After breakfast at Finca Azul and settling our accounts, we headed north on the next leg of our journey.

Final thoughts on Finca Azul:

• The evening meals were fabulous. This was the best that we have ever experienced with a boutique hotel. We could have made reservations in town at one of the many restaurants but considering the all-you-can-drink Finca Azul wine served during supper, it was best to not have to drive.

• The interior decoration was amazing, featuring tapestries from local craftsmen.

• Although they tried to hide the concrete bones of the place with interior decoration in the main house, there was no such decoration in the rooms. Walls, ceilings, floors, were all concrete, which made the room chilly and somewhat spartan.

• Very modern with good WiFi

Reevaluating our cash situation, I came to realize that we actually had gotten the “blue dollar” rate at Western Union. I had miscalculated what I thought we should have received. $100 US yields about 29,000 pesos AR when you get the “blue dollar” rate. If you exchange at a bank or use a credit card directly, you get the official rate, which is much lower: $100 US to 14,500 Pesos AR. It was all very complicated at first but we have figured it out, only having lost a few hundred in value by changing using credit cards for purchases and exchanging benjamins at the national bank.

In that regard, we made arrangements with Patricia, our guide from yesterday's tour, to exchange some benjamins for pesos at a higher than official rate. We met up at Chandon, where Lorna and I had a glass of sparkling Brut before Patricia and her husband showed up with the pesos to exchange for our US bills.

After the exchange, we headed toward northern Mendoza to find Don Mario Palmarés, the restaurant where agreed to meet Eleonora for lunch.

It was interesting to finally meet someone in person who I had only known online. Eleonora was the first Spanish teacher with whom I had been scheduling live Spanish classes over Italki, since February. At lunch, we spoke only in Spanish. It was funny to me that when Eleonora asked me something that I didn’t understand, Lorna got it and helped me out with the translation.

After lunch we headed north toward Barreal. The three-hour drive was uneventful, except for the nearly off-road adventure when the highway changed to gravel for about 40 km. During this period, we stopped at a Difunta Correa shrine.

Difunta Correa is an Argentinean legend from centuries past during the Argentine civil war. A conscript went to war but fell ill and his company had to leave him behind. His wife, Deolinda Correa, heard of her husband's illness and set off into the desert with their infant child. Deolinda became lost, ran out of food and water, and died in the desert. Vaqueros found her body days later but were shocked to find that her baby, who had been feeding on the milk of her still full breast, was still alive. This became the miracle of the Difunta (deceased) Correa and today, people in the San Juan and La Rioja regions set up shrines in her honor. People visit the shrines, leaving simple offerings and prayers in hope to receive blessings.

The one in the picture is one of the crappier ones that we encountered. There are some that are much nicer, constructed with stone and brick, but most are just made of water bottles.

When we arranged this trip, one of my requirements was that we visit all of the wine regions between Mendoza and Salta. One of these regions was San Juan, which has many bodegas to visit. What I did not realize until it was too late to change anything is that while Barreal is in San Juan Province, it is three hours away from the bodegas in San Juan. To complicate matters even more, our visit to Barreal was to be two days.

Because of Lorna's gimpy, broken foot, anything involving walking, horses, or water sports is not a possibility. Around Barreal, the aforementioned are all the activities available. We will figure this out tomorrow.

Posada Pasos de los Patos

Upon arrival to Barreal, we had some difficulty finding the entrance to Posada Pasos de los Patos. With some off-roading in our camionetta, we found the treacherous path over several streams, through thick groves of what appeared to be Cypress trees, until we found our destination. Lorna's first impression of the entrance was a scene from “Romancing the Stone”.

The location featured a main house, where we met with Alejandro, presumably the owner. Alejandro spoke fairly good English but would not reciprocate in Spanish when I tried to engage in Spanish. I wasn't sure what to take of that. Once signed in, we received a menu to select something to eat from the kitchen.

Alejandro walked us out to a row of several free-standing bungalow/cabin/suite accommodations. Ours was the furthest from the main house.

Once settled in, we discovered that we had nearly zero Internet connectivity. The hotel documentation claimed to have WiFi but the signal strength was an intermittent single bar. Usually we can compensate for this with 4/5G but none was available in this area. There appeared to be a weak 3G signal but it worked about as poorly as the WiFi. Therefore, until we leave Barreal, there will be little communication from us.

Supper was taken care of for us in the main house: Lorna selected a Beef Stroganoff with pumpkin mash and I selected a local favorite, which consisted of a mix of creamed corn, cheese, and sweet peppers. With this, we had a bottle of white Torrontés, which is a white wine varietal, popular in Cafayate.

Because we were going to be in Barreal for two nights, we had been trying to get reservations at a German restaurant near the Patos but they were not answering their phone. However, Alejandro had back-channels to El Aleman and managed to get us a table for Saturday night.

Next up - Day 6: Posada Pasos de los Patos in Barreal

.. Back to Index