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quiggsy on tour
So it turns out that Argentina is actually the land where cheap alcohol is born.... We went out for a night on the town before leaving Salta and went to a really nice bar with live music and everything and they had pink champagne for only 10 pounds a bottle! So why not eh.... After a few bottles we attempted to find somewhere we could dance but the closest we came was a random club full of old men with a little man on stage who seemed to be some type of compere or something. Very strange. I put myself and Shauna in a taxi home around 2.30am given our supposed 6.30am wake up the next day. Apparently all we missed was a 4am search for chips - 'donde esta la papas fritas' I think was Reiko's best attempt at asking in Spanish.
So we set off in the truck bound for Cordoba (via a random wild camp). Our mission in Cordoba was to shop. We went to the hugest Wal-Mart but unfortunately my cook group had to shop for food for 5 meals so we didn't have time to do any personal shopping grrr. However, it was all worthwhile when we got to the estancia and made THE best meal of the trip so far - curry (both chicken and a veggie option), with flavoured rice, followed by 'banoffee mess' an interpretation of Eton mess but with a banana/toffee theme which includes our new favourite food - dulce de leche, basically caramel in a pot but they have whole aisles for it in supermarkets! Reix and myself think we could make a killing importing it and selling it in the UK - cant believe noone has already done it!
We also stopped at a vineyard on route to Cordoba where we were given a tour of the winery and also had a wine tasting session. Have discovered a very nice white wine which you only really get from Argentina called Torrentes - apparently Etcharts (the vineyard we visited) export to Tescos so you should all go out and try it. We also had a wine tasting when we arrived at the estancia. The wine is made at a small local vineyard and is produced mainly for the estancia itself. The Torrentes was even better than the Etchart one but we also tried a sweet dessert wine which was good and surprisingly easy to drink...... The next morning was rather bleary after 30 bottles of the stuff.
We set off on horseback and I have to say I was rather glad that we were only walking on the first day. The estancia is run by two brothers who are Argentinian but schooled in England so very posh accents all round. It is a cattle farm but they have a pretty successful line in horseriding holidays as the scenery was fantastic and their horses were really lovely. Mine was called Reinita (Queenie) and was one of their polo ponies. We rode to a small homestead on another part of the estancia where we all slept in one room (cosy) apart from Marilyn who has 2 army issue sleeping bags (and also snores) so slept outside! The morning entertainment was provided by the two very cute puppies who lived there and had managed to steal one of Marilyns shoes and hide it somewhere in the surroundings..... Miraculously the shoe was found and we set off on the horses again, somewhat tenderer in our behinds. Myself, Reiko, and Shauna, who have all ridden before got to canter which was really fun. When we got back to our campsite we had a shooting competition - just with air rifles shooting at a target, no living targets. And guess who won..... yours truly - I have found my calling in life!
In the evening the gauchos who had ridden with us did a big barbeque with lots of different cuts of beef from the farm. Another 30 or so bottles of wine later and I made an executive decision that I should go to bed early as we were doing breakfast at 6.30am.....
Unfortunately we had to leave the estancia this morning - I would have loved to have stayed another week or so just horseriding and drinking nice wine, but no such luck! After a huge team effort to push the truck to start this morning (she has a battery issue....) we set off, only to get a few miles down the road and Geoff realised that gears 5 - 8 were not working. When you have 1000km to drive the prospect of going at 40kmph the whole way is not an amusing one. So we turned back to Cordoba and here we are again. The truck is in a nice Mercedes garage and hopefully we might be able to set off again tomorrow. Although apparently we might have to stay another night here, which is not so bad as we are in our first hotel for about 2 weeks so just enjoying the fact that I can have a hot shower for longer than 3 minutes whenever I like, and we have Cosmo channel (think rando cheesy girly films)! However, it does mean that we might have to miss out other things so.....
Anyway, hope you guys are still enjoying your heatwaves, apparently Brazil is cloudy so I may come back with no tan at all arrrrggghhhh!
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