A snippet of Argentina

I must admit that I've been a terrible slacker when it comes to offering highlights of my time in Argentina. I hope to find the "ganas" to write a bit more now that I'm home, but the following story was pretty unexpected and memorable and I couldn't wait to write about it.

On the second-to-last day in Argentina, Robin and I were in Mendoza, the major wine region of Argentina, and had plans to visit a small family winery and have lunch there. We debated renting a car for the day, but driving stick shift in a country where a car might pass a fruit truck and fully expect the oncoming traffic to yield didn't win out in the end. So, with an "it'll work out" attitude, we just hopped on a bus that would take us to one of the downtowns near the target winery and planned to take a taxi the rest of the way.

"Downtown" was a bit of a stretch and led to us arbitrarily hopping off the bus after we decided, "That looks like a main road." Not a taxi to be had. Even in small towns in Mexico I could always find a taxi, so this was a bit of a surprise. We entered a kiosko, or convenience store, and asked if they had a phone number of a radio taxi or remise.

"My father will drive you in that blue car." I looked back outside and saw a car at least 20 years old (not rare in Argentina - I wish I could have an Argentinian mechanic!) as the woman explained that her father would be coming out from the back of the store and could be our taxi. The man, in his 60s, came out and asked where we were trying to go. He didn't know the vineyard but we could drive around looking for it. The signage is quite good, he explained. I asked him "en qué precio" and he said he'd have to ask his neighbor.

Upon returning, he quoted us 60 pesos (about 13 dollars), which seemed a little high, but we accepted, not knowing how far the winery was. He would slow down for every bodega (winery) sign to see if it was ours and which way we might go. I kept wondering if his car was going to make it. During the ride, he pointed out the Country Club (el Golf) and told us that we couldn't imagine the "lujo" (luxury) in there. I live in Greenwich, I thought, so I might have an idea. He told us that once he had to go there and they laughed at his car. He pointed out his friend's two-story house that he borrowed for his anniversary party. And he asked us if the US was like the movies.

We arrived at the winery and the drive was much shorter than anticipated, so our impromptu driver reduced our fare to 30 pesos. We gave him 40 for his trouble.

And that's how we met Tito.