“If we invite you to our wedding, and oh yeah, we’re getting married in Argentina, would you come?”. A few years ago we were asked that by friends. We responded with a resounding yes (we were incredibly excited at the prospect of visiting South America). The trip was planned so that the wedding was in the middle.
In researching Argentina, they have no visa, but they have an “entrance fee” of $150 US. The nice part about that is, it’s good for 10 years. Before going to any country outside your own, always check what visas or entrance fees may be required.
We left for the 16 day trip with no place to stay for two of the nights. Yep, we did that. We booked the first night in Mendoza, 12 nights in a bed and breakfast, and the last two nights ???. The trip was planned so that the wedding was in the middle.
When we first arrived, we exchanged only enough money to get us to our hotel in Mendoza. Having exchanged currency before, we knew we could get a better rate further in the country. Wait you can do that? Turns out, we got 50% more (several hundred dollars worth) by going to a Cambio with US cash. Click on this Exchanging Currency link to learn more.
A cab from the airport cost us around $10 US to go 27.5 kilometers with tip, which is just over 18 miles. Given how their economy has nose-divided, we suspect it would be a lot cheaper than that now.
Before we left, we had a different friend from Argentina who got us reservations at a rooftop restaurant. It was fabulous. We both ordered a salad, main dish, shared a dessert, and drank a bottle of wine for $44 US and that included the tip.
Wine Tasting
Since headed to “Malbec country”, we decided it would be appropriate to do a little wine tasting. Based on that, we booked a fun bed and breakfast called Posada Cavieres Wine Farm in Maipu. They had their own wine. The BnB is about 10 miles southeast of Mendoza and in the heart of wine country. Like right in the middle of about 30 wineries. We took a cab from Mendoza proper.
Our BnB rented bicycles for only $5 US per week, the hosts were so awesome!! From the BnB, we could easily bike to all the local wineries. Including Bodega Trivento, a winery that one of our other Argentinian friends had worked at before coming to the US.
Tours
Living in the middle of wine country requires a vehicle to go anywhere. Some friends who were also attending the wedding had the idea to do a tour. They found this really cool tour of the Andes Mountains and thought that would be fun. Hans, our bed and breakfast host helped set it up so that the tour guide would come and pick the four of us up! We spent 14 hours driving up into the Andes from our BnB. The tour guide showed us several sites, including an old Incan mining camp. We also got to see a lot of livestock. As part of the tour, we were fed breakfast and an incredible Argentinian BBQ. The BBQ was served in a restaurant that was formerly the Incan mining camp “mess hall”.
We also went on a fun tour with a driver to 3 different wineries. One of the wineries took us around their entire winery in a horse-drawn carriage.
The Wedding
Argentinian weddings are crazy wonderful. There are five distinct components – the religious wedding, the reception, the legal wedding, the dinner, and then the party (starts at midnight). Guests can get invited to any one of the components, or all five. We found this out as we ended up wine tasting at a winery close to our BnB. When queeried by the daughter of the owner what brought us there, she said she had been only invited to the after party. The religious wedding began at 6pm sharp. We were still standing on the sidewalk when the 7pm bride arrived. After asking the priest how many weddings are normal, he stated “Oh, we have one every hour starting at five and the last one is 10pm tonight.” Whoa.
When it was all said and done, as the reception party was being cleaned up, the groom’s father asked if it was ok to take us back to our BnB. It was 5:30am. We had just experienced our first wedding that lasted almost 12 hours, and loved every minute of it!
The Wrap Up
We found that wine country was fun, but Mendoza is a great city to spend time in as well. There was an Italian The shopping district has a number of great restaurants and shops to buy souvenirs. This is how we started our journey of Finding Souvenirs in Argentina – Knives Chapter I.
Admittedly this is a skewed viewpoint as this is all from only the Mendoza area. Especially considering we didn’t even get to Buenos Aires or any of the other well known places in Argentina. Guess we’ll have to go back!