Wining and Dining

Monday was a public holiday in Argentina, something about Mary, so pretty much everything was closed, as was the bank, and we'd only got about £10 cash left!

So, we decided (our circumstances did!) that we'd chill by the pool in the hotel for the day.

We had breakfast and smuggled some bananas and croissants in our pockets for our lunch and headed to the pool.

Around 4pm Michiel and Daphne arrived (with beer in hand) and we chatted about English grammar (my love), Brazilian bathing costumes (Michiel's favorite subject!) and hummingbirds until it was mojito happy hour time.

After mojitos it was the chance for Anna Bistro to be graced with our presence.

The food was great and location superb. We were sat in a stunning garden terrace, beautifully lit with vines and plants all around us. The Argentineans certainly know how to create a great atmosphere for eating at night!

Sadly for me, my body clock decided that 4 hour's sleep wasn't enough the night before and I sat fighting my eyelids for an hour before heading home to bed. 

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The Argentinean economy is in an awful state and as such a huge black market has developed. It's known world wide as the "Blue Dollar" and even has its own website and exchange rate!. Even though it is technically illegal, everyone brings American Dollars into the country and exchanges them with dodgy looking people on the street for about 30% more Pesos than they would get from a bank or ATM.

When we first arrived in Argentina we felt uncomfortable with "doing the Blue Dollar" so decided to use our credit cards and ATMs as we'd originally planned. However, Martin and Laura introduced us to an online money transfer company based in London who are completely above board and offered us the same rate as the Blue Dollar. This is why trips to the bank to collect our cash is necessary when a £10 steak suddenly becomes £6.66 and a week's accommodation in a reasonable hotel becomes affordable instead of scraping mould off a grotty hostel shower curtain!

So, Tuesday morning started with a trip to the bank. 

Unfortunately, due to "Something about Mary" day the day before, everyone else was desperate for their Pesos too and we queued for 2 hours to get our spondoolies!

The bank is in the far left of the picture and had another 20 people inside!

One we'd filled our money belts we rushed back to the hotel, stacked the safe and headed out on a winery tour with Michiel and Daphne for their last day in Mendoza.

Nieto Senetiner had been one of our favorite wines we'd tried in Argentina so we decided to visit their winery and our hotel arranged for us to have a 3 course lunch, tour of the winery and wine tasting for about £20 each!

The food was out of this world and they poured glass after glass of beautiful wines and champagne (their wrongly used word for sparkling wine) followed by desert wine until we couldn't eat or drink any more!

Their desert wine was to die for

Lauren really liked their sparkling wine. Praise indeed for those who know Lauren's love of champagne! A bottle of this would set you back a massive.......... £5.11!  Someone remind me why we brought only rucksacks with us?!!

We waddled from the dining table and were ushered to the tasting room! We thought the tasting had already happened during dinner when the waiter was topping up our glasses as if there was a hole in the bottom of each one!

So on we trouped. It's a tough job we thought, but someone's got to do it!

We tasted 3 wines, each getting better and better....

Once the tasting was over, the guide left us with the bottles (and a bar with a few hats underneath) and an impromptu photo shoot entailed.....

We then had a quick tour of the vineyard and learned how to tell a Malbec vine from a Cabernet Sav vine. Strangely this is not by looking at the grapes, it's the leaves that give it away. 

Malbec leaves have 3 main sections:

Cab Sav leaves have 5 main sections:

See, I was paying attention!

After this we wandered next door to the spa hotel that Lauren and I had visited for our anniversary and chilled outside for a while. Lauren and Daphne both fell asleep on sun loungers whilst Michiel and I chatted and then we all watched the gorgeous sun set over the peaceful vineyard region of Lujan.

As we left, we saw more Citroen 2CVs and Lauren felt bold enough to have a little go in the weird little Barbie car parked next to them!

No dinner was needed when we got home as we'd eaten such a large lunch and after bidding farewell to our new Dutch friends, we headed to bed, again, with happy grins on our faces.