We have seen many different animals in Patagonia. The Hairy Armadillo is one of my favorites, he lives under the ground and we saw it 2 times!  My dad likes them too.

These are the Megellanic Penguins; I like penguins we did not see them in Patagonia but we saw them in Chile.

Now this one we saw at the Puerto Moreno glacier it looks like a cross between a hawk and an eagle but it was a Caracara bird.

The next animal is the Huemel deer, we saw it on the road to Bariloche. It was huge and it had a large rack of antlers.

The last one is the Lama Guanaco. We have seen the lama many times in the car, but never outside the windows of our hotel, like we saw the lama in Bolivia. I like the Lama Guanaco.

Caroline

In the morning we packed up our stuff and headed off toward Brazil, it was a short drive by design from Punta del Diablo to the border.  We didn’t have much trouble crossing except that we missed the customs building on the Uruguayan border, not much inspection getting out of the country.  Once we got to the Brazilian border the agents could not have been much nicer, we got our temporary import permit for the car without any hassle and we were on our way.  Our first stop was Gramado for one night before heading to Florianopolis for Easter.  Once we crossed the border and the rolling country side with ranches and cows of Uruguay was replaced by forests, palm trees and industrial areas, but biggest difference is the Portuguese! After three month in Spanish speaking countries Maddy and I have become at least passable in travelers Spanish and can usually understand most people.  We figured that Portuguese since it is so similar would not be that difficult… we were wrong.  We can’t understand anything, we might as well be listening to Swahili.  Time to rely on Google translate.

Our first stop in Brazil was Gramado a very quaint beautiful town with tons of German influence, and lots of Easter decorations; bunnies and eggs galore.  The town seemed like it should have been a ski resort town in the german alps, but no snow and the mountains were not that high. We go into town late 7ish and checked into our apartment for the night, then walked around town and took in all the decorations, the kids were getting very excited about Easter.  They have been imagining what differences Easter would bring in Brazil and were looking forward to the chocolate.  They have been off sugar for a while due to bad behavior but have been getting better especially Julie.  We had a late dinner in town and we all crashed pretty hard after battling mosquitoes the last two nights and the long drive to Gramado.

In the morning we got tickets to this interesting miniature city call Mini Mundo, it was an amusement park made up of German and South American building built in miniature.  The kids loved it, we spend over a couple of hours perusing the buildings before heading out of town.  It was close to noon before we headed off down off the mountain back toward the coast, the views were beautiful and we had lunch at this Brazilian buffet our first!  Lots of meats and rice and beans, fried bananas, polenta and a little shot of coffee for the road.  The kids liked the food and liked choosing their own food from the buffet.  The beach awaits!

We only had a three drive to Punta del Diablo so we stopped to explore the ultra posh beach town of Punta del Este. The town was very certainly an upscale surf town, lots of tall condos and fancy water front property.  We ate lunch at a local cafe which served up some tasty squid and french fries.  After lunch I grabbed a coffee, which is very unlike me before hitting the road again, it seems the small coffee espresso types are what they are into in this region of SA.

We checked into our cabana around 5, we had a pool but it was too cold to use it.  The house had a some interesting construction, the stairs seemed a bit dangerous and there holes in the walls and ceiling letting the mosquitoes in at night. We watched the sunset and hit the sack pretty early, but had to fight off mosquitoes during the night.

The next morning we completed our school and then headed down to the beach for lunch, the surf was rolling in pretty well and there were probably 20-30 surfers out in the water despite the rainy cold weather.  We had lunch overlooking the water and let the kids play on some granite boulders along the shore. The kids were happy until Mirabelle cut her foot running away from some waves and we went back home.  The cut wasn’t bad, nothing an Olaf band-aid couldn’t heal.

Maddy had some calls in the afternoon and the kids were engrossed in their ipads so I went out and watched a soccer game at one of the local watering holes.  Juventus pummeled Barcelona in a quarterfinal of the Euro Champions league.  After observing some interesting characters at the make shift pub I headed home and cooked dinner for the family.  That night we did battle with the mosquitoes again, I killed many but with a constantly refreshing supply it was a losing battle.  We were glad that we weren’t staying another night.  The Brazilian Frontiera awaits.

We woke up in Montevideo on Friday with a mission!  We were going to get our visas from the consulate after our failed attempt in Buenos Aires.  We needed to pick up the birth certificates for the girls that my mother sent to us from the states and then hopefully we would have all the paper work.  The DHL place was closed until 11:30, but we decided to head to the consulate anyway and as it turns out they didn’t need our original birth certificates anyway.  They accepted all our paper work and we were sent off with a nearly $1,000 bill for visa entry ouch, it seemed like a bit more than we were expecting.  After grabbing money at several different cash machines we paid our bill and were on our way.  We walked around one of the main squares a bit and loved the old architectural buildings.  The girls cut our walking tour a bit short after several girls had melt downs about lunch, pretty typical.

We headed home, calmed down and headed to the beach in the afternoon, as Maddy had calls.  The beach was essentially totally empty, it was warm but partly cloudy.  Only Mirabelle went in the water before I decided that we probably shouldn’t go in due to potential water quality issues.  I think I was being a bit paranoid but my friend Deby confirmed that most people don’t go in the water due to e-coli and other chemicals in the water.  Mira was fine and had no ill affects later, the only real issue apparently is at the mouth of some of the rivers.  The beach was fun for building sand castles due to the fine grained sand, great for sand castle building and some shells.  The girls were busy for at least two hours.

Saturday we met up with a friend of mine from my time in Boston with CH2M HILL; Deby and I organized water quality projects with local schools.  She had moved back to Uruguay where she was from around the same time that Maddy and I left for Madison. We met up with her husband Edgard and their three sons; Deby and Maddy were pregnant at the same time in Boston so we knew our kids would be about the same age.  We met at a playground in downtown Montevideo and caught up on life while the kids ran around and played. We finally figured the kids needed food and headed over to a local Parrilla which is an Uruguayan barbecue place.  We proceeded to stuff ourselves silly on the local steak and they even had vegetarian sides for Maddy, what a great way to spend an afternoon in Uruguay.  The adults commiserated about the kids behaviors and irrationality, we all had similar stories.

On Sunday we went down to a market in the old part of town in Montevideo and ended up dodging raindrops.  We had our rain coats so it didn’t bother us too much, the kids enjoyed jumping in puddles but Mira and I wore tennis shoes instead of water shoes.

We had lunch from some of the stalls and then headed home to pack, plan our Brazilian agenda and hide away from the weather.  On Monday we finished our school work and then had to pick up our visas in Montevideo, so we were on the road to Punta del Diablo by 1:00pm.

We have heard a lot about the Rio de La Plata (River Plate), there is a soccer team named after it and the Spanish explorers settled beside it to use the fresh water but after looking at maps of the region none of the rivers were named the river plate.  So I was a bit confused, it wasn’t until we got on our ferry to Uruguay that I realized that the river plate or Rio de La Plata is the large bay that extends from Buenos Aires to Monte Video and beyond.  The water in the bay which is open to the ocean is very silty but is fresh water; the bay doesn’t have significant currents and is not very rough so the water in the bay creates a isohaline where the salty water sinks below the fresh water and separates.  As you get closer to the end of the bay and closer to the open ocean does the water mix and become salt water.  I was skeptical that the entire bay was fresh water so once we arrived in Colonia de Sacramento, I tasted the water and sure enough it was fresh water.  The area acts like an estuary and likely varies in salinity depending on the rain fall.  The water coming into the river plate drains about one quarter of the continent of South America.

We set out on Thursday morning very early after getting more than a few warnings about the general strike that was occurring in Buenos Aires.  Most people were treating it like a bank holiday and schools and most business would be closed; we were warned not to drive near the obelisk as it would be barricaded.  We were taking the ferry from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, we arrived at the ferry terminal early and had no trouble with traffic at 7, immigration was not a problem either.  We boarded the ferry which took an hour and a half.  I took a little snooze and then we arrived in Colonia.  We had to wait for all the other cars to leave the boat to get our temporary import permit for the car, the border customs people were very nice and helpful, but a little bit slow.

Uruguay was a bit slower paced and the people wanted to make you realized it.  The town we arrived in was a very quaint colonial town, filled with old forts and touristy stores.   We walked around for an hour or so and had lunch.  It was a sunny day and was very enjoyable.  After lunch we drove up the coast to Montevideo in about an hour and a half and settled into our one bedroom hotel, we were a bit cramped after the last few places.

Tuesday we got tickets on the double-decker bus tour of the city which stretched from La Boca to Belgrano, it was a great tour and the kids loved the new ear phones and the funky music that they got to listen to between the historical announcements.  We also figured out the different areas that we wanted to visit in more detail, including the Recoleta and Puerto Madero.

I had a chance to go see a soccer match but things fell through so we just had dinner at home.  We did schedule a babysitter for a night out on Wednesday our last night in town, thanks to Maddy’s friend Haejin who provided a trustworthy babysitter.  On Wednesday Maddy completed some school with the kids while I went and got some car insurance, we were unable to get the Uruguay leg of our trip previously for some reason.  It took forever to find someone to work with me to get just a Uruguayan insurance policy, but in the end I accomplished our goal.  Maddy met up with me just after lunch and we got some pizza, which we were told was very good.  It was good but after having deep dish in Chicago and eating the NYC pizza for two years I wouldn’t give it the nod against those two but it was very good none the less.

After lunch, we went and toured around the Cemetery de Recoleta, a cemetery loaded with small elaborate crypts built for the famous or rich in Buenos Aires.  It is home to presidents and other famous people including Eva Peron.  It was free and was a surprisingly large area with lots of avenues and roads with statues and gargoyles everywhere.

I had to go back to our insurance company SURA to finalize the insurance and Maddy had a call for work so we met back home and relaxed before date night.  We went out near the Puerto Madero neighborhood near the canals, where there were plenty of restaurants.  We had a drink overlooking a famous ship parked in the canal and walked over several of the bridges before settling on a Mexican restaurant for dinner.  We went looking for a Tango show after dinner but we were not successful as they all started earlier, just another reason to come back without the kids.  We walked around the congress area and enjoyed the ambiance of the night in Buenos Aires on our last day in Argentine.  Uruguay beckons.

After driving 10 hours from Mendoza through ranch lands and corn fields much like Eastern Colorado and Nebraska in the U.S. we arrived in Buenos Aires.  With a population of 3 million in the city central and 13 million in the surrounding area the city was packed.  It took a while to get through the suburbs due to traffic but BA doesn’t have any geographical constraints on three sides so the city is very spread out, large avenues and many beautiful parks.  There was a protest of the government when we first arrived in town which delayed our arrival, we got stuck on the Avenue 9 de Julio which is the main road through town (somewhat like Broadway in NYC).  We finally arrived at our apartment a trendy building in the Monserrat neighborhood close to the government center.

We arrived on Saturday night and didn’t eat before we got into town so we got settled in our place and then went out for food, it was about 8 o’clock, very late for us but about the normal time for Argentinians to be eating.   We settled on an unique looking place that looked like it had been there for 60 years, and with a server who looked like he had been there for all 60 years too.  The food was great, I had a fish dish that was incredible, probably very heavy on the butter and cream.  On our way home we encountered a block that was closed and a musical stage was set up, we watched for 10 minutes or so but the kids needed to hit the sack so we retreated back home.  The city was very alive with lots of young people and also lots of older men and women, not much in the middle.

On Sunday we to a market in San Pedro Telmo, there were venders selling goods for what seemed like 30 blocks.  The kids were given money that they had earned from chores, back rubs, bets and tooth mouse money and they all purchase some small trinkets.  Julie bought an emoji pillow and Mira got some crystals and all the girls got these balloons filled with flour that you could mold into different faces (they all popped within a day).  It was a great market and the weather held out until after we had lunch at which time it poured rain on us for the rest of the day so we went home and relaxed while the rain came down.

On Monday we did some school work before getting going on the business of acquiring our visas for Brazil.  We didn’t acquire them at home do to the impending Bolivian visas which we never did get until we arrived in South America.  So first thing was to get our Yellow Fever shots due to an outbreak in Brazil.  We found a clinic that provided them for free but we did have to wait for an hour and a half but it was a great clinic and they were supportive even as Caroline screamed bloody murder when she got the shot.  Oh well, par for the course, we gave in and got them McDonalds afterwards.

Our next visa task was getting to the embassy to apply for the visa, we took a ride on the subway, apparently, the twins first ride at least according to them.  The subways in BA are very similar to the NYC subway at least on the surface except a bit further underground.

We got to the embassy and according to the website you were supposed to get an appointment online but it was impossible to register for an appointment and so we decided to just show up.  We learned that they changed their rules starting that Monday so it was first come first serve.   We were close to the first people in line but we hadn’t filled out the correct paper work and we had to leave to fill out the paper work online, which at the nearest internet café was nearly impossible due to slow internet.  We then went back and found out all the other stuff that we needed, including the girls original birth certificates which were at home in Wisconsin in a safe at Nana’s house.  We were all near melt down point including all the kids. Arrrggghhh.  So we failed in our first attempt at the visas and went home for some dinner and Mendoza wine to melt away our stress.  Nana was able find the birth certificates after getting a locksmith to open the safe, because I forgot where I put the keys.  She got the certificates shipped to us very quickly (Thanks again Nana).  We forgot about the visa trouble and resolved to get them completed in Montevideo and enjoyed the rest of the week.

Monday we woke up and realized that everyone at home in Wisconsin was on spring break, somebody let the kids know this… and we ended up giving them the week off, I didn’t resist much especially since my brother was in town.  We visited two more wineries on Monday, Ruca Malen and Bodega Norton which were just south of our house in Lujan de Cuyo. Ruca Malen had some beautiful views even if the clouds shrouded the more distant and larger mountains.  We were the only ones there for the tasting and got treated to their main tasting room overlooking the vines and foot hills.

Next was Bodega Norton which we were late for, it seems we tend to chat and enjoy our wines a bit too long.  Once we caught up with our tour which had wound its way through the catacombs beneath the winery we were treated to some very nice red wine, the tasting was completed at different locations in the basement level.  We followed our tour guide through rooms stacked with wine bottles aging and awaiting their turn to be labeled, shipped and drank.  You could imagine some Spanish wine maker roaming the same corridors a hundred years ago fretting about the wines.  We headed home for lunch and discovered that everyone wanted to play by the pool, and according to the weather forecast it was the last truly sunny and warm day for the week.  So we had an epic pool party, lots of people got pushed in the pool and fun was had by all.

That night we were treated to some amazing clouds in the in the distance; I took a time-lapse and posted it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ANVPh7tO00

We had decided earlier that Tuesday was a bit of a work day for Maddy, and I had to get the breaks checked due to some squeaking that was occurring.  There were no Toyota repair places in town so we figured the next best place was Walmart car repair.  They told us after much translation that the breaks were crystallized and that they should be replaced if the noise bothered us but they were fine for the time being.  John was nice enough to watch the kids while we went about our business.  He also was kind enough to watch the kids and gave us a night to go out and have dinner away from the kids… yeeesssss.  We went to a restaurant in downtown Mendoza, somewhat of a French Bistro, I had steak because, yep we are in Argentina.

The next day we went exploring the Valle de Uco the southern edge of the better Mendoza wine growing areas.  We started at La Ciela one of the original wineries to plant Malbec in the area and is stilled named after the original owners wife.  The wine vats from the original construction were still being used, with several coats of epoxy; it was a great historical overview of the area.  To contrast that winery we next went to O Fornier which a had an ultra-modern looking facility which looked a bit like a space ship landing pad with about the largest cellar I had ever seen.  Something out of James Bond, they also sell plots of land along with access to the winery for producing wine.  Anyone got a spare 0.5 million USD lying around for a couple of hectares.

Our next stop had a similar architectural style although instead of having our own personal tour we shared with about 20 German tourist, a very nice presentation though.

Our last stop was Azul and was likely the best, it was a small boutique winery but great wines and had laid-back feel, a nice break from the last two wineries.

The weather was turning colder and cloudy so we didn’t spend as much time in the pool when we got home but cooked dinner and chatted.

The next day John and I took the day to go hiking up in the mountains, we grabbed some breakfast and drove up route 7 into the mountains.  We had thought about driving up to see the Inca bridge a natural stone formation over the Mendoza River but we decided to hike to a water fall that wasn’t as far up the highway.  The water fall was on a somewhat unmarked trail called Salto de la Quebrada del 55.  It was a couple mile hike right along a stream but it had some neat grasses and other terrain.  Once we completed the hike we took some time to explore some other spots along the river and also spotted about 20 Andes condors that were circling overhead there must have been a condor rookery nearby.

Once we got down out of the mountains we visited three wineries before heading of home to Maddy and the kids.  The first was a smaller boutique winery called Bodega Caleum, they had a nice short tour and some flavorful wines.  Our host was nice enough to call Chandon and schedule us a tour there which John wanted to hit.  Once we got to Chandon we were escorted by a large looking gentleman in a suit, he joined us with our tour but we finagled getting out of the tour and got our buddy to get us some some moldy cheese (seriously tasted like a rotten shoe) and sausage too.  The Sparkling wines were very good, some dry some sweet, Maddy was a bit irritated we went without her.  Our final winery was Septima which was a much larger winery focusing on the reds of the region, it was a good final stop before heading back to Maddy and the kids.

We had another great night of hanging out with John before we gave him a ride to the airport the next day.  We had some other errands to run around town but basically we were lying low preparing for another long drive the next day; this time it was Buenos Aires!!

We arrived at our Airbnb on Thursday night, we met our host and he showed us around the house, we corralled the girls into bed before flopping into bed ourselves happy to be done with our longest drive.  We were staying in Lujan de Cuyo just south of the town of Mendoza but squarely in the middle of wine country.  We discovered that there is a triangle of area of land stretching from Mendoza down to San Carlos that was formed as a delta from the Rio Cacheuta and other rivers flowing out of the Andes in the area.  The soil is mostly pebbles and boulders and very low sediment or soil so they are good to starve the vinyards and force them to produce small grapes which have the best flavor. The best soils have a calcium carbonate building up on the gravels and cobbles that is precipitated from the river water flowing off the delta, presumably from limestone dissolved from high in the Andes.

On Friday I went out and picked up some groceries at the local market, lots of fruits veggies and steak, while the kids played in the pool.  In the afternoon we wound our way through town to pick up John at the airport on the north side.  It was great seeing family after such a long time on our trip, the kids were especially excited when they saw that John had brought us lots of new movies and other present like socks that we had sent him via amazon.com.  We fired up the argentine grill and roasted some steaks and enjoyed very much a celebratory dinner.

The next day was Saturday and we played in our postage stamp size pool that we had at our house before heading out in the afternoon for horseback riding in the foothill of the Andes.  The ride was great, we had four horses for the six of us with the twins riding along with someone.  Caroline was old enough to ride her own horse, we only did the one hour tour and were happy we did as we were a bit sore.  It was more fun than I had expected; everyone had a blast.  We enjoyed some scenery along the reservoir in the mountains before heading down the mountain to check out a winery.  We finally ended up tasting wine near our house at Bodega Weinert just down the street.  We grilled out again and spent the rest of the day lounging by the pool.

Sunday was our first full day for wine tasting, we starting out with Carinae a smaller boutique winery, they had very lovely wines made in the French style.  We met the owners and enjoyed the lack of pretentiousness.  We ended up spending too much time chatting and enjoying ourselves cause we were late to our tour at Trapiche the biggest winery in the region.  Actually it turned out pretty good because we cut out part of the tour so the kids didn’t whine so much.  We were able to taste some wines and skip the whines 😉.  Our last winery of the day was Terraze Altus which ended up being the longest wine tour ever, at least two hours, after playing on their ipads for the first part of the tour the kids came and found us and played hide and go seeking in the winery.  We were able to get a barrel tasting and lots of information about the making of their wines.   It was a great first day and we headed home with our heads full of wine knowledge.

We headed out of town the next day which was planned as our longest in the car yet, up to 13 hours for our last day on the famous Ruta Cuarenta.  We made the decision to drive along the mountains which were very pretty, lots of neat geology; it was also important to get to Mendoza because John was coming the next day.

We had our first tire blow out (the others were slow punctures) near the town called Malargue; we also we didn’t realize there was a huge stretch of road that didn’t have any gas stations that were open, so we were running on fumes when we pulled into town.  We did have to sit in a half an hour long line, likely due to being the first gas station in many miles.  Someone ahead of us actually had run out of gas and was pushing themselves along.  Once we got gas Maddy got dinner for the girls while I got our tire replaced, it was not repairable as there were at least 5 large holes.  I did quickly find a tire service station that had a replacement that for that exact firestone tire, it didn’t take us more than an hour total delay.  I am beginning to understand that these South American towns are very prepared for damage to tires due to somewhat poor quality roads.

The will say though that the flat tires were so worth the aggravation to see this incredible section of the world.  As we arrived into Mendoza after night fall and fully tired of driving after our 14 hour day (plus one waiting for the tire) it brought to a close a huge part of our trip not only finishing our time on the Ruta Cuarenta but we had officially left the Patagonia region and entered wine country and the next phase of our trip.