Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Argentina 2010: Meet the Storelli Castros

Yesterday afternoon we (Diane, her parents, and yours truly) returned from a lovely two+ week trip to Argentina which encompassed time spent in wonderful Mendoza and stunning Iguazu. This trip was a chance for the two families to get to know each other before they see each other again next year at our wedding.

Long story short, it was a GREAT(!!) trip. We did A LOT ... so much, in fact, that I think we all need a vacation to recover from the vacation. Although quite a bit of the time was spent hanging out with family, we still had outings nearly every day, and here are some of the highlights:

Arrival and asado at my uncle's home with nearly all the family.Time at the Chacras weekend house where we played some pretty intense ping pong matches.
City tour - here we are at Plaza San Martin.Another asado, this time on a Sunday at my Grandma's weekend home in Chacras.
We even had time to take in an Argentinian soccer game. This is a Nacional B game, which is the second division of soccer. We went to see Independiente Rivadavia (home team) take on Atletico Rafaela. The good guys won 3-1. Diane and I had been to a soccer game together before (Argentina vs. USA at the Meadowlands in 2008), but this was an entirely different experience with the local crowd (and, plus, Diane finally got to see a GOOOOOOOOOOL).
Of course we did some bodega tours - on bicycles (thanks Chacras Bikes!). We went to Alta Vista and Clos de Chacras. This worked out great since they are both very different types of bodegas. Alta Vista is a large operation and Clos is much smaller - so small in fact, that they hand label their bottles. Being on the bikes presented a challenge when it came time to transport our purchases (see the water bottle holder), but it also helped us moderate our tasting intake, since riding a bike with a buzz can't be that easy.We also took Diane's parents on the same High Mountain Andes tour that we did in 2008. Sadly, the road to the Christ the Redeemer statue at the Argentina-Chile border was closed due to poor conditions. The road is bad enough in perfect conditions ... so we had to leave that for another time. The statue was placed on the border after a history of border disputes between the countries and the premise of the statue is that the countries should not fight over the border because Christ knows exactly where it is. We did of course make stops at Aconcagua and Puente Del Inca.We spent the last few days of the trip at Iguazu where we went to see the greatest, most spectacularly amazing waterfalls in the world. There is literally no way to transmit what one feels at this location, since even pictures do it very little justice. We essentially took in all the attractions at the national park, including a boat trip that makes the Maid of the Mist seem quite tame. We also visited the Triple Border area, where one can see Argentina, Paraguay and Brasil (in the last picture below, the picture is taken from Argentina, Paraguay (and Ciudad del Este are on the left, and Brasil is on the right).That is a rundown of the activities. I will have separate posts with commentary and, of course, a summary of airplane and airplane-related activity.

4 comments:

Christine said...

Love the wine in the water bottle holder, I'll have to try that...

Sparticus said...

Just a warning - it may be illegal!

cheap flights said...

Great enjoyments are going on in the trip party. The vacation has very different kind of pleasures and enjoyment whosoever shares the time and experience …………and much more.
Beautiful images which is telling the how colorful was vacation at the place.
Thanks for sharing.

L Garcia Muro said...

nice photos.

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