Mendoza Malbec and Breathtaking Bariloche!

Yikes. I'm falling behind!

Tuesday November 4. Election day.

The big day had arrived and Nate said a little prayer for my fingernails, which were sure to endure a full day of biting. We grabbed coffee and impulsively tuned into cnn.com and nytimes.com. After a bit of perusing the relevant articles, we decided that we needed to distract ourselves or else we’d pull our hair out with election stress, a symptom that many New Yorkers I know have been afflicted with.

Distraction. Distraction. What do we do?

Mendoza is famous for wine. Very delicious quality wine. Neither Nate nor I had ever been on a wine tour, so what were we waiting for?

We set out at 2pm in a van full of tourists. First stop: A family-run, homemade chocolate/preserves/liquor shop. Upon entering the shop we got a bilingual explanation of each product in the four-person enterprise. They had everything from apple-whiskey preserves to absinthe to spicy eggplant spread. After we got the spiel, we sat down to put our tastebuds to the test. Even though we were impressed with the samples, we decided not to purchase anything.


Next stop: The Baudron winery. We tested the color, aroma and taste of a Chardonnay and a Cabernet Sauvignon. We felt so posh twirling our glasses and then holding them up to the light to inspect the hues. Mmmm… and the tasting! The best part!



We learned about the production of the red, rosé, and white wines, took some pictures, and proudly walked out with two bottles.




Next stop: An olive oil factory. Olive oil is not wine. And it’s certainly non-alcoholic. But it was interesting to learn about its production. And taste it. We bought an unfiltered bottle of olive oil, which was more flavorful and thicker than the oliveoilyoullfindinthesupermarket. Mmmm… olive oil lotion and exfoliater? Ya betcha.


Last stop: The Cavas de Don Arturo winery. This small winery named after its owner specialized in Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon. We walked through the production rooms and tasted some fabulous wine. One bottle was surely coming home with us.

I could feel my half-Asian face flush… and it wasn’t the heat from the midday sun. My mind tuned back to politics on the drive back to the hostel. My nails got shorter.

We ran into the hostel and flipped on BBC. The Irish and English couples who where on our tour popped open their new bottles of wine and definitely did not join us on the couch with our noses inches away from the screen. Baguettes and camembert went very well with our Malbec. It was 8pm local time, 6pm on the East Coast of the US. Polls started to close.

We kept checking in with CNN and New York Times on our laptops as our eyes and ears dodged back to BBC on the TV. I kept up-to-date with my personal correspondents in New York. It was a media explosion. The results trickled in as we trickled more wine into our glasses.

We ordered pizza when we realized that it’d be a long night. When Pennsylvania and Ohio went blue, I was ecstatic, but didn’t celebrate. Anything could happen. Plus, I hadn’t been doing the calculations all along, I didn’t know that there was no turning back.


It was 1am when the West Coast states closed their polls. It was a matter of minutes until California and then Washington were called for Obama. And that was it. It was over.



Uncontrollable tears welled up in my eyes. It was over. Obama had won. Perhaps the dirtiest presidential race was now behind us. McCain had stooped to every new low turning politics into a smearing game, choosing a running mate who didn’t know Africa was a continent, abandoning the ideals that he once stood for. He chose to focus on Obama’s middle name and affiliates of Obama who were involved in activities when he was 8 years old instead of on the economy. He painted the picture of Obama as naïve and inexperienced, but his running mate (the person who would become our president if something were to happen to him) had far less experience. She flounced around the stage saying very little about the issues at hand. We don’t need a hockey mom who appeals to the Joe Sixpacks to run our country. We need an intelligent individual with the knowhow to get this country back on track. And I’m proud to say, that the American public voted for such a person.

So many emotions were running through my mind. Most of them centered around relief and joy. Nate and I were the only two people awake in the hostel when Obama took the stage for his acceptance speech at 2am local time.

First paying his respects to McCain, Obama launched into his speech. Change is not going to be easy. Bush has left a giant mess on the table and does not seem capable (or willing) of cleaning up after himself. But I have full faith that with Obama in charge, we will be seeing some great things happen. I’m so excited.

Wednesday November 5.



Check out was at 10am. Our bus to Bariloche left at 8:00pm. That’s a long time. We ran some errands, cooked food, and lounged.



Another overnight bus. Always a blast.

Thursday November 6.

Woke up. Argentinean buses are pretty luxurious. Lots of ham and cheese sandwiches… and Styrofoam.

I have mixed feelings about Argentina. The country itself is beautiful, that’s for sure. Rolling fields, rainbow hills, breathtaking snow capped mountains. It is truly a pleasure to stare out the window. And the food is good. Best wines and steaks I’ve ever had. Life is comfortable. Teenagers sporting the latest trends. Shoe stores every couple of meters. Wide sidewalks. Plazas covered in trees and flowers and couples making out. Yummy icecream. But that’s it. It’s too comfortable. It’s too much like home.

I miss the markets. The kind you find in Dhaka or Fez or Trujillo or Saida. The open air markets with colorful stalls. Where great big mountains of fresh fruit and veggies sit side-by-side with recently slautered meat and old women selling bundles of various herbs with distinct medicinal purposes. The smells, the chaos, the sounds… the taste of hand-squeezed fresh orange juice for only a few cents/pesos/lira/soles/céntimos. It’s definitely not the cleanliness or hygene that keeps drawing me back, but the ambiance and energy. You meet the people who tilled the land and sowed the seeds for your food. You know the produce is fresh and organic. All of that is lost with large supermarkets. Sure, they’re convenient and cheep, but they remove you from the origins of your food. Instead of buying directly from the farmer, you’re buying from some pimply teenager who snaps his/her gum and processes your order apathetically. Where’s the fun in that?

Arriving in Bariloche means that we’ve crossed the invisible line into Patagonia territory. And it was evident from the unreal spectacular scenery. We opted for a local city bus that took us to the corner San Martin and Pagano. The elevator transported us to the 10th floor, Hostel 1004.

A beautiful place. Plants and draped fabric. Wireless internet and a gigantic spotless guest kitchen. Whew. I’m home!

(That picture is from the living room of the hostel!)


We visited the supermarket and Nate summoned a pack of dogs that followed us. Not just down the street, but for blocks. They were right at our heals! We tried to lose them, but they were persistent… until they found another dog to bark at. We took the opportunity to make a break for it.






Lunch and dinner were both quite tasty.