Buenos Aires & Mendoza, Argentina
B U E N O S ∙ A I R E S
A R G E N T I N A
Empanadas and Wine. This basically sums up our time in Argentina so far!
Our first stop in South America was the beautiful city of Buenos Aires. It's a huge city, so we gave ourselves a week to explore and immediately fell in love with the culture, colors, food, and people.
We spent hours walking through the Cemetero de Recoleta. Danny's been to New Orleans, but it was much different than anything Hailey had ever seen. The cemetery offered so much uniqueness, history, and architecture around every corner.
Nearby, we walked through the Botanico Jardin de Buenos Aires. The park was beautiful and you almost forgot you were in the middle of a massive city. We've always been big fans of city parks and this one might make the top of our list.
Our favorite neighborhood in Buenos Aires was Palermo Soho. A young, lively area of restaurants, bars, cafes and shops. We got coffee drunk and walked through the graffiti covered streets.
San Telmo Flea Market is a must for anyone visiting Buenos Aires. Every Sunday vendors fill the streets with antiques, vintage clothes, artisan goods, and just about anything else you can think of. Yes, it’s touristy, but we wandered the market for hours, learning about Buenos Aires history and watching the locals drink a whole lot of matè (traditional caffeinated tea).
After a morning of bargaining, we stopped for empanadas at San Telmo Market and had our first experience with Provelenta (grilled provolone cheese) at Pulpería Quilapàn. There are no words, you just have to try it for yourself. Life changing, we promise.
We typically don’t eat a lot of red meat, but it’s nearly impossible to avoid in Buenos Aires. We’ll see how long we can embrace it!
Whenever we come across the touristy part of any city, we say we've been ‘Fisherman Wharf-ed’ (San Francisco's tourist trap). La Boca is the Fisherman Wharf of Buenos Aires. It was on our list of sights because it's where Tango originated, it’s colorfully painted, and the culture is supposed to be lively. Unfortunately, it desperately lacked the authenticity we were expecting…
Okay, back to what we do love about Buenos Aires - empanadas! We found out our friend Annie would be in Buenos Aires the same time as us, so we crashed her and her families empanada cooking class.
We made chicken and caprese empanadas and had wine tastings throughout the class. Annie's family, the Cheslin's, we're extremely nice and kept us entertained throughout the evening with their family’s hilarious sense of humor.
We left the busy city to visit Argentina's wine country, Mendoza. It's accurate to say we drank ourselves through the region for the few days we were there.
Five course lunch with a wine pairing at Casarena Bodega was our favorite. The beautiful view of the Andes from our table was impressive too!
Although we expected it to be much different from our (drunk) Sonoma shenanigans, we realized halfway through the lunch that we were the only table to finish all of our, very generous, tasting pours... I guess not much has changed.
We toured another winery near our hotel, but got side tracked once Danny realized they produce beer as well. We ended up learning about the bottling process and by the end of the tour, we were drinking a pale ale out of our wine glasses... Oh well!
At the third and final winery, we sat next to a Canadian family. They were living in Peru and on vacation in Mendoza. Their daughters loved Hailey and of course she loved them too. The region was beautiful, but our livers are thanking us for only three nights in Mendoza...
