Travel with Indigo

Yesterday at lunch, Antonio told us about his estancias (ranches) where, among other things, he aged his special cheese.  He promised to send us some and he sure did!  Huge rounds of parmesan and reggiano cheeses showed up today, along with several jars of dulce de leche, a wonderfully sweet concoction to put on just about anything.  Antonio’s cheese is the best I have ever tasted so I don’t think these will last forever.

Today for lunch, we went to La Torcaza, a very special treat.  You may remember Phil’s description of meeting Carlos Pedro Blaquier in Puente del Este before Grant and I arrived.  He is the man with seven identical boats.  Carlos Pedro sent his driver to pick us up and we drove about 45 minutes to the San Ysidro neighborhood of BA.  There we discovered an elegant mansion–there’s no other word for it–its interior made entirely of marble, granite and other stones and designed and built at the direction of our host.  La Torcaza was inspired by the great Western architectural tradition and by the imagination of the designer.  It took eighteen years to build this estate, which is comprised of over 190,000 square feet of buildings, park, terrace, paths and car parking.  The main house is over 58,000 square feet of surface with 27,000 square feet of storage areas, wine cellars and service areas.  There are four reception areas, a dining room, a library, eight guest rooms, a gym, etc., etc.  The two supporting buildings house extra storage areas, a garage, a workshop, eight bedrooms for domestic help (there are six more in the main house), security, generators, etc., etc.  It is truly remarkable–I think you get the picture.  Carlos Pedro gave us a coffee table book of the whole project which indicates that there are 25 different colors and types of marble in the house from about seven different countries.  The park outside the house is filled with beautiful and valuable statuary and trees and there is a lovely pond with many fish.  The swimming pool is immaculate with separate dressing rooms for men and women.

Despite the incredible luxury of this estate, Carlos Pedro does not actually live here though his children and grandchildren stay here from time to time.  It is used mainly for entertainment purposes and to store some of the many, many treasures Carlos Pedro has collected over the years.  He showed us the china and silver he had collected; in fact, we were told he has one of the largest collections of French silver pieces in the world.  Any of us would be happy to work in his incredible kitchen.  There are 35 full time people working in the house, keeping it in immaculate condition.

After Carlos Pedro had given us a tour of the house, we joined his other guests in one of the reception rooms where we were treated to champagne and hors d’ouevres.  We then moved to a larger reception room where we sat in wonderfully comfortable chairs and listened to a string quartet playing beautiful music for about 45 minutes.  It turned out that this was to celebrate the man who had made all of the four string instruments that were being played, each an exact copy of the finest of such instruments in the world.  Although we did not understand every word of the Spanish that was describing the instruments, we definitely got the idea that this was a special event.  We then went to the dining room–the marble dining table weighs almost 8000 pounds and a stainless steel structure binds the top to the six blocks that support it.  The table seats about 24 people and there were extra tables set up for another 20 or so people.  I don’t guess I have to tell you that the food and wine were absolutely incredible and that a good time was had by all.  Carlos Pedro was kind enough to seat me to his right, so I enjoyed his banter the whole time.  His wife Cristina sat to his left and as Phil described earlier, she is a lovely warm woman who obviously cares a lot for Carlos Pedro.  We didn’t leave until about 5PM and believe it or not, none of us was ever bored and we had a great time.  I think I forgot to tell you that Grant came with us and so did Sahori, the boat stewardess, who had charmed Carlos Pedro in Punta del Este and who was invited to the lunch also.

That evening about 7:30PM, Hugo came to the boat with his wife and two children, both of whom speak excellent English.  They told us that when they don’t want their parents to understand what they are talking about, they switch to English.  Sound like normal teen-agers!  Soledad is their 19 year old daughter who is very pretty and poised, and Damien is their 17 year old son who is handsome and so typical of a boy of that age.  After spending the evening with them, we all agreed that they would return in a few evenings to go out with Grant–for the whole night!  But that meant Hugo would take them to the club, stay there and then bring them home–a mother’s dream.  We invited them to come to Jacksonville next summer and we all hope that they are able to do that.  After they left, Grant went out to get sushi and then to a bar of some sort but came home relatively early.  I guess I’m getting used to this schedule!