot blend is one of the best wines for the money ($10) and one of the best we’d tasted during our time in Argentina.

While at the tasting room, we chose to skip the tasting – the price was high (more than $20 for the two of us) and the ambiance was non-existent. Instead, we bought a bottle of the 2006 Amauta Cabernet Merlot blend, which didn’t quite live up to the beauty of its 2005 predecessor.

A few weeks later we ran into a French couple working in the wine industry and they highly recommended a wine tasting at El Porvenir, indicating that only its highest quality and reserve wines are served. Based on the reliability of their other recommendations (in Mendoza), next time we’ll be sure to incorporate an El Porvenir tasting into our itinerary as a splurge.

Cost: 40 pesos
Location: Córdoba 32, Cafayate
Times: 10-13, 15-18:00
Tasting highlights: Amauta, Laborum.

Other Wineries:
Bodega San Pedro de Yacochuya: The original family behind Bodegas Etchart. We’re told the trick is to book in advance to enjoy a wine tasting lunch with the family.

—

Touring Wineries in Cafayate: The Upshot
Cafayate offers the opportunity to learn about and taste its wines without the logistical headache of coordinating a lot of transport. Get a map from the tourist office and plan your own little wine route. If you have a rental car, you can visit some wineries in the countryside. And if not, there are more than enough tasting opportunities in town.

Either way, retire with an order of empanadas in the evening and your favorite bottle from the day.

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 18 comments

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 it for me from a simple letter into a welcome to a part of my family I hadn’t known before: the Argentine side.

Author’s note: Our visit to Argentina was months ago, so why am I writing about this now? With the holidays coming, I began to reflect on tradition, family and what it means to be “far away.”

My Soccer-Loving, Mate-Drinking Grandma
When I was growing up, there were a few things that made my grandma different from other grandmas. She wasn’t just the cutest grandma in the world, one that I called Oma. She really was a little different, in a good way.

During my visits with her in the suburbs of Philadelphia, she would drink this bitter herbal tea out of a hollow gourd using a funny sieve-like metal straw. Whenever I tasted it, I’d wince, and she’d laugh, “It’s just something you have to grow up with to like.”

This was mate: an Argentine beverage, an Argentine social institution.

She was also an avid soccer (football) fan, seeking it out on television whenever she had the chance. During my soccer games as a kid, she was usually the only grandma in attendance, cheering away on the sidelines. More than that, she actually knew something about the game.

She had a cute little accent, too. I didn’t pay much attention to it when I was growing up. After all, this was just how my Oma spoke. But her letters to me – written in English – were always flawless. I later found out this was thanks to my grandfather, a journalist and editor. Only when he was no longer able to edit did I begin to notice some grammar mistakes creeping into her letters.

All of this is a long way of saying: Oma grew up in a different culture, somewhere far from the United States.

A Gardener from Switzerland
Like many good stories of family history, this one begins with a man on a boat.

My great-grandfather was a gardener born and raised in Switzerland. In search of economic opportunity (Switzerland wasn’t always the land of abundance that it is today) for him and his fiancée, he boarded a boat from Europe to Argentina in the early 1900s.

Why Argentina? Family lore says that he couldn’t afford a visa to the United States; Argentina was the next best alternative within reach.

Aboard the ship, he happened to meet the owner of the Eden Hotel, a luxury retreat for the European elite tucked into the hills outside Cordoba, Argentina in a small town called La Falda. It was the sort of place where royalty vacationed for months on end and guests were allotted their own horse and stable.

With that conversation, he secured himself a position. My great-grandmother came over from Switzerland to get married and start a life together in Argentina. He worked for years as a landscaper and gardener and built a family home only a few blocks away from the hotel.

From Buenos Aires to the World
Years later, the family moved to Buenos Aires so as to provide more educational opportunities for the children. My grandma, the youngest of five, was born there.

When we visited Buenos Aires, I emailed Oma to ask about where she grew up. She responded instantly with an address, one apparently embedded in her permanent memory.

We took a trip there to see her old family home in Villa del Parque, a quiet, almost suburban, neighborhood in Buenos Aires. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for her to grow there in the 1930s.

A lot has changed: the family home has since been divided into apartments and a typical stand-alone Buenos Aires neighborhood has filled in around it. My grandmother could barely recognize it at all from the photos.

Her walk down memory lane with me included the church where she was married. She’d met a young Lutheran pastor from New York State who had just undertaken his mission, my grandfather. The Lutheran community in Catholic Argentina was quite small: they met at a church function, dated and married in Buenos Aires. A few years later in nearby Rosario, my mother was born.

When my mother was still a toddler, the family moved to the United States. They’d move further still to India and then to Switzerland before again returning to the U.S. All the while, my grandmother was still close with her family. Wherever she was in the world, she’d find a way to return to Argentina every few years for a visit.

From Buenos Aires + Family = Asado
When you find yourself, like me, saddled with American-style inhibitions, contacting people who are technically family but with whom you have no active relationship can feel a bit awkward, to say the least.

But here’s the thing about family in this part of the world: if you’re family, you’re family. My Argentine family roots are of Swiss origin, but the family structure is decidedly Latin: big families (4-5 kids each) who live near one another and see each other regularly (as in every weekend).

Our first encounters with family in Buenos Aires were in the midst of large family events: twenty people or more, spanning four generations. Everyone gathered together on the weekend for an asado, the traditional Argentine barbecue: long afternoons, relaxation, astounding amounts of meat, and wine to wash it all back.

While I love my family dearly, I should say that I could not imagine living down the street from them and barbecuing every weekend. So it is that I developed a new respect for the close-knit nature of family in Argentine culture. I also began to imagine and appreciate how difficult it must have been for my grandmother to leave Argentina and to be separated from her family all these years.

Then I looked at our own lives in contrast, one that we have deliberately chosen: living thousands of miles away from our families. To all my Argentine kin, it must have seemed so foreign, so uprooted.

Full Circle: Family in La Falda
A few weeks later in La Falda, my mom’s cousin Chango invited us to an asado at his home, the same one my great-grandfather the gardener had built decades before. Just next door stood an adorable a-frame house that was built for a great aunt. It was home to another distant relative. On the outside it read Omi, similar to the name my brother and I called our own grandma (Oma).

As my family plied us with more meat — asado style (they told Dan he really could do with a few more kilos and did their best to act on it immediately) — we recounted our lives in broken Spanish. At the same time, we admired the family, the crowd and the fluidity between them all. We sketched family trees in our heads, drawing connections between the vast network of cousins, second cousins, boyfriends, girlfriends, children, stepchildren and everyone in between.

No more family awkwardness.

Later that evening, Chango took us to see the old Eden Hotel. These days, it stands quite sadly in ruins — a shell of its former grand self, a monument to a bygone era. An era when there was a horse for each guest, and a man came from Switzerland to tend a garden in Argentina.

As we looked out from the balcony onto the grounds, the sun drew down over a spread of hulking trees with deep roots uplifted. Chango observed, “Your great-grandfather planted many of these.”

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 20 comments