The Rest of Argentina

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I have been absent from the blog for about a month now so I thought I would take a day out in Cuenca to merk the blog and try and bring you guys up to date. Last time I wrote about South America was when I was talking about B.A. which if memory serves correctly we just got fucked, spent money and shunned the cultural side of the city. This trend pretty much continues until Bolivia. After B.A. we visited 3 other places in Argentina; Mendoza, Cordoba and lastly Salta before crossing the border at Tupiza.

We went to B.A. bus station with the idea of going to Cordoba, though when queing for tickets rather hung over we had the bright idea to fuck Cordoba and go to Mendoza. We heard there was a wine festival there and had the idea that fit women would be pouring wine into our mouths while we partied into the morning. This isn´t quite what happened in Mendoza but we still had an amazing time which is why at the moment, it was our favourite place in Argentina and maybe so far on the trip....(although Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador are all a fuck load better then Argentina). We arrived in Mendoza with no where to stay, as it was wine festival all the girngos of Argentina had descended on this moderately sized town. We managed to get one night in the hostel international (big chain of shit hostels). We heard it was pizza and tequila night so things got a little messy. Turns out you don´t shot tequila, they pour it down your gullet until you pussy out. Even worse when it was my 3rd turn...(yes I was on getting fucked) they had run out of tequila so that brang out Argetina brand vodka, it was no kirov.



Woke up hungover at about 8 o clock, had the worst coffee ever and then went to do a wine tour. Hal being the experienced wine coinesseur was particularly on it while I was just pissed off that I had to wake up so early and was trying to remember what happened last night (all I could remember was teaching this scouse girl London slang because she couldn´t understand us). The wine tour turned out to be quite fun, we just rode around on bikes visiting vineyards in the Mendoza heat with the Andes on the horizon. Turns out the Rose wine is really good for hangovers and wine really is as pretentious as everyone thinks. After our wine tour we tried to find a new hostel, we stayed at a small place called La Cava which was not too bad although would turn out to be one of worst hostels after Hal...acted like Hal. Anyways we went to the wine festivals first night which was when the harvest queens (beauty pagent) were on show. They rode on their floats and threw grapes and melons (rather dangerous in my opinion..) while local people fought over the produce like Hal over cake. We met up with some friends we had been on the wine tour and watched the rest of the festival unfold. We then went out on the LASH (just watched gap yah) me and Dom kept it rather responsible, I think we ducked out at 3 due to lack of fundage. Went to bed in our hostel only to be awoken by our hostel owner shouting at Hal and dragging him out of bed. He had forgotten to flush his shit. It was all very funny the next day but quite annoying at 6 in the morning. We duly left that hostel in search of another (again we had only been able to book another).

The next day we got over our hangovers, enjoyed some empanadas and did it all again. This time meeting up with our aussie friends before going to bed nice and early in preparation for our "high andes tour". The high andes tour was the first time we saw the andes (and we have not stopped seeing them since). We saw the giant Aconcagua (the highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere) and basically rode around on a bus all day seeing the andes. It was a bit of a waste of money as the tour was awful and we had to spend 8 hours in the bus. Nevertheless we got some awesome photos and the andes never ever fail to impress.

We got back to our deserted hostel (festival was over) and I danced for a bit which had got me the nickname on the Inca Trail as the "Austistic arm flailing Arsenal man" and then we met up with our Aussie friends and had probably the biggest night of South America (bar first night in La Paz and maybe Montanita mad night). Usually I tell everything on the blog but this night along with the other two big nights we can´t really talk about. They are a bit fucked up but it involves all the bad things that mothers tell you not to do. Basically we went to bed about 10am missed check out (we woke up at 6pm) and had to stay in Mendoza another day. We then duly left for Cordoba.

I am said to say Mum that the trend of wastemanliness continued perhaps more so in Cordoba. We arrived in Cordoba and did the same thing we do in ever South American city. We head to the main plaza, marvel at the colonial architecture get some food then go back to our hostel proud of our days cultural achievements. I don´t have much to say about Cordoba. While Mendoza had been big nights and big mountains Cordoba was big nights and big tits (sorry for the vulgarity Mum but the poetic flow wrote itself). Cordoba has 8 universities where girls outnumber boys 3 to 1 (women always have been smarter). So we were swamped with 18 year old Argentinian girls and our eyes were on stalks. The flow of gorgeous women however petered out as we got further north and by Bolivia there were none left. The first night of Cordoba was probably the most eventful. After enjoying a rather modest night we walked back to our hostel when a gang of Argetinian rugby thugs tried starting something. Like all Argentinians who start on Brits they were left running. We found out the next day by the hostel staff that groups of boys walked around in Cordoba fired up on fernet trying to start fights with gringos. Cordoba mainly involved us just having a jokes time at the best hostel we have stayed in (or one of the best) just watching pirate films, drinking quilmes and cracking jokes about stupid things people had done the night before.

Our last stop in Argetina was Salta. We were only here for two days and again it involved looking at the main plaza eating pizza and wondering into bad museums. We also climbed a big hill called Cerro San Bernado, it gave us pretty awesome views of Salta and qualified as our exercise for the month. Some people really enjoy Salta but we didn´t really give it the time of day. We had decided that our planning was all off, we needed to make more time for Bolivia and Colombia which we had only given a week or so each. It was probably the wisest decision of South America as Bolivia so far (apart from Ecuador which had been amazing so far) has been the best country so far.



Ok so that is part one of my mammoth days task. Pretty much all I can remember from Argentina (or all I want to remember). Argentina in general was a fun country, we had lots of partys lots of drink and lots of comfort but it lives of its history too much and Bolivia proved to be much more interesting as it has a lot more too it.

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