Author: hwilkie@mhwcom.com

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Sorry I’ve Been Absent — I’m Back!

When I haven’t been consistently posting in this blog, I’m often surprised to find how long it has been since my last postl That’s definitely the case now – the last time I posted was about dancing at the milonga without masks, and that was on March 24.

Anyway, the reason I’ve been missing is that I have been sick. At first I thought I had Covid, but a couple of home tests proved that not to be the case. I then decided I had flu, and just took to my bed. By the end of five days of that, with absolutely no improvement, my body told me it was time for action. I was so weak I had trouble standing up.

My two friends Gillian and Venetia took me to Emergency, where I was admitted with pneumonia. Yes, my old nemesis! I don’t know why I didn’t recognize it given this is not my first time. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details, but they kept me in for five days—they don’t send you home here until you are ready, and in my case the pneumonia had cleared up.

I’ve been home for a couple of weeks now, and I can safely say I’m back to normal. The worst thing about this thing is usually the weakness, and that took several days to get better. But now I don’t have to walk slowly any more, and I can walk reasonable distances with no problem.

And what about tango? Well I’ve been missing it for a month now, and being very disciplined about not rushing back, but I do plan to go to the milonga on Monday night with my friend Lina and our teacher Ale. Can’t wait!

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Dancing Maskless!

Last night at the milonga we were allowed to dance without masks — what a feeling of freedom! Some people kept theirs on, and in fact the first man I danced with did. I asked if he wanted me to keep mine on and he said yes, if I wouldn’t mind. So I did. But the rest of the night I was barefaced!

There’s a guy who goes every Wednesday to this milonga and I’ve danced with him many times, and I never knew until last night that he had a moustache!

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A Favourite Sketching Spot Opens Again

One of my favourite places to sketch is a cemetery! Not any old cemetery mind you, but Recoleta Cemetery, where the rich and famous of Buenos Aires have been buried for centuries. There are no flat graves here, just mausoleums and tombs (maybe they’re the same thing, I don’t know). They are laid out in streets just like a little town—except all the residents are dead!

It has been closed since before the pandemia, and I just recently heard it had reopened, so I wandered up there after my morning coffee today. My sketchbook was itching to come out! Here’s what I did.

It belongs to one Brigadier General Tomas Guido, who died in 1888. The one to the right belongs to a famous character in Argentine History called Admiral Brown. I’ll go back and do his monument one of these days and tell you his story when I post the sketch.

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Night at the Opera

A few weeks ago I was at a party with some new friends and we got to talking about opera. One offered to get tickets for one of the performances at the Teatro Colon, and we went last night.

It was La Boheme, performed by the Colon’s own opera company and it was beautiful. Singing, staging, costumes —everything was superb.

The Colon is a spectacular theatre, very traditional with lots of marble and velvet, and an amazing fresco ceiling. But the thing that makes it stand out is its acoustics, which are totally natural — no electronics in the entire theatre. It’s almost unbelievable to know that what we were hearing was just the normal singing voices, without benefit of microphones. Pavarotti played the Colon once, and he apparently said the acoustics were too perfect, so you couldn’t make a mistake!

We sat in a box above the orchestra circle — my first experience of a box at the theatre! It was lovely, very comfortable and gave a great view of the stage.

After the show, we went for drinks to a great places called Million, which has a lovely outdoor space and it was still warm enough to enjoy the summer evening outdoors.

We’re planning to repeat the experience when the Colon’s ballet season starts.

  • Teatro Colon
  • Linda and Lesley
  • Million
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Interesting Photos

Yesterday I had lunch with Laurie, a friend of a Canadian friend. She is currently living in Chile and is here for a short holiday.

Over lunch we were talking about all things Argentina, including tango. She had never seen it and was thinking about going to a show. Now although the shows are lovely, we tango dancers call that “tourist tango” and it’s not the real thing. I was going to the milonga last night and I persuaded her to go there instead – didn’t take much convincing I have to say! She really enjoyed the atmosphere and watching the dancing, and she had an interesting approach to photographing it — just feet in tango shoes! Here are a couple she took of me.

Afterwards, Lina, Laurie and I went to Miramar, one of the old Bares Notables, for another Buenos Aires experience, which we all enjoyed.

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Goodbye Mendoza

Sunday was our last day, and as our flight wasn’t until 8 pm we had a pretty full day to enjoy. After breakfast we went back to the hotel, checked out and left our cases with them while we went off to enjoy the day. We wanted to make sure we had a good lunch, because we wouldn’t get home until almost midnight and probably wouldn’t have time to eat.

Walking around the beautiful Plaza Independencia once again, we came upon a hop-on-hop-off bus, and decided that would be the perfect way to spend the day. One of the stops was on the street of restaurants where we had had dinner on our first night, so we hopped off there and had a great lunch in La Republica.

Then we continued on the bus trip, and imagine our surprise when we went through Parque San Martin, saw the fountain and headed up to the Gloria again! This time it was a bus negotiating the narrow road high above the city, but it was made less hairy because they’ve made one road to go up and another to come down. We didn’t get out this time, but just stayed on the bus until it came back near our hotel, where we picked up our cases and headed for the airport

I actually wrote this post on the plane, and now it’s Monday morning. I’ve added the photos before posting.

Mendoza is a lovely city, and the surroundings where you find the bodegas are spectacular, so it was a good trip. I also enjoyed my first trip on an airplane since the beginning of the pandemia!

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One Winery Tour and a New Friend

Last week, Cecilia put us in touch with Graciela, a friend of a friend who lives in Mendoza. When we connected, she offered to show us around Mendoza or do wherever we wanted to go. We had already booked lunch at a winery for Saturday, but we hadn’t organized a means of getting there. Graciela said she would be happy to do that, so we added her to our lunch reservation and it was all set.

She wasn’t coming for us until 11 am Saturday, so we went out for breakfast and did some wandering. We were really lucky with the weather. In Mendoza it starts off cool and cools off again at night, but the late morning and afternoon is when it gets nice and warm. The sun shone on us all week and the sky was clear blue.

Graciela took us on a little tour, and then we were off. We were going to the bodega of Nieto Senetiner, which is a wine Venetia and I both like, in the Lujan de Cuyo area. This is the wine region that is closest to Mendoza itself, and it only took us about half an hour to get there.

The tour was interesting, but the best part was the setting of the bodega itself. I’m adding some photos showing the rows of vines with the Andes in the background. It was spectacular.

The lunch was so-o-o-o good! We all chose salmon, which was done on the asado and was mouth watering.

Before we left, Venetia and Graciela sat chatting in front of the bodega, while I made the sketch below. Graciela spoke no English, and Venetia said she hadn’t spoken that much Spanish in months!

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When we came back to the city, Graciela took us to the huge Parque San Martin, which was all lovely but had two highlights.

The first was the Fountain of the Continents, a huge bronze fountain with depictions of four continents, beautiful sculptures and water coming in all directions. The water in the pool around it was red to represent the wine, a fun feature of the Wine Harvest time in Mendoza.

But for me the highlight of the day was a huge monument high up above the city called Cerro de la Gloria (the Hill of Glory). It commemorates the crossing of the Andes by General San Martin and his army, from Chile to Argentina. They went on to liberate Argentina from Spain, earning San Martin his sobriquet of El Libertador. He is Argentina’s greatest hero.

The monument itself is quite spectacular, with bronze carvings around the sides representing the various groups of people who went, and donkeys with their eyes blindfolded so that they couldn’t see over the edge. Mind boggling. As we walked around the monument, my mind also went to the event itself. Cecilia and I drove on those high mountain roads, and that was hair raising enough, but doing it with no roads at all doesn’t bear thinking about. I found myself quite verklempt!

It was another great day, and I was more than ready for an early night!

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Wine Tour in Mendoza

Today we had our first wine tour in the Lujan de Cuyo region of Mendoza, and now we are in our hotel room recovering. I had thought of going to a milonga to dance tonight — but who was I kidding?

It was a lovely day. Our tour guide, Flor, was a young woman with a depth of knowledge about wine and all the processes and she was also lots of fun.

We went to four wineries, and had lunch at the third one. We mostly enjoyed the wines, except the last winery of the day, which neither of us liked very much. To be fair, though, we may have just been all wined out by that time!

I took my water colours with me, but there was no time to do a detailed sketch, so I was glad I also took my smaller sketchbook and pens, as I was able to do quick sketches at three of the wineries.

Here’s a selection of images of the day.

  • Venetia and me
  • Venetia and Flor
  • In the lobby of Budeguer winery
  • Grapes on the vine – we tasted them, very sweet
  • Women separating the good grapes from the rejects by hand
  • Me among the vines!
  • Wine goddess, offering to heaven the gifts of the earth
  • First course salad…
  • Dessert – I forgot to photograph the humongous steak in betwee!
  • Our lovely guide, Flor
  • Enough said
  • First bodega and my favourite, Bandini
  • Decera bodega
  • Budeguer bodega
  • Bandini bodega
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Lovely Little Pasaje

This morning after breakfast we did some wandering in the neighbourhood (which is right downtown) and found this little pasaje. A pasaje is a passageway of shops and galleries, and this was a lovely one.

  • Lovely stained glass ceiling was pretty posh for a shopping gallery!
  • Fancy “closed” sign and mannekin in a little alterations shop