Argentina continued: a pit stop in San Rafael

From Bueno Aires, it was a 14 hour bus ride straight west to our next destination: San Rafael. We were led here from a recommendation from our next Workaway host. We were a little worried about the bus ride, as we had heard (and experienced on previous trips) that South American busses were a bit sketchier than those in Europe. However, this was a large, clean double-decker bus with comfortable seats that made the overnight journey (hooray for not having to pay for a hotel room!) a breeze. One thing that it did make us realize though: South America is HUGE, and getting from place to place is going to be much more difficult than Europe, where you could pass through 6 countries on a bus ride this long. The bus did not make very many stops, but we had our box of empanadas, and bag of alfajores treats from Buenos Aires to tide us over.

Our accommodation in San Rafael was an AirBnB complete with a large kitchen/living room, private bathroom, comfortable bed and A/C, and large courtyard with a BBQ area that we shared with the owner, all for $20 per night. It even included a couple of chickens and a dog (we miss you already, Ramona)! After a recovery nap (even on the most comfortable busses, it's still hard to catch a good night of sleep), we set about walking the main roads of the town. San Rafael definitely felt much more quiet than the large city of Buenos Aires, and this was exaggerated by the fact that the town pretty much shuts down completely every day between 1pm and 5pm for a siesta (they take their naps seriously here, as we all should!). While there isn't much to do within the town itself, there are still beautiful tree-lined streets and cool parks and cafes. The town is mainly used, though, as a central hub for nearby excursions to local vineyards, canyons, and lakes in the foothills of the Andes. A lot of these things were out of our budget, but we got creative, as you will see.

We stopped at a cafe on our way back for a couple of cocktails. Nicole finally got a typical Argentinian drink: Fernet Branca and cola. We had had a similar drink before, and remembered it as not very good. This time had a similar result (bordering on nasty), but it probably won't be our last in Argentina! Our final stop on the way home was to pick up groceries for our stay here. We had a couple of cheap dishes in mind, but threw some of those out the window when we saw steak prices. Argentina has a large beef culture, but we still hadn't seen or tried anything on the same level as what we get back home (plus one for Nebraska!). Even at the meat counter, Kyle wasn't seeing anything that really caught his eye. That was until Nicole spotted a shelf full of GIGANTIC tomahawk ribeye steaks, all cut thick. And the best part: they were less than $4/pound (we had to do the kg/lb conversion several times to make sure it was true). After grabbing a couple of 28-ounce cuts (for only $7 each, we LOVE this country), we rushed home to cook. Most places do not have standard "grills" here (and definitely not propane ones), so we had to build a true fire in their outdoor cooking space, and wait for the coals to form. After that, we made some garlic potatoes, steamed broccoli, and, of course, the steaks. We went to bed extremely full and extremely happy that night, with plenty of leftovers to boot!

After a breakfast of eggs, fresh pineapple, and bananas the following morning, we started to reach out to excursion places to see what was available for the day. We had a very difficult time getting any pricing info from online websites, or even finding ways to contact these places. When we did, there was a language barrier (and, more so, a cultural barrier. While tourism companies in the US go way out of there way to obtain each and every customer, they don't have the same enthusiasm for new business here). After failing on most of our choices, or being priced out of the rest, we decided on a new path: to rent bikes and explore on our own. San Rafael is part of the Mendoza region, which is world famous for it's wine. As we are both wine drinkers, it made sense that we would create our own biking tour. With over 200 "bodegas" (local wineries) near San Rafael, we mapped out a path that would allow for both a good workout and a lot of tastings. The bike shop already had a similar map ready for us, as a lot of the bodegas are along the same stretch of road (we called it Wine road, but we're sure it has a different, much less interesting name).

We spent the day biking to the different bodegas. It started rough, as the first one did not let us in without a reservation (which we could not make, because there was no way to book online or efficiently contact them...). Our next bodega had a tour going later that hour, so we sat in the outdoor space and enjoyed a pre-tour glass of wine. The tour was all in Spanish, which Nicole understood most of, and Kyle understood very little of. There was also just us and another couple, so we had to be active participants, when all we wanted was to get to the tasting! (By the way, the ticket for the hour long tour and 3 wine tasting was only $4 each). However, the guides worked with us, and the other couple had a good time trying to help us translate as well (they even left us with their contact info as "Argentina SOS" should we need anything while we are here). The second bodega was similarly all in Spanish, although even cheaper ($2) and had more people, so we could get lost in the shuffle. Other highlights of the bike ride include: stopping at a golf course with an old train car as a clubhouse, an artisanal alfajores shop (kind of a tourist trap), and one flat tire, luckily close to the rental office. When we made it back, we were a little tipsy, and very hungry, and made some rice bowls that included some of the leftover steak.

The following day, we returned our bikes, and decided we needed a day to catch up (keep it a secret, but we're actually writing several countries worth of blog posts right now). We spent the day writing, organizing ourselves for our upcoming Workaway, and playing with Ramona in the courtyard (she goes wild for the word "Pelota"). We took a break for empanadas (and an accidental order of pasta) from a local food-to-go place. It was just us and some locals, and we got some pretty obvious stares as we walked away, but they were delicious and we had leftovers for a couple of days! We rounded out our day with another steak and veggie rice bowl that evening, and watched a movie before bed.

The following morning we had to catch a 10am bus. Though we enjoyed sleeping during the storms at night, we were not planning on the rain continuing into the morning, but it was pouring when we were ready to leave. Our AirBnB host was busy so she could not give us a ride (she was kind enough to pick us up when we had arrived, but no luck this time), and we could not get ahold of any of the taxi services, so we had to throw on our rain coats and walk the 45 minute trek to the bus station. A little ingenuity with some garbage bags kept our stuff somewhat dry, but we were pretty thoroughly drenched when we arrived. Luckily, we were on time and buying a ticket ($3/each) was a breeze, and we were off on the 2.5 hour journey into the Andes mountains for our next Workaway experience!

Additional notes about San Rafael:

- Not to deter anyone from travelling here, as everyone definitely should, but even in a vacation town such as this, there were some noticeable South American staples that are just plain DIFFERENT from the scenery back home; stray dogs run the streets, the sidewalks are disjointed and sometimes nonexistent, there are open water lines for water runoff, and nests of power cables overhead. This was the cultural shift we were looking for!

- There were MASSIVE thunderstorms each night. While we definitely had experienced rain on the trip, there hadn't been anything close to a storm. This, somewhat surprisingly, made us miss being back home.

Levi's shirt count: Not much here, the count just bumped up to 264