This week I’m trying something new. I’m doing photo-blog posts on our time in Argentina. Today is Week 1: Mendoza and Buenos Aires. I hope you enjoy!

The bus from Santiago to Mendoza goes over the Andes coming down into the hot, sunny valley which is Argentina’s prime wine-making region. Naturally, we had to check out some vineyards – on bicycles of course. We rented bikes from the effusive Mr. Hugo. On the first day we lingered over a long lunch at Tempus Alba and had a quick stop at Vina El Cerro – by which time the kids had had enough so we headed home.

But we (Murph + I) enjoyed it the first day so much, we convinced the boys to go back again a couple of days later. This time we got two tandems and as we left Mr Hugo’s BigB was singing “Daisy, Daisy..” at the top of his lungs – and who says wine-tasting can’t be fun for kids too?

That day we had lunch at the historical Bodega Familia di Tomaso and then continued to the sprawling, luxurious Trapiche for a spot of tasting. That evening it was time for us to move on again. This time we opted for Premium Class seats on the bus to Buenos Aires. These are the “flat-bed, first class” seats in the world of long-distance buses. The boys were in heaven.

Unsurprisingly we arrived in Buenos Aires pretty well rested and ready to explore. We plonked our bags in a non-descript hostel in San Telmo (aka The Worst Hostel In The World, but more about that in a later post) and spent the afternoon getting aquainted with our new ‘hood.

The next day was more of the same, although this time we headed in the opposite direction towards La Boca. Guidebook warnings notwithstanding, we walked from San Telmo to La Boca. When walking under the south-bound freeway, we passed the scruffy monument to Los Desaparecidos, the Disappeared from the years of the Dirty War. That led to an interesting “well, imagine if 1 in every 20 people in San Francisco just disappeared” conversation about Argentina’s tumultous history as we walked to tourist central aka Caminito, a tiny street of tourist kitsch in La Boca. (Consider yourself lucky. I’m not opining about teaching kids about dictatorous juntas today, but that doesn’t mean it won’t come up in a future post). But, t-shirts were bought and the ambiance was fun and we did get to see some Tango which, given that our kids were not even slightly interested in going to a proper evening show, was a good thing.

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Information on traveling to Argentina with kids.

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