so the trip goes on...the marriott here is a unique hotel...one of the first lux hotels built in 1909 to entertain the aristocrats of BA and foreigners who were flooding to this fabulously rice country.....money came from agriculture, if you can believe that...

the first day here we walked around a bit, vitited florida street, a walking street, and the huge pacifica mall....we had great steaks that nite....

yesterday we booked a morning tour of the city in a van....we ended up being the only people so it was a private tour---cost about $ 50 total including a 25% tip....fantastic deal really.....we visited each main section of the city, and got out and walked around in many of them.... we finished up in the famous recoletta cemetery where all the wealthy families have thier grave site....its quite a unique place....evita is buried there...

we had the guide leave us in this section and we walked around and visited the lux avelar palace hotel for a look and went to a famous place behind it for empanadas for lunch....

last nite we met avrooster of fodors fame (SA board) for drinks and dinner....he brought along another couple and we had a lovely evening getting back to the hotel at 12:30AM....

today is a shopping day for us and sort of lazy...

tomorrow off to paraguay

Hi Bob,

Glad you're having fun and enjoying the Argy steaks. Don't forget to try the wine too since some of them are quite nice Malbecy type variety. Any Thai food in BA?

Sounds like a good trip for you both. Is Karen finding flip flop shoes for $2 a pair??? I'll bet NOT.

Let me know about any weekend market you find with cheap hand crafts ... yeah, right! Not in BA... but maybe in Paraguay? I met a couple of very nice ladies from there (a mother and daughter) on a cruise a number of years ago. Anxious to hear about the place.

Carol

Sounds great, Bob, looking forward to reading more.

BC

Finally got a chance to read through this thread (note the time of the post) as we are home now. The SA trip sounds fantastic. Jeane and I look forward to getting together with you and K again after you return so we can hear all about it .

Have fun, B&K. (That's Bob & Karen, not Bulganin and Khrhuschev, for those of you of a certain age.)

Yeah, it's a long ride. The good news is that you're not doing any/much time zone changing, so you might avoid posting notes on Fodor's at 2am and 3am [<i>see post immediately above this one</i>] when you get back. If you get back, that is. Careful of the Paraguayan spiders.

If I was a Yankee fan, I too would be up in the middle of the night agonizing over my team's poor pitching. Wang got lit up last night in an extended spring training game.

Fortunately for Yankee fans, Wang will not be pitching this weekend. AJ Burnett has a 5-0 career record against the RS. Youk better not stand too close to the plate tonight...

ttt so i can find it after dinner for some argentina mini talk

AJ Burnett is still 5-0 against the RS. The Y's lost that game too!

Andy, you are welcome to continue your banter with me re: yankees-rs off line via e-mail but it really distracts from the forum to constantly bring it up here.

so just a little report on today in mendoza argentina...the malbec capital of argentina...

we are staying in a charming small (5 room) B&B in central mendoza....it could not be nicer....the son of the owners makes his living by conducting private tours of the local wineries...we spent more than 1/2 a day with him today--12-6...

the B&B is Italia B&B, located right on plaza italia...

our first stop was a 10 year old winery which had its first real harvest in 2002 i believe....they specilize in malbec but do some other wines as well with 500,000 litres per year production....the head wine lady took us on a tour with 3 others from CA...she gave us better wine info than we have ever had in the past in usa or overseas.....we then sat down to a 5 course paired degustion luncheon.... each person had about 8 glasses at their place....even karen does not use that many glasses on our table....andy would have knocked over 4 or 5 i am sure...

the menu was delicious and a steal at 120 pesos ($30)... in my full report i will give all the gruesome details....

we then drove about 1/2 hour to the other winery...both are south of mendoza btw....this is also a newer small winery with 1,000,000 litres per year....a charming beautiful woman took us on a tour and a tasting (50 pse)... the owner is from a famous argentine family with 3 generations of wine makers....we bought some wine there...

back to mendoza after a short stop at javier´s new house he is building out in the burbs....very impressive....he took us to his favorite wine shop to buy some more wine to take home and to get a special poly foam box for the airline shipping...

argentina is lovely but it ain´t thailand

only two days left of our vacation....we head home on tuesday nite....a full report will follow in the next couple of weeks

Immigration has been notified. An anonymous call will at least stall his re-entry. Needham is where they keep the unwitted comabatants.

..as well as the dim-witted bank robbers...

BC

and getting more dimwitted every day after eating all this red meat...

I hope you found BA little less than "boring" after being there a few days. I LOVED it. AVRooster helped us quite a bit. He was one of the only regulars that we really got info out of on the Argentine board. Glad you got to meet him. Not as prolific as the Asia board. I could live in BA easily (except that I don't speak Spanish - oh well). Looking forward to your full report.

trip report will be forthcoming in a totally new thread...

jen---he is a gem and his info is 100% perfect...