Bus Travel is Hell

Except when their is a bottle of sprkling wine to enjoy given to us by our new Argentine friend Cecilia for our 12 hour bus ride. We love you Cecilia Plus our seats fully recline to a bed. Yay. Vamos a Buenos Aires.

Mendoza Grape Harvest Festival

How lucky we are to be in Mendoza for the grape harvest festival. Painting the town purple...including the public fountains.











This fellow, Maxi, was an incredible jewelry maker...I now own some of his gorgeous earrings.


One of the ads around town for the grape harvest queen contest.


The cotton candy guy during the parade last night.

Location:Mendoza Argentina

Gauchito Gil Again

This was the fanciest Gauchito Gil shrine yet. We found a religious store in San Raphael and purchased a few Gaucho Gil statues and we placed one in a small shrine along the road.

Location:San Raphael

Back to Mendoza Area

We took about 3 days to travel up north and back to our cosy casita here in Chakras near Mendoza before we head to Washington DC to visit Traveler and Nicole on March 6. Cecilia, the owner of the casita has become a dear friend. We hope we can get her to come visit us in Alaska during the summer. Here we are at one of our favorite wineries.



Getting close to Mendoza


Cow hides drying in the sun along the road.

Location:Chakras

The Gauchito Gil Legend

We finally figured out the ubiquitous bright red roadside shrines everywhere in this part of Argentina. They are shrines to "Gauchito Gil" a legendary man to many in Argentina. (see Wikipedia explanation below )
Typical Gauchito Gil shrine




Close-up of Gil himself:




Full shrine



The Legend of Gauchito Gil
Popular accounts vary, but in broad terms the legend tells that Antonio Gil was a farmworker and that a wealthy widow fell in love, or had an affair, with him. When her brothers and the head of the police (who was also in love with the widow) found out about their relationship, accused him of robbery and tried to kill him. He enlisted in the army to escape from them. In the army, he fought against the Paraguayan army. Finally, he could come back to his village as a hero.
But, when he arrived at his village, he was forced to return to the army to fight in the Argentine Civil War. It was a brother versus brother war and "Gauchito" Gil was tired of fighting. Therefore, he decided to desert. During this time he became an outlaw and acquired a reputation as a Robin Hood figure, for his efforts to protect and help the needy.
In the end the policemen caught him in the forest. They tortured him and hung him from his feet on an algarrobo tree. When a policeman was going to kill him, "Gauchito" Gil said to him: "Your son is very ill. If you pray and beg me to save your child, I promise you that he will live. If not, he will die". Then the policeman killed "Gauchito" Gil by cutting his throat. That was January 8, 1878.[2]
When the policemen came back to his village, the one who had killed "Gauchito" Gil learnt that his child was in fact very ill. Very frightened, the policeman prayed to "Gauchito" Gil for his son. And afterwards, his son got better. Legend has it that "Gauchito" Gil had healed his murderer's son.
Very grateful, the policeman gave Gil's body a proper burial, and built a tiny shrine for "Gauchito". Moreover, he tried to let everybody know about the miracle.
"Gauchito" Gil is thought to be a folk saint for many people of the provinces of Formosa, Corrientes, Chaco, the north of Santa Fe and even the province of Buenos Aires. One can spot smaller shrines of Gauchito Gil on roadsides throughout Argentina. Great pilgrimages are organised to the sanctuary (located about 8 km from the city of Mercedes) to ask to the saint for favours.
Moreover, each January 8 (date of Gil's death), there is a celebration honoring "Gauchito" Gil. There, the people dance, sing and drink, and also play folklorical sports as tanning horses, bulls and others animals.
The Catholic Church hasn't declared "Gauchito" Gil a saint, but many Argentine people are promoting him.

New Friends in El Bolson

This is Horacio and Kitty, the owners of the wonderful B&B that we had the pleasure of staying for 5 days in El Bolson last week. They treated us like royalty PLUS we became friends. Horacio is from Argentina but tells the story of driving his VW van all the way from Buenos Aires to Berkeley some 40 years ago where the van broke down. He has been a resident artist of Berkeley ever since and now both Kitty and Horacio split their time between the 2 places. Kitty is originally from Berkeley and teaches Qi Gong as well as taking care of lots of the B&B details. Great folks!!!



One of Horacio's delicious breakfasts. Fresh fruit tart, fresh squeezed OJ, local fruit and yogurt. Every morning it got better and better. Raspberries, apples, pears and blackberries were all falling off the trees and bushes everywhere we went in El Bolson.

Location:Balloffet,San Rafael,Argentina

Last night in Patagonia Region

We spent the last 3 nights in San Martin de los Andes in a really comfy apartment tucked out of town a bit. We decided to cook out on the parilla, which is Argentine for grill. Almost everyone has one as well as all the restaurants grill on them. Below, you can see our dinner and look who showed up as we sat down....a Tony Dog clone. Of course we invited him in.