Tunuyan: feasting on pork!

Sooooo Much HAM!!

The Max-meister digs in!!

Max with the hand-block

Mutual camera-stalking

Tunuyan: weekend with Max Romero Day's family

Visiting the house-in-process. Max's family (for those unfamiliar with this particular Argentine, Max spent a year in chattanooga and several months in the Hughes household about three years ago.) has been gracious enough to extend a very warm and open welcome to your-truly for as long as I am in Mendoza (and for any future visits). About a month ago now...sorry people, I'm a bit behind.... Max and company drove me out to Tunuyan for the weekend, Halloween and each of our respective mum's birthdays. So yeah... that was October. 

Moving on!!!

The live in central Tunuyan (which is something along the lines of saying on lives in Trenton, GA) but are only renting their house there. Their future domicile is currently under construction, but at least the first half of it [which was intended as a quincho or pavilion but has morphed into a much more sophisticated structure due to necessity and time restraints] is party-ready! We dove into the birthday sweets (sorry folks, no fotos of those) and Max and I then crashed upstairs after a long walk to get rid of the sugar-gitters. 

Fotos of the pre-party "all-things-pork" lunch

and Max and my walk coming soon

The birthday girl herself!

The VERY comfy couches

Guess who had to be dragged from her post "guarding" the sofas =D

Bodega Arizu.... when work mixes wonderfully with play!!

When my geography professors gave our class (essentially) free-reign on our final projects for the semester, a group of my friends/classmates were thrilled... they (Michelle, Celeste & Ana) and I had been throwing around the idea for several weeks of relating the physical geography of Mendoza (part of the specialization of our class) resulting in a climate that is no less than ideal for the growth, production and exportation of a class of wine/grape called the Malbec, to the nitch this particular wine has carved out for itself in the international market. My classmate Michelle, as it just so happened, was the niece of a local vineyard owner. YAY!

And that was how... on a beautiful Friday morning... the four of us girls found our way into Lujan's sunny countryside

 

Here in Mendoza, they use roses as indicators to detect diseases and insect infestations, that way they can save the more valuable vines before significant damage is done... And I thought they were decorative ;-p
pretty cool beans huh!!

Ana & Celeste peering into the champagne vault through the window into the basement

exploring the history of Arizu

The collection

Celeste & Michelle gleaning information for our project...

Carvings by a local artist commissioned by la bedega, documenting the history of Arizu and the wine-making process.

A glimpse of the Andes