Going to Africa for the first time was a huge step for us and it’s hard to remember how worried we were about the whole thing.  Would we have trouble with the languages?  Would we be safe?  Will the food be safe to eat and the water safe to drink?  Should we worry about racism?  Civil wars?

In retrospect, I’m very glad our introduction to Africa was through Cape Town.  The infrastructure there is good, the population is mostly white, English is spoken by just about everyone… starting at the southern tip really eased us in.  Later on, as we progressed through the rest of Southern Africa, things became more difficult for us as travelers, but by then we had gained enough confidence to handle anything thrown our way.

Africa has elements of the Western and Eastern worlds (and even the Middle East), but it’s not really much like either.  Africa is its own place, with its own cultures, and its own way of doing business.  The list of notes I jotted down on South Africa grew rapidly.  As our first introduction to a new continent, there were bound to be many differences from the other countries we’ve visited, not to mention the United States.
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Mendoza, Argentina is wine country.  The sunny weather is predictable and a plentiful supply of water comes trickling down from the back side of the Andes.  Obviously, the thing to do while you’re in Mendoza is to visit the vineyards.  The touristy thing to do is much the same, just on a bicycle.

Five of us set off one morning with a plan to try the touristy thing.  We rented bikes from Mr. Hugo and started pedaling our way to the first of 10-or-so wineries, olive farms, and chocolatiers.  What could have been a dangerous ride back was actually rather sober, as many of the vineyards were closed that day and, what’s more, we couldn’t justify 15-peso samples at every bodega we visited.

I’m not sure the bike ride thing worked for me.  The first time Oksana and I were in Mendoza, we simply found a bodega we liked (Tempus Alba) and spent a long, quiet afternoon on their veranda sampling all seven of their wines.  The travel time involved with the bikes, pedaling in the sun from vineyard to vineyard, made the whole day seem rushed.  That’s not to say we didn’t have a good time, however.

At Vistandes, we paid for a combination tour and tasting.  Our English-speaking tour guide generously moved us past the large steel fermenting vats and dark cellars full of oaken casks rather quickly so that we could spend more time sampling their wines.

While speeding along one plain hallway, we passed a low wall of wine bottles.  I didn’t hear what our guide said about it – no doubt something about the stack being another step in the aging process – because she didn’t even slow down as she passed it by.  I stopped long enough to frame two shots with Oksana’s point-and-shoot before I had to catch up with the group.  Both turned out well, but I like this one better because of the way the bottles go to the end of the frame, the curvature of the wide-angle lens bows them out a little, and, well, just the way that tilt of the photo makes the whole thing a bit more abstract.

Panasonic DMC-TZ5
Date: 3:03pm, 7 March 2011
Focal Length: 5mm (30mm equivalent)
Shutter: 1/30 sec
Aperture: F/3.4
Flash: Yes
ISO: 100
Photoshop: None

I did an awful lot of traveling last year – so much that I never really had the time to sit down, decompress, and write up some of my thoughts.  Driving across the country, Argentina, Peru… part of me wants to put them on my blog in chronological order, but I think it makes more sense to work backwards.  Freshest memories to… well, Moleskin notes. In November, Oksana and I spent three week in Argentina.  We had the great fortune to have two sets of friends down there, in Buenos Aires and in the country near Córdoba.  Surprisingly, we spent most of our time speaking English rather than Spanish.  Not that you need to speak Spanish to learn a few things about Argentina. Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner (and Dessert) Argentina loves steak.  No, really.  You could go the same restaurant for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, order a steak each time, and no one would bat an eye.  For a carnivore like me, this is a beautiful thing. (more…)