Valle Fertil and Valle de la Luna

---

Left Mendoza with Bo, Max and Lorna to head for Valle Fertil (the Fertile Valley) which is just north of San Juan. The others were due to meet up with us in San Juan but they ended up going straight to Salta instead after being too drunk after the paragliding to understand the plan.

We went straight to Valle Fertil and found the cheapest hostel ever at only 8 pesos a night (it turned out it was only that price for the first night but it was still cheap). On the first night I had the rankest wine i´ve ever tasted, and I´m glad to say I can draw the line somewhere and didn´t, couldn´t drink it. Max, however took it one step further the next night and and bought a 6 litre bottle of cloudy looking stuff that threatened to be wine for just over a pound and actually drank most of it too!! I´m surprised he hasn´t suffered for it!!

Valle Fertil is a tiny wee place with nothing much to do in the village (the local bar is actually in the supermarket!) but is the closest town to some pretty awesome National Parks which is our reason for being there. We managed to see both the parks in one day including the valle de la luna (moon valley) and saw some of the most amazing landscapes ever, unlike any others I´ve seen - make sure and check out the pics. The rock formations are pretty amazing to see and you can get some cool echoes from some of them. Some of them are meant to look like stuff such as the three wise men or a condor, but you really have to use your imagination. We also saw some rock carvings from don´t know how long ago or what they are all about (the guides say useful stuff like ´..we´re not sure what this means..´, ´..have been here since between 3000 and 500 years ago...´), so we just made our own stories up.

We had a spectacular end to the day when Bo, Lorna and I got food poisoning, we think from the sandwich the tour guides gave us, and were violently sick all night. The hostel owners were really kind and came and brought us extra blankets and tucked us in, then made us go to hospital. Lorna and I went and got some jags to stop the vomiting, (making sure everything was sterile of course) and then got out of there as quick as possible as it was not the nicest of places (the toilet had no light, seat or paper and was absolutely mingin!), although the doctor and nurse were really nice and tried to make us as comfortable as possible. Thankfully we´re all much better now and back on solid food again! The irony of it all is that the three of us had been talking that morning, half in jest - half serious, about how we´d lose some weight when we get to Bolivia on the´dysentry diet´ as the food´s meant to be rank there. Well we got our just desserts for that conversation!!!

---