Mendoza Part Two, Casa De Coria September 23, 2022

Travel broadens the mind, so they say. It’s also physically exhausting. I am reminded of  Chaucer’s Wife of Bath who thought nothing of trundling off to Jerusalem three times, Rome and countless other places across Europe.  If she survived all that surely we could survive our trip to Argentina but needed a  break from the city and all the noise so Marney booked a weekend at Casa de Coria, a small guest house on the outskirts of Mendoza in the middle in the wine country. We needed to get out of Dodge City to quieter surroundings even if only briefly. 

 

Meanwhile we continued our exploration of Mendoza. Near Independence Square there was a moving memorial to the victims of the holocaust. Ironically, this was the country many Nazis fled to for safe haven after the defeat of the third Reich.  Eichman, responsible for organizing the holocaust, lived openly in Argentina after the war and bragged that his only mistake was not having murdered all the Jews. We were happy to pay our respects at the monument to our Jewish friends.

 

No matter where you come from these days, history, whether your own country’s or someone else’s, can be upsetting . This blog is not the place for a lengthy discussion so I leave you with two quotations from an ex-President of Argentina, Domingo Sarmiento, a man who supported education and wrote in his diary in 1848: “In the United States… 4 million are black… What is to be done with such blacks, hated by the white race? Slavery is a parasite that the vegetation of English colonization has left attached to the leafy tree of freedom.”  This belief led to a “covert genocide” that wiped out much of the male Afro-Argentinian population.  Of the indigenous populations, Sarmiento wrote: “Will we be able to exterminate the Indians? For the savages of America, I feel an invincible repugnance that I cannot cure.  Incapable of progress, their extermination is providential,useful, sublime and great.”

Human beings seem all too ready to repeat the atrocities of the past.

 

The main streets in Louisville, Kentucky have  painted  horses, Mendoza has painted eggs. And beautiful eggs they are too, and solid.  I tried moving one, to  no avail. Humpty Dumpty eat your heart out. There’s a wonderful casual atmosphere in this city centre and it’s still winter. The light is sharp and clear and the atmosphere clean. We wandered as far as Marney’s ankle would allow then hailed a taxi to take us to a sushi restaurant – Argentinian style. We even had some salmon sashimi.  Argentinian cooks seem to have taken the idea of the roll and expanded it to a whole new colorful level.  No saki.  In fact the young overworked waiter didn’t know what it was. We then walked home along the old tramway, which still had its own little junction box, looking like something out of Harry Potter and with smooth looking trams gliding along rather than clanking. The trams, I later learned,  were refugees from San Diego’s old system.

 Traveling between countries ought to be fairly simple. Show your passport, get it stamped and off you go. Oh no! Every country has its own rules and regulations and there are entry visas, exit visas, vaccination certificates, declarations for this and declarations for that and its written in the country’s language so you have to translate and then fill out the forms on line.  Sometimes you even get to the last statement on the form which explains that you don’t need to fill in the above if you’re over seventy. And that’s the start of your problems because the airlines have their own forms and will charge you extra for your seat, your extra bag and for breathing. I exaggerate but only a little. Try going from Colombia to Argentina and back again on an American passport.  I was pleased Marney was in charge of that aspect of our trip and all I needed to do was wear one of those nice WW1 army helmets and get some ear plugs.

 

While the Italian Restaurant  (https://marchigiana.com.ar/  look it up…it will give you an appetite) was wonderful, we decided to try a family style Argentinian restaurant I spotted on the way back from the sushi restaurant.   It was a large very busy restaurant where two chefs were grilling great slabs of beef and sausages and all sorts of meats so we said “Why not”?  After all, Argentina is the home of barbecue.  So the next day off we went. It was an all-you-can-eat  place and it was busy.  Apart from the grill there were rows of vegetable dishes and a pasta station. You got a plate and off you went. Our waiter, an older man who I surmise had been working there most of his life, put us at ease, pointed us in the right direction and gave us the wine list. As usual, there was no shortage and bottles were lined up along the wall.

 

The next day we were off to the Casa de Coria in Chacras wine country near the mountains. It was an odd place. The owner, Bill, an American ex-pilot who, with his hat with a feather and heavy rain jacket looked like a refugee 

from The Raiders of the Lost Ark.  He had a knarled shaggy head and a knowing grin; a collection of bric a brac; old 2CV Citroens and horse pulled buggies. He had arranged the estate like a mini historical park. There was a Tiki bar with a surf board on its roof, a large  barbecue area, a mini vineyard, the six guest rooms and a lovely black cat named Queen, who I suspect was running the place. The rooms were pleasant but because the Wi-Fi was faint we had to retire to the communal dining/breakfast room to use our computers.

Our host entertained us by playing and singing Sweet Carolina on his guitar and told us how much he loved the friendliness of Argentina.  He also told us how he had trained on F16s, could fly anything and had flown all the Boeings except the 777. He told us all the places he thought were worth settling, particularly Cape Town and Turkey and how much he disliked his German wife who he had divorced but who had taken his money. He was proud of his two children who were both doing well in the US.

 

This was just the place we needed to relax. We walked to the village square, found a little supermarket along from the church and school, had a nice meal in a little outside restaurant and listened to the electric guitar player on the street corner determined to entertain everyone.  The next day we found a little grocery shop  and with the help of Casa de Coria found an interesting restaurant with a wonderful name: La Gloria Cantina Cool – not so much for the food but ambiance. It was Sunday and families were coming out to eat en masse so we sat and watched Argentinians taking a family break.The restaurant was very busy with lots of little kids running round and families out greeting each other.

We had a cute stud-bedecked waitress who spoke a little English and met the owner. The wines were fabulous. Choice of Rosés and then an excellent Malbec.

 

The food?  It was odd. The chef seemed to be experimenting. We shared some lightly cooked squid in a yellow sauce on potatoes and then I had the fish which was OK and had a lot of finely sliced red onions on it. M had a sort of tortellini which was extra salty.

Bill had also recommended having a meal at Bodega Hacienda del Plata, a small  local winery. Please look it up. It was wonderful to sit in the vineyard and eat glorious food. They fussed over us and poured remarkable wines with each course.  It was as if we were family.  They even supplied hats since we were outside. Everything was home cooked and we sat next to the vines soaking up the sunshine. I honestly don’t know of anything better. We are not great meat eaters but the filet steak was something quite different.

Unfortunately, all too soon we were back in the taxi and rattling our way back to Mendoza  The next day we were off to the airport and on a plane to Medellin for a few days and then making our way to Cuernavaca via Mexico City. 

     Marney here… 

Whew!  Looking at the photo of the tram, it reminded me that we saw it on the way back from a restaurant when we couldn’t find a taxi so “enjoyed” lots of special sights on a very, very long walk.  This made relaxing at Casa de Coria in Chacras even better and having Queen (a darling black cat) visit me in the room was special.  The steak dinner at the vineyard was truly a highlight on such a lovely day.

I’m glad to be in Cuernavaca now – luckily I remembered all the exit paperwork from Argentina and Colombia and entrance paperwork to Mexico.  If I hadn’t, this blog would have been delayed a bit longer before you heard from us…