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Argentina - Yes I'm putting it all in one blog
Salta
First stop was a 10 hour day time bus from San Pedro and was the northerly city of Salta. Supposedly containing some of the most beautiful women in the world, I saw little evidence of this in my 2 days there and nursing my icey cool 660ml bottle of Heineken in the main square for 1.5 hours saw nothing but school children and old folk. It was however a very nice place and I was nonetheless happy to be sat in the square with my cold beer whilst I waited for a photographic shop to back my photos up on DVD. (I real should get around to sending that home at some point...). It was also my first taste of Argentinian steak and red wine and they did not disappoint. Unfortunately despite all speaking spannish, each country has different words for very similar food items as well as having its own dishes. At the rate I was moving between countries this meant I had just about learned one before moving onto the next. Here Steak is Bife de Lomo or Bife de Chorozo whereas steak is generally Biftec further north. In a local place after wrestling with the menu and my limited spanish for a while I managed to sumon up a steak. Nice. Later the same evening I tried one of the more popular argentinia wines a Malbec along with a national snack - Empanadas. Brilliant.
Mendoza
Stopped at Cordoba along the way for one day, but quickly decided there was in fact nothing to do there so moved on immediately to Mendoza. Mendoza is Argentina's main wine region and makes something liek 80% of Argentina's wine. And almost all of that stays in Argentina as they have strict laws on how much can be imported from other countries.
Cycling wine tour - Who ever came up with this one was something of radical thinker. We started off at about 10 in the morning at some restaurant and were given a map and told roughly when to get to the wineries and then sent on our way. We got to the first one within around 30 mins and found them to be very generous with the tasting amounts which proved a problem at that time in the morning. I just can't split wine away, it just feels wrong. But at the same time this was definately going to hamper my cycling abilities.
My sober cycling abilities weren't up to much: As I recall, a man who looked a lot like Patrick Stewart taking my cycling proficiency class in School, telling me I was a danger to myself and other road users, but that he was nonetheless required to give me a certificate due to some loophole.
Needless to say we got lost a few times, but did manage to complete 3 of the wineries, before bordem in the form of being told the same information at each place caused us to sack off doing the 4th and most expensive winery. All in all a good day's activity, however we were mystified when at lunchtime we tried to locate a place doing steak in the town we were cycling near to, only to discover pasta was the only thing on the menu. It seems that in recent times this has taken over as being the main dish and Argentines are also drinking less wine and more fizzy pop instead. Partly due to a lot of the farmland now being used to grow the more profitable crop of Soya. A little part of me died inside when I heard this.
Another day I went Paragliding. I got picked up from the hostel by a giant of a man in a Jeep who looked more stereotypically Argentinian than anyone I had ever seen. We then went spent about an hour getting to the top of a mountain via a decidedly rock mountain road. The top of the mountain was just a collection of radio transmitters and what looked like a bus shelter. There was something of queue of other paragliders from other companies waiting to get off the mountain so we were up there for 30 mins before take off. What didn't instill me with confidence about my own flight was when the girl in front of me took off, only for her parachute to immediate colapse, sending her flying into the side of the mountain. Anyway, once they had found all the pieces of her... no only cuts and bruises for her. My tandom jumper / instructor wasn't impressed by his colleague's work at writing off a chute and injuring his pupil and was keen to emphasise the important of patience in waiting for perfect conditions for take off. This added patience and the fact we suddenly had no wind meant we were waiting some time before we got off the ground, but it was a great feeling to finally takeoff and soar like a bird for 20 mins with not a care in the world. Even my terror about landing was unfounded as we touched down like it was nothing.
San Martin
As what started off as a useful stopover between Mendoza and Bariloche, ended up not quite living up to expectations as our timing meant we didn't exactly get the best out of this town. Firstly we arrive during the Argentinia Census. I can only assume this was organised by a relative of Cesar Augustus as the knock on effect of this census seemed very similar to when Marry and Joseph were travelling to Bethlehem. Happily though the inns / hostels were still open, but all the supermarkets, shops, cafes and restaurants were closed for the day until 8. This wouldn't have been such a problem but, we had just assumed this was only in Mendoza where we had just come from and therefore hadn't stocked up on any food. Added to this that when we arrived, the weather was terrible, so just chilling out around the lake wasn't really an option either. So consequently we spent 3 1/2 hours gorping into shop windows and salivating over restaurant menus to the point at which we thought we might lose our minds. Later that evening there was no option but for me to eat wild boar and vinison and some more Malbec when we finally got in somewhere.
That night we had been staying in a chelet belonging to a man called Mario. Although this was some kind of holiday home, it still appeared to be very much his home and the room me and my travelling companion were staying in was still full of photos of his family at various stages of their lives and all the cupboards appeared to contain their things. He was quite shocked when one of us wanted a shower when we first arrived, as the distribution of the towels obviously wasn't on the agenda for him until later that evening. It was also the only place where we appeared to run out of cold water.
The following morning we were on the bus that took a route past the 7 great lakes, but unfortunately the bas weather was persisting and a mixture of the rain and condensation on the windows made it almost impossible to see anythiing. But I did get the feeling that we definately could have seen something really good, and having seen the photos of the lakes afterwards I was convinced of this.
Bariloche
TBC...
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