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Northwest Argentina: Diarrhea, 'Locro', Drunken Bees and Giant Cacti
With a small piece of our hearts safely locked away in Valparaiso, Chile, we crossed the desolate Andes to Northwest Argentina starting in Mendosa. We were looking for eyebrow-raising experiences, vineyards and new friends, all of which we found in the form of one man.
The famous bike trail around Maipu just outside Mendosa takes in quiet tree-lined country roads and skinny, badly paved highways which you share with giant life-threatening trucks. Along the way you can visit wine museums, houses lined with chocolate and liquor and vineyards of varying size and prestige.
Our favourite winery was run by an exuberant Argentinian man with a uniquely European understanding of personal space. With arms wrapped tightly around petrified American college boys he would softly kiss necks and wax lyrical about the beauty of one nervous boys sandy hair and startled blue eyes. He talked to us about love and the nature of religious bias in between firm shoulder massages and check smooches. We named him Eternal-E guy, and his loving embrace snuggles itself happily in our Mendosa memories.
Mendosa itself seemed like a boring nothingness when we first arrived. In retrospect, however, it was beautifully green and littered with (mostly) clean tiled parks featuring roaring fountains and elegant statues of half-naked women. We found ourselves in a cheap, pastel-toned hotel - the kind that houses illicit daytime affairs in b-grade American movies and in real life - and made ourselves very much at home.
Phil: For me North Argentina represents 3 things: Our first foray into a more indigenous South America, the loss of many things dear to me and ongoing, overwhelming diarrhea. Never one to turn down a tasty, unhygienic road-side snack, "the runs" have become a familiar foe.The deeper into rural Argentina we go the more I find myself tempted by entire meals at bargain-bin prices and the more I get the squirts. This results in very little energy, forgetfulness and subsequently the loss of important personal items.
So far I've misplaced my favourite/only sweatshirt, parts of my mind, some beloved socks and the Steigg Larson novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo complete with my niece's hand-painted bookmark inside!!! What a dick.
After Mendosa and a brief foray into the uninspiring Cordoba we spent a few quiet days near a capable toilet in the small green haven of Alta Gracia. We stayed in a kitsch room at Hostal Hispania, equipped with 1950s bedhead and a faded floral cover, and spent endless nightly hours watching our first television in several weeks. Each morning we feasted on piles of custard pastries which attracted swarms of greedy bees who lay in blissed drunken mounds on the pastry shelves.
We visited Che Guevara's childhood home and saw his severe baby face and intense adolescent eyes next to a myriad of hand written letters and personal artifacts. An old bendy man we stumbled across chatted proudly about his connection to the Che legacy, pointing himself out in numerous photos next to Fidel Castro and co. He was lovely and crinkled in that old man way but we're still not sure exactly who he was. Museum maintenance guy or revolutionary, it's hard to say.
One day for lunch we tried the traditional Argentinean farmers fare 'Locro', a sort of hearty meat and vegetable soup. The bowls arrived thick with bones, which our waiter proudly asserted were piggy trotters. We minced our way around the boney slop, piling them high on the table next to us. Much to our delight we soon found a chunk of arterial tubing and a wrinkly squadge of pig snout. Phil persevered, Ella did not.
An overnight bus ride north and we felt like we had finally arrived in deepest South America. Salta: a picturesque colonial city nestledaround green mountains and our first glimpse of the traditional indigenous garb in the flesh. Pollera skirts, wide brimmed hats and colourful, hand-woven shawls come backpacks for carting salable goods and or babies.
Phil: But not all was picture perfect at the Salta bus station. A "toilet guardian" was holding his facility ransom by not providing toilet paper. For a small fee he eventually coughed up a few squares of pink loo-roll and set the imaginary timer running. Less than 5 minutes later he was mopping outside my cubicle door (including a few inappropriate flourishes under the door), then 30 seconds later he was making suggestive "your time is up" noises before practically banging the door down.
In my head I sat my ground boldly: "I paid for this privilege you piece of s***! 6 minutes does not constitute a full session!" In actuality I finished up sooner than I should have and made a quick getaway. If only I had had the runs.
Ella: Riding through the Saltan streets on a rickety bus I spotted a promising curl of market stalls. We spent a tedious amount of time trying to find said market with an unamused taxi driver in a car decorated with the crying Virgin. Eventually we gave up our allusive search only to stumble upon the market itself, in a square at the end of Av Belgrano.
Old wrinkly eyed women sit knitting behind piles of alpaca socks and llama shaped bags, and smiling jewelry merchants happily tell you the ancient stories of their superbly detailed techniques and the rare sources of semi-precious stones. In one stall stuffed green-skinned frogs lounged on polished wooden mounts in pink bikinis and cat-eyed sunglasses, sipping faux martinis in an imagined sun. Next to the glamorous frogs lay a collection of knives, each with a knarled chicken foot or slender deer hoof shaft. The chuffed artist huffed with pleasure, winking at his beloved froggy designs.
We have since discovered that the pleasure of buying beautiful crafts straight from the artists themselves is a blessed rarity, so it was a treasure of a market to come across. Upon a purchase of Incan silver the store keeper kissed my money and raised it to the heavens, and shopping when trying to be thrifty seemed a little less self indulgent.
Phil: Av Belgrano is also dedicated to partying. People come from all over Argentina, South America and the world to shake their rumps in fluorescent discotecas to the latest booty-base, willingly. Or they, as happened in my case, get dragged on stage in a well-lit restaurant to dance a traditional Spanish dance for the first time ever in front of 50 diners.
To make matters worse the professional dancers talk to you in Spanish and badly broken English through a microphone with way too much reverb so you hear everything 3 times over. It was surreal to say the least. Fortunately for me (and future NZ travelers to Argentina) I reverted to an Irish Riverdance jig and kind of got away with it. By the end of a painfully exhilarating 5 minutes I dismounted the stage to the sound of only a few sniggers, mostly from Ella.
We took the four hour bus ride from Salta to Cachi, a sleepy white-washed town surrounded by mountains. The drive there winded through a startling red and gold landscape of 20 meter cacti fields and multi-coloured jagged mountains towering over desert valleys and salt flats. For the first time we found ourselves in a landscape so incredibly different from New Zealand we could see nothing familiar. We stayed in a lovely hostal with a kind little old woman and a hugely obese footstool of a dog in a yellow coat. The patient daughter of our hostess sat with us in the sunny courtyard endlessly attempting to teach us Spanish.
We took a taxi to the ancient ruins 16kms away from town and pulled up at the end of the road to a dusty adobe homestead and goat breeding farm. Hundreds of baby goats stumbled and slept tied to rocks and crumbling wood. A freshly born kid lay in a wet bloody heap next to its exhausted mother as she nudged it encouragement to face the world. We watched its first steps. Fluffy puppies bounded around the baby goats and frisked the anxious mothers while proudly fertile fathers strutted in fenced-off pens. The quiet owner of the farm became our guide and gently took us through the maze of giant cacti to the ruins. Ancient mortar and pestals lay scattered over a ground littered with shattered ceramics. She watched us patiently as we took silly photos with cacti clusters 3 times our height.
We walked the 3 hours back to town in the scorching desert heat. Mud-brick adobe houses sat amongst fields of green and red with roofs of bright drying corn. Donkeys chewed on piles of hay next to fields of picked chillies roasting in the sun, filling the air with their sweet musky scent. It was rural Argentina at its best, and the hot dusty walk will stay with us.
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