A load of bull

Vik's bit:
I have never seen so many cows. They're everywhere. Wandering the Argentinian streets, chilling in the plazas, packing out the fields. Slightly reminiscent of India - in terms of sharing the roads - but unlike India, they are only sacred here once they land on the plate. Beef and some gloopy caramel-type sauce they call 'Dulce de Leche'; both seem to whip up unprecedented amounts of national fervour (Margaret Thatcher, somewhat less popular, but we've only been told to "f··· her" twice). Given the excitement generated by a slab of steak, it seems a mystery that people are happy to wait until midnight to start consuming it. Upon our arrival in Salta we tried to enter into the spirit of things, starving ourselves until 10, only to still eat in desolate restaurants. And when we returned to our lovely family-run hostel - in the early hours - they found it strangely amusing that we had already fed, as they sat down at the table, with children and grandchildren, to tuck into their mixed grills. What's wrong with a nice 7.30 tea?
Aside from ridiculous dinner times, and a sudden acceleration in speaking which means that (despite our brilliant Spanish) Steve and I now understand nothing, our first days in Argentina had a comfy and familiar feel. Salta, with it's European flavour, was an easy city to arrive to and we passed the time with the usual assortment of city-type activities. We did the mandatory walk up the nearest hill for the 'panoramic and unrivalled views', and had a look at the giant-sized Jesus that looms over the city from up there. We took in the compulsory museum; this one attempting a positive spin on the Inca's child sacrifice with a focus on how chuffed the kids would have felt to have been gifts to the Gods. I'm not so convinced that would have been their primary emotion as they were left to freeze at 6000m, but apparently they were so full of alcohol and coca they would barely have noticed. That's alright then. But the willingness - and ability - to conquer the Andes in your flip flops perhaps the one impressive part of this religious exercise. On the museum front, think I might take a break for now from viewing frozen remains. And I'm certainly done (maybe forever) from looking at old pots.
Away from the city, we sought wine and walking in the first of the vineyards in Cafayate. We also sought some pre-historic cave paintings, but I'm not at all sure that we found them. We dutifully followed the chalk signs taking us off the main road, and were glad to accept help from the young lad that emerged from a house at the point where the arrows rather perplexingly halted. Our scramble up the hillside was duly rewarded (and his financially so) by a cavern filled with interesting drawings, and after a good bit of marvelling we returned to the road happy that we had seen something special. It was only when we happened upon, some kilometres later, a rather more official looking sign for the celebrated sight that we began to suspect that, rather than ancient etchings, we had been enjoying slightly more recent art work.

Steves blather,
Another classy border crossing from Bolivia, the locals just cross the river by small boat, the foreigners walk 10km out of town to cross a random bridge (were the police doubt you have a valid visa, then realize that the two mucky travellers are probably better out of their country and in another) then you walk another 5km to the bus stop, and all this happens with a cloud of really evil black flies trying their best to drain us of blood...we did see a really cool toucan thou.
I feel that I must also mention the steaks... massive, a whole cows worth on a plate. When we tried the parillada (mixed BBQ) the scene was reminiscent of a wildlife film about lions on the Serengeti!! We attempted to visit some Peñas ( local folk singing Gaucho style) however we were mostly beaten back by the incredible wailing noises and foot stamping. Wine vastly improved on entering Argentina, in the restaurants its cheaper than pop!!!! Wine tasting in Cafayate, basically a wine and walk version of a pub run...brilliant. Wrong time of year for the vines which just looked like dead bushes, however the mountain views and warm sunny days made up for this. Cafayate is surrounded by its famous Quebrada, huge multi coloured rock formations, forming an intrecate series of canyons. The erosion patterns form strange shapes, which of course leads to many of them allegedly looking like animals, trains, monks, it may also be that its the wine that makes this more convincing. However some of the gorges were trully vast, forming massive natural ampitheatres, full of strange light patterns and echoes.
Argentiina certainly feels much more European, the streets full of mostly ancient designs of european cars, that were made here until more recently ( Renault 4,6,12, feugos, fiats 127,128 peugeot 403,404 and 504). The street cafes full of cakes and the smell of expresso coffee. On an evening the plazas fill, the BBQ´s burn, and the buildings let go of the heat of the day.
But before we get too settled in Argentina, we thought that we would take a detour into it's neighbour, Paraquay.

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