Buenos Aires + Mendoza: tango and malbec at the foot of the Andes
A capital that looks European and behaves Latin American, and a wine region whose vineyards face a seven-thousand-metre peak.
What the pair gives you
Buenos Aires is a dense city of boulevards, bookshops and a cemetery that resembles a quarter. Two hours of flying away is Mendoza, where everything is the opposite: poplar avenues, irrigation canals, vineyards and the Andes on the horizon. One balances the other: after a week in a city that eats dinner at eleven at night, a measured wine region feels like a rest.
Buenos Aires: five days
Recoleta with the cemetery where Evita is buried and the finest bookshop in the world inside a former theatre. San Telmo with its Sunday market and street tango. La Boca with the coloured houses of Caminito — by day and without wandering into the neighbouring blocks. Palermo with parks and bars. Puerto Madero on the water. And compulsorily a milonga, a real dance evening for locals rather than a show for visitors: everyone is let in, and it is more interesting to watch than anything staged.
Mendoza: five days
The wineries fall into three districts: Maipu, the nearest and simplest, reached by bicycle; Uco, the most scenic, with mountain views; Lujan de Cuyo, the compromise. Tastings are booked in advance, usually for the morning, and nobody sensible does more than three in a day. Beyond wine there is the road to Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere: a viewpoint at its foot, the Inca bridge, all within a day trip. In winter there are ski resorts nearby.
About the food
Argentine beef is not a myth. Asado is cooked slowly and served in parts rather than as a single steak; in a parrilla it is worth asking what is coming off the grill right now. Empanadas differ by province. Malbec costs what mineral water costs in Europe, and that is not an exaggeration. Dinner is late: before nine in the evening half the places are simply shut.
When to go
October–April is the local summer. March–April is the best window for Mendoza: harvest, the Vendimia festival, warm days and cool nights. In January Buenos Aires is hot and half-empty — everyone leaves for the coast. June–August is winter: damp and about ten degrees in the capital, snow in the mountains.
Tango: how to see the real thing
A dinner show is a production, beautiful and expensive. A milonga is a dance evening where people come to dance rather than to watch; entry is cheap and the crowd runs from twenty to eighty years old. It has its own rules: partners are invited across the room with a look (the cabeceo), you dance four tunes in a row and talk between them. Watching is fine, nobody will drag you onto the floor. The famous ones are La Viruta and Salon Canning, but the neighbourhood milongas are more honest.
If you add a third stop
Argentina is enormous and everything radiates from Buenos Aires. Iguazu in the north: waterfalls on the Brazilian border, two hundred and seventy cascades and the Devil's Throat; two hours by air, two days minimum. Patagonia in the south: El Calafate with the Perito Moreno glacier calving in front of you, and El Chalten with treks towards Fitz Roy. Ushuaia at the very end. Each is a separate three- or four-hour flight, so a third stop asks for another week.
Practical matters
Argentina is visa-free for a Russian passport, up to 90 days. Exchange rates and payment methods in the country have changed often — check before the trip how it is cheapest to pay. Flights between Buenos Aires and Mendoza take about two hours; there are also overnight buses with reclining seats, a local genre that is far more comfortable than it sounds.
Moscow → Buenos Aires → Mendoza
Route and nights go into the form — adjust the date and passengers.