Bill's Blog

From Buenos Aires to Talagante

We arrived in Buenos Aires on the Fourth of February. The plan was to see if a friend had a clunker of a car to loan (rent) us. We also wanted to check out the availability of furnished apartments. The former was the most important but was a complete failure. We even tried to check out long term rentals and found them all extremely overpriced for long term rentals. All of them were more than $33 per day for the smallest car imaginable. We did discover a hoard of furnished apartments for rent. Most are way out of our price range, but plenty of them will be just fine.

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We stayed with our best friends in Argentina, Guille and Javier Burgos. They have a beautiful, three year old son, Fermin. They are expecting their second child later this month. It's a girl. Guille worked every day to finish her dissertation before the baby comes. We did not do much in BA for the five days we stayed there. We did go to an English Group Meeting and saw many of our old friends. I was especially happy to see Daniel Grimberg.

On Monday we took the overnight sleeper bus ($65 each) to Mendoza. Mendoza is a lovely medium sized town at the foot of the Andes. You can see Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Americas from there. We stayed two nights in Mendoza. The only disappointing thing about Mendoza was the cost of accommodations. It was more than twice what we paid just three years ago at $42 per night. Everything else was as nice as 2005. We had a good meal at El Meson. The second night we had a good encounter with the winemaker, Pablo Sánchez. He works for Catena Zapata. We ate pizza and talked about wines. He was kind enough to bring two bottles. Good whites are nearly none existent in Argentina, but he brought a bottle of Chardonnay that was probably the best I have ever tasted. He also had a bottle of Pinot Noir that was the best that I have had since visiting the south island of New Zealand. Needless to say, I was a bit hung over on Thursday morning.

On Thursday, the bus ride ($26 each) over the Andes took all day, despite the short distance. The primary slowdown should have been the winding mountain roads, but it was the incredible ineptness of the Chilean customs that was the hold up. All the buses had to wait two-and-a-half hours for an inspection that could have been skipped. The road down from this pass to the Chilean plain was the biggest most insane switchback that I have ever seen. When we got to Santiago, we walked from one bus station to another and boarded a bus to our friends home in Talagante, which is about 40 kilometers to the south. We left Mendoza a bit before 10:00 AM and arrived in Talagante after 7:30 PM.

We have two very good friends, David and Julie Miranda, in Talagante. It is a distant working class suburb of Santiago. They have a very nice home there. We were exhausted and delighted to be in their cozy home. We talked with Julie for a couple of hours, all in Spanish. David was on a business trip and was not due back until Friday.

On Friday, we went into Santiago to enjoy the parks and plazas. We had lunch in the Mercado Central. We had fish and chips. The fish was wonderful and melted in our mouths. If everything in Chile was as inexpensive as this meal we would have a wonderful stay. We met a nice couple from Canada who were on their way around the cape to Buenos Aires. We headed back to Talagante in the late afternoon.
David did not get home until quite late. Julie and David prepared a meal of tacos, a rare homemade meal in Chile. We talked late into the night.

On Saturday we had a full day. First we rode to Algarrobo, a small tourist village on the coast. The Miranda's son, Matias, has a summer job and lives with his aunt there. In fact, they live in the house where Julie grew up. Like David, she has eleven siblings. We met most of them during the day when they came to the house or in the street. We had a great lunch of empanadas and soup. The town's beach was full of people despite the cool breeze blowing off the sea. Before returning to Talagante, we bought a whole salmon ($8) to grill on Sunday.
When we got back to Talagante, we quickly changed clothes to hurry off to a the birthday party of David's brother-in-law, Jorge. About half of David's family was there, including his parents who are in their 80's. Oscar and Silvia are fun and interesting people who raised eleven great children. We ate, drank wine, laughed and joked late into the night. Saturday was one of the best days we have had in ages.

We slowed down on Sunday. We grilled the salmon in the afternoon. David's brother and sister-in-law, Pedro and Beatriz, joined us to enjoy one of Chile's greatest assets, the salmon. The conversation covered many subjects from family, to economics, to politics and more – half in Spanish and half in English. We had to take a nap late in the day.

We are in Vina del Mar now and will write about it in my next entry.

Posted by bill at February 16, 2009 05:34 PM