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Published: March 28th 2009
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Beyond culture
Mendoza Contemporary Art Gallery After writing the last entry we went out to see Mendoza, which is a small and leafy city with wide tree lined avenues and lots of green space. Being a Saturday night the main square, Plaza Independencia, was buzzing with drummers, dancers, jugglers and the token traditional Peruvian pipe band (who were uncannily similar to a group who used to ply their trade in Plymouth every weekend). There was also a huge Harley Davidson convention going on, which brought hundreds of gleaming and impressive motors but also their beefy moustachioed owners and a full regiment of the local boys in blue. The police were obviously expecting a bit of trouble, as they were marching across the square in full riot gear, some armed with head to toe shields, others with sniper guns. In Britain it would have caused mild panic and had Shami Chakrabarti all upset, but here the locals were totally unmoved and continued to enjoy the peaceful evening sun.
On Monday we hired a couple of bikes and did a two wheeled tour of the wineries around Mendoza. We had plenty of the local Malbec variety of vino tinto at the various Bodegas, meaning the cycle back was
a bit more challenging than the outbound journey. One of the wineries was set in a traditional French style romantic barn, and we were given a tour of it before we were allowed to whet our palate. The tour was really interesting, but we had to endure two of the most annoying Bristol University girls called Flora and Petra, who refused to shut their mouths for pretty much the whole time. As luck would have it, we were stuck with the same proud representatives of Great Britain at the next winery, where they revelled in whining loudly over the lady who was trying to talk to everyone, so we necked our samples and slipped out of the back door.
As we all know, too much wine is never a good thing, especially when you have another 10km of Argentine roads to negotiate, so we gave up the booze as the headaches started to kick in. On the way back we popped into a small chocolate factory, something which Catherine had been salivating about all day. We thought we could escape the alcohol there, but it would have been just rude to turn down the shots of chocolate liquor on
offer.
That was all before a 17hr bus journey south to Bariloche that evening, which turned out to be pretty much great. We’d heard about the quality of the buses here, and they didn’t disappoint. We had huge leather armchairs that folded back into fully flat beds. Coupled with good food and the offer of free wine and champagne (we declined, obviously, as if we travel first class all the time), it turned out to be an excellent way to cover 1200km and we turned up fully refreshed, if slightly fragrant.
Bariloche is a really pretty little town, right on the shores of a huge lake and with Alpine-esque stone and wood buildings. We had a look around the place but it was a public holiday so most places were closed and all was quiet. In the evening we had our first real taste of proper Argentinean steak at a local restaurant. When mine came out it was a huge succulent round slab of bloody meat, six inches wide and two inches thick. Absolutely perfick, and what I came all this way for! Even Catherine has been totally captivated by big lumps of beef, desperately keen to go
Viña El Cerno Bodega
Home of very big glasses of wine for steak every day - not what I’d expected from the girl who was on the verge of slipping into the dark world of vegetarianism only a couple of months ago.
The next day we walked off some of the excess on a short track amongst tall trees and bamboo bushes around a lake about 25km out of town. In the evening we met my cousin Sarah, who is also travelling around South America, and happened to be in Bariloche at the same time as us. She was fresh from a painful 32hr bus journey from southern Patagonia, so to recharge her batteries - and because Catherine was so keen - we went for more steak. Well, Catherine enjoyed a normal cut of meat but Sarah and I shared a ‘Parillada Completa’ (Mixed Grill), which turned out to be a colourful assortment of different bits of cow (and probably other animals). We didn’t have a clue about what most of the stuff we were eating was, but with the help of Sarah’s dictionary the next morning, we were overjoyed to find out that our stomachs were now lined with - amongst other things - tripe, intestines and sweetbreads (which
were foul and had grim tubes running though them, in case you’re about to run down to the butchers to try some).
We had Sarah up early the next day and took a bus up to Catedral village, a small ski resort nestled at the foot of the Catedral mountain. We had a rough plan to walk somewhere, but decided instead to get the cable car up to the top and make the walk even longer. We glided up to the summit, from where we had amazing views all around of the rippling lakes and jagged mountains. It would have been easy to sit there all day, but we had a mountain to negotiate and we rambled back down the dusty terrain to the village below. A quick stop for some really good ice cream then onwards down another hill to another lake, from where we got the bus back to town.
In the evening the three of us had a fun night out, talking about the travels, hearing of Sarah’s brush with a transvestite in Sao Paulo and her obsession with the dreamy hunk Seth Lakeman (quite likely you’ve never heard of him but he went to
my school, don‘t you know?). We had more steak - of course - in a little restaurant apparently run by an ex-ski champion and ended up in an Irish pub. One thing we’ve learnt on our travels is that wherever you go in the world you are sure to find an Irish pub.
We will see Sarah again for the Inca trail in just over a month (scary how out of shape we are) but it has been excellent to meet another cousin in another corner of the world, and remember the olden golden days!
Yesterday we boarded another long distance bus back up north, a 23hr journey in the end. It is now Saturday night and we’re ready to Tango in Buenos Aires! Well, Catherine is anyway!
Stay Safe
Nic
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