Day 3 - The Real Estate

Day 3 – The Real Estate

I am writing this in the late afternoon on the back patio of our small hotel. It is a remarkably pleasant 92° with a gentle breeze and low humidity. It feels great! (Sorry to rub this in on my Northern Hemisphere friends and family). On with the events of the day.

Steve had a passing visit from Montezuma, which slowed him down a bit for the day’s happening. We had a simple breakfast in the “guest house” – a very nice house converted to morning dining. No one gets started very early here (it feels like a retreat) so it “opens” at 8am. Things at the breakfast room really didn’t get started until 8:30-ish. Life just moves at a different pace here.

We did a little wondering around this vast property. It’s hard form me to know how big it is since different people give different answers. What I can make out is that there are thousands of hectares (1 hc = 2.5 acres). At noon, we met with the architects  - a husband and wife team, Franco and Alise - who design the luxurious homes that are at this development (keep in mind that there are only 7 homes completed or under construction on the first 800 hectares of the property development). Nonetheless, these architects did some amazing work for their clients – who seem to be C-suite executives from various parts of the world. The houses that would cost multiple millions in the US (by my guesstimate) are gong for $500K or so here. Amazing combinations of stone, wood, tile etc. with views of the vineyards nearby or the mountains in the distance (we can even see some of the Andes far off to the west).

We went back to the restaurant for a late lunch (Steve ate bread and … of course … some more of that Bailey’s ice cream). Bob ordered off the menu, and despite our simple order, it just takes at least 2 hours to eat lunch! Oh well, nowhere to go, nothing to do and all the time in the day to do it. The afternoon was leisurely (have I mentioned this before?) with some reading, napping, writing this blog. The electricity and internet and cell service has been quite intermittent since the storm, so it forces us to relax, chat (BTW, we are solving many of the world’s problems as we all like to do) and relax some more.

We went to the pool to cool off and it was very pleasant. We were the only ones there until a delightful man came and introduced himself as Sergio. Ah, Sergio! This is the guy Bob was trying to contact as he is one of the key financial guys for the Algodon Group. His daughter (Valentina) joined us – she just finished her freshman year of college where she is studying law – and we had an engaging conversation about many things US and Argentina.

Sergio invited us to join them for dinner the following night (since they already had plans for tonight) as well as to assure us that he would recommend an American Sports Bar for us to watch the Super Bowl. Valentina seemed to be more up on the sports bar scene, and I think Sergio was going to seek her counsel. Valentina noted that she and her friends liked to go to American bars once in a while to practice their language skills and to learn more about American culture. You learn all sorts of perspectives when you get out of the country – things that we never think of and certainly our high school and college kids are not looking for foreign-country bars (I suppose they do not exist very much in the US) to work on expanding their language and cultural skills.

Dinner was at the usual small restaurant on the premises with more excellent food and the compulsory 2+ hour experience. The walk back to the hotel was again highlighted by billions and billions of stars.