Mendoza and Buenos Aires - A tale of two cities

It was the best of times...
It was the age of wisdom...
It was the epoch of belief...
It was the season of fun!

We intended to stop at Mendoza for only a short time on the way to Buenus Aires, so Lilya can find a place for rock climbing, but Mendoza is not a town you just stop on the way in. Located at the center of a large winery district (about 1100 different wineries!), Mendoza had turned itself into a center of attractions. It didn't take more than 2 minutes from the time we got off the night bus until we were hunted by Raul, an owner of a hostel nearby the bus station. Raul also turned out to be a paragliding instructor and other tours organizer. He lives with 3 of his 7 children (a single parent) at the hostel, while his older children come to help, whenever needed. Raul is a very fun guy and also very helpful, he called different companies every day in the attempt to organize some rock climbing for Lilya, but that didn't help...
We spent our first day just hanging around in Mendoza. Mendoza is a vivid and a lovely city with large avenues full of plane trees and people, it reminded us Tbilisi. We passed through a huge park and watched the richer folks of Mendoza doing their jogging. But walking around is not what we came for. On the next day we took a bike winery tour, guided by Raul's son (only the biking part). We visited 2 wineries and a chocolateria. The wine tours weren't that good, the wine we tasted wasn't great, and they are much less generous with the tasting comparing to the Israeli wineries. The bike ride was fun, though. Since it is autumn in Argentina the yellow and the red leaves of the grapevines created a very nice decoration.
One of the most important concepts you need to know when visiting in Argentina or in Chile is "Tenedor Libre", which means a free fork, it's an "all you can eat" restaurant. They are usually consist of free buffet and a grill. The price is relatively low, and all is included (except the drinks). There is a very large variety of such restaurants, some are pretty good, and some (the really cheap ones) are quite disappointing. The one we have visited in Mendoza was the best we saw. The meat was great, the variety was enormous, there was a special chef for every type of dish (pastas, seafood, oriental...), waiting to prepare it just for you. And all this heaven costs about 10$!
On the next day we took the "Alta Montana" tour. It was a minibus full of local tourists, most of them Argentinian and all were older than us. The guide spoke only Spanish, which we couldn't understand, but we did understand that he was very funny. Although the difficulties in communication, after half a day half of the bus were our friends (or parents to be precise). That really reminded us of our trip to Georgia. The tour took us to the mountains surrounding Mendoza. On the way we passed a lookout on the Aconcagua, which is the highest mountain outside Asia, 6962m. We also stopped at the amazing Punta del Inca, a natural bridge covered with a yellow-orange mineral of some sort. Later the minibus climbed to a lookout at 4200m, which was on the border between Chile and Argentina. Both countries' flags were on the top, right next to Jesus. While the Chilean was new and tidy, the Argentinian was old and torn, which didn't seem to bother our Argentinian friends, which started singing "Viva la Patria".
The last day was dedicated to paragliding. Lilya doesn't like paragliding, because it is not extreme enough for her. So Oren was the only one to jump. Although short, it was very very fun, and not that expensive at all. We left Mendoza that night, taking a "Cama Suite" bus to Buenus Aires, which is similar to a 1st class seats on an airplane (including champagne and all). We got to Buenus Aires on the next morning, and a new world was opened to us.
In Buenus Aires we felt again the power of a large city, and immediately got addicted. More than 13 million people live in this beautiful city. This number really puts the small villages we come from (Tel Aviv and Haifa) into perspective. They call it the Paris of South America, they must be right.
After finding our hostel and Ohad inside of it, we went to tour the city. We started with Plaza de Mayo. On its eastern side sits the Casa Rosada, which is a sort of a White House of the Argentinians, only pink. It was a Sunday, so it was open to visitors. We found ourselves standing in line to enter it without even knowing what is this building. Only in the president's chamber we understood where we are. On the main balcony we waived to the public downstairs, Evita style.
From there we continued to a large (more than 15 blocks) Sunday street market. Most of the streets of Buenus was very empty, since it was Sunday, but the market was full of people. It was something between a flee and an art craft market. Lots of street shows and people dancing tango. For the first time, Lilya justified her new camera and photographed a lot of people.
That day was a very important day, because it was the final round of the Primer League, that should have determine which team will be the Champion. Lilya didn't want to get updates during the match (not to bring bad luck to Chelsea) so she was very nervous during all the game. At the end of it we went into an Internet cafe and spent the best peso (worth 1 shekel) Lilya had ever spent. Chelsea won the championship! Oren, on the other hand called it "a shekel worth of championship".
That day there was also a Boca Jr. game in their own stadium in La Boca neighborhood. Since we have just arrived, and didn't have tickets, we went there only to feel the atmosphere. The atmosphere was tense, but we didn't see any real action, even though Lilya insisted on running in the direction of every explosion she heard.
We spent the next day with Gabi and touring the beautiful and noisy city center. At night we met them again for a pub tour in the Palermo neighborhood, the young a trendy Soho of Buenos Aires, but since it was Monday, most of the pubs were closed so the tour included only two pubs. On the next day we hanged around the rich Ricoleta neighborhood and visited the old and impressive cemetery, which is considered a must for tourists, there we saw the graves of half of the streets' names in the country. Oren never really understood the point of visiting cemeteries, except for the morbid sculptures of archangels that guard the graves. The graves themselves are not plain gravestones but a full burial estate that could have made a nice apartment in Tel Aviv today. We left the cemetery after we got tired from being hunted by ghosts from someone else's past, and went to eat. All those righteous archangels and figures of the suffering Jesus made Lilya very sinful so she ordered the largest hamburger ever seen, combined with every unhealthy addition you can think of, and served with an appointment to a cardiologist. After the meal we continued touring the plazas of Ricoleta, which by no doubt has the largest ratio of plazas per person in the world. At the afternoon Lilya finally went rock climbing (indoors). She found a small gym place one hour from the center, and was determined not to leave Argentina without climbing. The way there was an experience by itself. We got to the local subway (called "Subte"), and took the busiest line in the middle of the rush hour. If you visit in Buenos Aires, this is certainly a must. You do not enter the train, you are pushed and dragged into it by the crowd around you. And when you're inside you are squeezed until it hearts. The good thing about that is that you don't need to hold anything, there is no chance you will fall when the train will stop. Even after enormous amounts of Sundays on the way to Be'er Sheva, struggling with armed soldiers trying to get on the bus ahead of you, this was indeed a constructive experience. We got a sauna and a massage for less than 2 pesos! The rock climbing itself was much less exciting. We got back just in time to take a quick shower and run to the Tango show (Sabor de Tango). This show is something all tourists must do in Buenos Aires. It included two annoying singers, 8 quite professional tango dancers, a really nice music band (2 accordions, 2 violins, a contrabass and a piano) and practically no soul. Since Tango is a dance of passion, the lack of it really harmed the show. It looked more like a good acrobatic show. But this is only Lilya's opinion, all the rest seemed to enjoy it.
Half of the next day was spent on buying a third digital camera. A small pocket camera that we can take with us in our pocket in more dangerous areas. On the way back we stumbled upon a demonstration. It started from a small group with very loud drums, and turned out to be a swarm of thousands of people. It took us a while to understand what is the demonstration is about. They were gas station workers and their families from all across Argentina protesting against gas stations being closed. We followed the crowd and took lots of pictures. Democracy can be so exciting sometimes.
At the evening we went to see Puerto Madero, a port near the Rio de la Plata riverbank. It was a very nice place to hang around. There are a lot of nice restaurants and a Calatrava -like bridge (as you can see at the pictures), dedicated to women.
We left Buenos Aires the next day on our way to the Iguacu falls, without feeling we had enough of this great city.
We'll be back!
Tip 1: All the activities we have done in the Mendoza area were booked through Raul. Raul is the owner of Casa del Sol hostel. The hostel itself wasn't great, but Raul's presence improved it a lot. He was the one that recomended us the great "Tenedor Libre" restaurant on the Katamarca street, few blocks from the hostel.
Tip 2: You don't have to book the whole wine tour in advance, you can go to the wine region, hire a bike and choose the wineries you like to visit by yourself.