November 2018: Mendoza, Argentina

What better way to end a 2+ week trip to South America than visiting the vineyards of Mendoza, Argentina??? As much as I was excited to go to Patagonia, I was also really looking forward to enjoying the gastronomical forces of Mendoza.

How to Get to Mendoza, Argentina

• From NYC? Super easy! Fly direct to Buenos Aires (EZE) and then book another flight to Mendoza from the domestic airport (AEP). The flight between Buenos Aires and Mendoza is about three hours or less.

• From Patagonia? Do a ton a of research! We really had to coordinate this carefully as there are not that many flights out of El Calafate. In addition, within Argentina, many flights require a stop in Buenos Aires before venturing onto another city, even if the city is not in the same direction as BA. Quite annoying but I think it’s just the way their infrastructure is. At the beginning of planning our trip for November back in June, I remember seeing a LATAM flight at around 4 pm on a Saturday leaving from El Calafate to BA, and then to Mendoza. A few days later, that flight completely disappeared!! And never returned (I checked again as our trip got closer). So we ended up booking with Aerolineas Argentina again, which was really great and on time throughout our trip. Since we knew we were going to be in El Chalten a few days, we needed to plan our trip to Mendoza carefully. We ended up booking a 2:15 pm Saturday flight out of El Calafate to Buenos Aires EZE, arriving at 5:10 pm. We then had to transfer to the AEP airport and then catch an 8:20 pm flight from AEP to Mendoza, getting in close to 11 pm. We had no other choice because there were NO flights that we could book from El Calafate to Mendoza (via BA) on Sunday, the next day. Initially we were going to try to do two full days (Thurs + Fri) in El Chalten, then leave super early in the morning to go to Perito Moreno glacier and then get dropped off at the airport by 12:30 pm. However, we ended up going to the glacier on Friday and then taking our time to get to the airport on Saturday. I’m glad we ended up doing this as we wanted to enjoy visiting the glacier and not feel rushed. In addition, getting from EZE to AEP was smoother this time around as there was no rush hour traffic when we left EZE at 5:30 pm. We made it to the airport just after 6, with time to grab dinner and check in.

Where to Stay in Mendoza

There are three main areas people generally stay in Mendoza:

1. Mendoza City Center - you can stay here and take buses or hire a driver to take you around to the vineyards

2. Lujan de Cuyo - This area is just about 20 minutes from the city with many vineyards concentrated around here

3. Valle de Uco - This area is about an hour away from the city with a ton of newer vineyards and I recommend staying out here to be closer to the Andes Mountains and hire a private driver!

On our first night, we stayed at the Sheraton Hotel in Mendoza since we were there really just to sleep. After days of backpacking/roughing it a bit, it was nice to stay in a true hotel! The Sheraton is the tallest building in the city with a 360 degree view of the city from its restaurant.

The rest of the time we stayed at Postales Valle de Uco, a small, intimate boutique hotel which helped us organize our taxi driver and vineyard visits.

A very important thing to know when planning Mendoza is to do your research on which places you want to hit up! I didn’t know this until a few weeks before we left but most of the vineyards are either closed on Sunday or Monday, and we were there from Sunday to Wednesday! Luckily I was still able to organize a decent itinerary but it was a bit stressful trying to coordinate it all. You should also double check/request the tours are given in English, if you want to do a tour in addition to the tasting. I believe that Valle de Uco tends to be closed on Mondays while Lujan de Cuyo tends to be closed on Sundays. Not all vineyards are closed on these days, but most seem to be when I was checking. And just because something is stated on a website doesn’t mean it’s true, so always call or email yourself to ask (Bodega Andeluna and your Sunday sunset wine tastings, I’m looking at you).

Valle de Uco is a newer wine region, having being discovered and built upon 15-20 years ago and many more continue to be built today. Most are foreign investors from Europe but they’re all different and each vineyard also has unique architecture/history to it.

Almost all the views at all the vineyards were like this—so beautiful! This is from Alpasion.

The Bodegas

Bodegas means a wine a shop or a cellar, not just your local NYC small grocery store! The suggestion is to visit only 3 vineyards a day, and go out to a dinner at night. Definitely make a reservation a month or two before you go, especially if you’re staying on a weekend. Sometimes a credit card was necessary to hold a meal reservation but not always. Our Mendoza itinerary was as follows:

Sunday

• Lunch at Bodega Lagarde in Lujan de Cuyo

• Transfer to Postales Valle de Uco hotel from Sheraton Hotel

• Dinner at Alpasion in Valle de Uco

Monday

• Morning visit to Bodega Monteviejo in Valle de Uco

• Lunch at O. Fourniers in Valle de Uco

• Pool time at Postales and dinner at the hotel

Tuesday

• Morning visit to Bodega La Azul in Valle de Uco

• Lunch at Bodega Andeluna in Valle de Uco

• Afternoon visit to Bodega DiamAndes in Valle de Uco

• Dinner at the Vines Resort in Valle de Uco

Wednesday

• Morning visit to Bodega Dominio del Plata in Lujan de Cuyo (also known as Susana Balbo)

• Extra visit to Carmelo Patti in Lujan de Cuyo [Note: we did NOT have rsvps here—we called up that morning last minute to see if we could swing by and he squeezed us in! Tastings are free; this guy basically makes wine out of his home and loves to share it]

• Head to airport for 3:30 pm flight back to Buenos Aires

Other Notes

I had made a rsvp at Bodega Melipal but I got my dates mixed up! So didn’t get to go but that was a place I wanted to try as well. I made a back up rsvp for lunch at Bodega Norton in Lujan de Cuyo but we were so full from eating basically the same menu every day we ended up skipping this on Wednesday.

View from Bodega Monteviejo

Of all the vineyards we visited, these were my favorites, ranked:

Best All Around Vineyard: Bodega Lagarde

This was our first vineyard that we visited and coincidentally the most we bought wine to take home from. The grounds here are beautiful, the food was fresh and delicious, and the wines were fantastically drinkable. I bought three different wines from here, and they also had some deals going on which we took advantage of (like if you buy 4 bottles you get another for free, so we split up the deal). I would say most of the vineyards we visited, we can’t buy the wine here in the USA which is why we made sure to buy our favorites. I was worried if I bought too much right away I wouldn’t have room in my luggage but the wines from this bodega were my favorite of the trip. Lunch with wine pairings came out to about 2325 pesos per person (I think one of us had a premium tasting which we shared).

Best Lunch: Bodega Andeluna

Although the food at Bodega Lagarde was good, the lunch at Bodega Andeluna was even better! The salad tasted like it fell from spring and the steak was perfectly cooked at medium rare. The restaurant and vineyard is also gorgeous, but I like the intimate feeling of Lagarde (the servers were generous with their pours!) as a best all-around. Andeluna is tops for their menu though, which also included a fresh fish and other items. Lunch with wine pairing was 1675 pesos per person.

View of the Andes from O.Fournier

Best Architecture: O.Fourniers

I didn’t get a picture of it but I loved the buildings at O.Fourniers. They look like spaceships set amongst the Andes Mountains. The restaurant we ate at here was also nice and worth visiting, sitting atop a man-made pond.

Best Part of a Conglomerate: Bodega Monteviejo

Bodega Monteviejo is a grand winery, one of the most popular ones from the Clos de Siete group, which owns 6 vineyards around Valle de Uco. Bodega DiamAndes is also part of this group and though the vineyard was grand and fancy, I didn’t enjoy the wines as much. DiamAndes wines seemed heavier, more full-bodied which I’m not a fan of. Monteviejo had a few nice wines and I still regret not buying a inky Malbec we tried.

Wine in the shade at Bodega La Azul

Best Boutique Vineyard: Bodega La Azul

Bodega La Azul is the only Argentinian/locally-run winery in Valle de Uco. The family has owned the land for years and it was started by a female. We sat in the shade as we listened to the history of this beautiful place. I read that the food here is also great but their reservations for lunch were full so we only got to do a tour. Very intimate and you can also buy jarred fruit/garlic (garlic is plentiful in this region). Bodega Dominio del Plata is also run by a woman and was a nice visit as well, though it’s not small by any means! It’s the total opposite and Susana Balbo is well-known internationally for her wines.

Bringing outside in, at Bodega DiamAndes

Best Dinner: The Vines Resort and Spa

If I had the money I would definitely stay here next time! This resort is gorgeous and looks like a Caribbean hotel that was plopped down in the middle of the Andes Mountains. We wanted to use the spa here but it’s reserved for guests only. However, you can come for dinner which I highly recommend! The chef is well celebrated and this was the best meal of our Mendoza trip. They don’t have their own wine as some hotels might so we ordered a bottle of Solo Contigo, which is another local wine and after trying it I wish we had known about this vineyard as I loved it and would have loved to take a bottle home! The menu here has a lot of steak options and I had the grilled wagyu-styled steak which was excellent.

The Vines Resort & Spa

You haven’t had Malbec unless you have it in Argentina!!! Highly recommend a trip out to Mendoza, especially if you have a penchant for gastronomy and art.

Getting Around Mendoza

Our hotel hooked us up with a local driver who lives in the Valle de Uco region. He doesn’t have an online presence but was super reliable at affordable prices (if you’re in a group). He charged us about 3000 pesos a day if we visited 3 vineyards (they wait for you while you’re there) and 2000 pesos if we went out to a nearby dinner in the area. Almost every vineyard took us btwn 20-40 minutes to get tp (on avg. it was mostly 30 min). and we paid cash for all our taxi rides. He also charged us 3500 pesos to pick us up from the Sheraton to get to Valle de Uco and on the way back, it was 4500 pesos because we also went to a couple of vineyards and then to the airport. At the time of our visit the exchange rate was $1 USD = 35 pesos. He was reliable and we were never late to get to anywhere.

If interested in using him please feel free to contact me at [girlfromny] at gmail and I’m happy to share his info!

View from Bodega Andeluna

November 2018: El Perito Moreno Glacier Trip Report

El Perito Moreno Glacier or Glacier Grey?

When I was planning this trip to Patagonia, I totally planned on skipping El Perito Moreno Glacier. I’ve seen quite a few glaciers already—I did a glacier ice hike in New Zealand at Franz Josef, I’ve seen different glaciers in Alaska, and visited one in Iceland. In addition, a few people I spoke with said Glacier Grey was more interesting than El Perito Moreno. However, one of my friends I traveled with had never seen glaciers before and wanted to see both and now I’m glad I did. Having seen both, I would recommend visiting both. They’re similar, but different experiences and in my opinion, here’s why:

• Glacier Grey is enormous. There’s three front-facing sides to it and it’s a grand ice field. It’s wider in scale and scope compared to El Perito Moreno.

• El Perito Moreno is taller. While it’s also pretty large, it’s not as majestic as Glacier Grey but the height is noticeable.

• Glacier Grey you can see on a boat excursion, which is longer than Perito Moreno’s boat tour. If you do this boat tour, you do NOT need to do the one at Perito Moreno.

• The boat ride at Perito Moreno is pretty boring as it only goes back and forth one side of the glacier (whereas in Glacier Grey you visit all three sides).

• The platform viewing boardwalks at Perito Moreno is a GREAT way to experience the scope of the glacier and to be above the glacier itself.

• Hence, if you have time, visit both. Do the boat tour and glacier hike at Glacier Grey, and do the platform viewing boardwalks at Perito Moreno Glacier. If you only have time to do one, you’re not missing out too much on the other one.

Getting to El Perito Moreno Glacier from El Chalten

So, I can’t offer much advice in terms of public transportation as we took a private transfer service with our lodge, Aires del Fitz. The owner also runs his own car service operation so you can contact him for that separately. Initially we were going to do a side excursion to El Perito Moreno Glacier in the morning before we flew out to Mendoza in the afternoon but we were worried about not having enough time to enjoy the glaciers so we ended up going on our 2nd full day in El Chalten (since we didn’t do any more hikes).

The roads from El Calafate and El Chalten are SMOOTH. I read before the trip that it was bumpy with lots of potholes but maybe that was a long time and they’re repaired? I didn’t find the travel to be difficult at all. In the private transfer, it took us 2 hours and 15 minutes between the two towns. From El Calafate, it’s about another 30-45 minutes to El Perito Moreno Glacier Park. Once you reach the first entrance though, the road and speed limit is bumpier and slower.

The entrance fee as of Nov. 2018 was 600 pesos cash per person. The boat tour runs almost every hour and is another 600 pesos (which you can pay with credit card). The boat tour sells tickets in a booth close to the shuttle buses that take you to the top of the boardwalk platforms.

We left El Chalten at 8:45 am and with one bathroom rest stop, we arrived at El Perito Moreno Glacier at 12:30 pm. We immediately booked tickets for the 1 pm boat tour, which is around the corner from the cafeteria on site. The boat tour was ok; we had just been on one a few days earlier at Glacier Grey so this ride seemed like a repeat for us. Totally skippable either way, unless you just really want to go on a boat tour!

Since we rushed to get on the boat tour, we did the rest of the day wrong! The boat starts where the boardwalk ends, but we thought that’s where the boardwalk begins so walked UP on the platforms. The right/better way to do it is to take the free shuttle buses up to the top of boardwalk platforms and work your way all the way down. Since we realized this too late (we only had 4 hours here and one hour went to the boat tour, the 2nd hour went to eating lunch, so we only had two hours on the platform), we just kept going up the platforms.

However, I loved how close you get to the glacier and the view when you get close to the top is beautiful!

View from higher up on the boardwalk platforms

We did hear the ice calving a few times as well which was nice. We would hear calving every 10 minutes or so. We left at 4:30 pm and got back to El Chalten close to 8 pm (there was a bit more traffic thru El Calafate than in the morning).

I do wish we had more time to navigate the platforms as we definitely did not experience all of it. I don’t think we missed that much but if we had 3 hours instead of 2, that would’ve been perfect.

The Wall. Where art thou, Jon Snow?

November 2018: El Chalten Recap

El Chalten

Everyone I spoke with prior to the trip said I HAD to visit El Chalten, Argentina too, which is about two hours northwest of El Calafate. Most people either start with El Chalten before going to Torres del Paine or vice versa. I’m glad we did Torres del Paine first!

Quite a few people feel El Chalten is similar/more beautiful than Torres del Paine. I think it really depends on what weather you’re having as I think both are very similar to each other! Mt. Fitz Roy at El Chalten is the inspiration for the Patagonia logo, by the way, but to me, it looks very similar to the Blue Towers except the jagged mountain is on the left overlooking a beautiful lake while the Towers are on the right.

Anyway at this point of our trip we were so exhausted from hiking that we did not attempt to hike to Mt. Fitz Roy. Instead we opted for the easier hike, going to Cerro Torre.

However, let me backtrack first and discuss how we got from Puerto Natales to El Chalten.

Getting from Puerto Natales to El Chalten via El Calafate

We took the same bus back from the way we came, hopping on with Cootra. I had a small mishap before we got on the bus though—we were in the taxi going from our hotel to the bus terminal in Puerto Natales (a very short ride) when I realized I forgot an important bag (it was my daypack with some personal effects) at the hotel! Thankfully I realized this before I got out of the cab and so the driver took me back but he definitely overcharged me for the ride (should’ve been like 2000 pesos but he asked for 5000! But honestly this is like a $3 difference, but still). Had I not realized it before we got out of the taxi, I may have been screwed as the bus terminal was really busy and there were no free taxis.

Anyway, the bus left at 7:30 am on a Wednesday morning and it was nice to get the border crossing over with at the beginning of the ride. We arrived in El Calafate at 1:30 pm and waited for our private transfer to pick us up. I had booked us lodging at Aires del Fitz, which is family owned and has just 4 rooms. The guy who owns/operates it lives on the property and built out other units for rent. He also offers transfer services for reasonable prices so we just booked with him to pick us up from El Calafate to El Chalten. The roundtrip price for 4 of us $300 USD, so about $75 pp. I don’t think this was significantly more than the bus, but also the bus schedule is limited so this made sense for us to do. We found the roads to be quite paved (prior to going I heard there were a lot of potholes but maybe they fixed the roads?) and it took us about 2 hours and 15 minutes to get in between the two towns.

El Chalten is tinier than El Calafate but has as similar vibe—laid back, lots of bars and restaurants. A couple of friends did laundry in town here as well (very cheap) and the weather here was incredibly fickle. About 15 minutes after the above picture was taken, it hailed for half an hour!

Cerro Torre Hike

The day after we got into El Chalten, we decided to do the Cerro Torre hike, which brings you to a lake, Laguna Torre. It is an 18 km hour round trip hike (you go back in the way you came, it’s not a loop) and there are markers along the way (first I’d seen anywhere during our hikes). The markets were extremely helpful. The hiking trail starts at the edge of the town (easy to find, follow the signs!).

We had pretty good weather for this hike. We left at 9:30 am and I’m glad I brought my trekking poles on this trip as the first 2 km are steep to go up and then km 3 + 4 is a mixture of uphill and downhill. I also didn’t wear my knee brace for this hike and I really felt the difference—I’m really glad I had it for Torres del Paine as my knees were a bit sore from this hike. After km 4 though it’s pretty much flat to the end of the trail, which is pretty well marked and a lot of people along the way.

There’s also a couple of bathrooms on this hike (ok, more like port-a-potties with the hole in the ground) but bring your own paper/cleansers!

As we got closer to Laguna Torre, it got cloudier and windier. At times along the trail we could see the top of Mt. Fitz Roy (the highest points of the mountain to the right below) but not much.

We at least got to taste the freshness of glacier water one more time on this trek.

By the time we reached the end though it was really gusting and we took shelter behind some short wall fortresses to rest and have lunch. The clouds covered the money shot for us but it was still lovely.

We spent a lot of time taking pictures here and left at 1:15 pm, getting back to town by 4:30 pm. Although for me it wasn’t as scenic as Torres del Paine (though it was pretty!) it was a much easier hike than any of the trails we did on the 5 day trek. This was the last hike we did on our trip and a nice way to close out.

November 2018: El Calafate & Puerto Natales

El Calafate

El Calafate is a cute town and it seems to be thriving! It reminded me of the quaint shopping areas of Sedona, Arizona and other popular hike/ski resort towns. According to the locals we spoke with a lot of the restaurants and shops are on the newer side of things as tourism has increased. It’s not too big and spending a couple of days here would keep you busy, especially if you’re off to see the Perito Moreno Glacier (more on that in a different post!). I really liked El Calafate and we had a great first Argentinian meal at La Zaina, one of the more popular restaurants in town. We didn’t have a reservation (would probably recommend it) and walked in around 6:30 pm and got seated in the back. The highlights here were the steak and the lamb braised in Malbec sauce. I am not a huge fan of lamb (I find it to be too gamey for me) but the lamb here didn’t have that texture/aroma that usually puts me off.

Mmmm meat.

We only spent one night in El Calafate and stocked up on some snacks to bring with us to our bus ride to Puerto Natales the next morning. As I mentioned in a prior post, we took Cootra down to Puerto Natales and the ride was smooth and easy. We left at 7:30 am from El Calafate, got to the border around noon, and the entire security check on both sides and border crossing took about an hour. There are clean bathrooms on the Chilean side of the security check, none on the Argentinian side. And the Chilean side is the only side where they scan everyone’s luggage (yep, gotta take all your bags with you off the bus). From there, the bus ride to Puerto Natales was another 45 min. or so.

Ironically, if you look at the map, if they created new roads the drive from El Calafate to Puerto Natales could be much shorter! And if they created more roads near the border of Torres del Paine, Chile and Argentina, you would never have to pass through Puerto Natales, which is more further south. But, this probably won’t happen for years, if it happens at all. It’s probably for the best though as I don’t think the park could handle the influx of large tourists.

Puerto Natales

Puerto Natales is much smaller than El Calafate, and though it’s not as built up yet, I was impressed but some of the new buildings and designs flickering around town. We had two great meals when we arrived in Puerto Natales, one at Kawesqar Cafe and the other at Santolla (which means king crab). Since we got into town around 2 pm, we had a late lunch and got the meat platter which was freshly grilled for us at Kawesqar and included everything from chicken, steak, blood sausages to potatoes.

After our protein-rich meal, we walked around town and then went to our briefing at the offices of Chile Nativo to meet our trekking guides and the rest of our group. Yes, Chile Nativo does exist! It’s always a bit apprehensive to book with a tour operator you can’t find much information on but they were really great to organize with and I can’t recommend them enough.

Afterwards we walked down to the lake to check out views of Torres del Paine from afar. Excitement ran through my veins as I thought about what the next few days in this park would bring.

Our hotel for our first and last night in Puerto Natales was at Hotel Vendaval. The staff here is so friendly and leaving our luggage here while we were in the park was safe. Love the shipping container structure. There’s also a rooftop bar which was great to hang out in at night. You must try Chilean wine! It’s called Carménère. I didn’t discover it until our last day in Chile when the bartender at the hotel served it to me and now I’m sad I could’ve been asking for it every night while we were in the park too. It wasn’t as common in Argentina. It’s a nice red wine, different and seemed lighter than Malbec.

Our ‘light’ dinner at at Santolla, which is known for all the king crab dishes. So cozy and modern inside. The highlights were the seafood stew and the crab meat (there are different variations you can get). Too bad we were so full from lunch as I wish we got to try more dishes.

One last thing about Puerto Natales/Chile in general—where has merken been all my life??? It’s a special spice only produced in Chile. It’s like paprika, but smokier and a bit spicier. If you like spices, pick up some merken in Chile before you leave! We found a few locally made ones in the Puerto Natales supermarket as well as a commercially produced one at the international duty free shop at Terminal C in EZE for $5 USD. I don’t think it’s carry in the U.S. at all and would make for a great souvenir.

I had very low expectations in terms of the quality of food in El Calafate and Puerto Natales but everything we tried in the restaurants we checked out was so good. Wish we had a little bit more time to explore but I think the amount of time we had was sufficient for both.

We ended up doing the Perito Moreno Glacier tour from El Chalten (since we were heading there) but recommend people stay two days if you want to check that out. We saw the glacier after our 5 day trek and both were incredible to see but for different reasons which I’ll discuss later!