Blogs from Ischigualasto, San Juan, Argentina, South America

We left Barreal after the best breakfast we have had in Argentina, fresh baked bread and pastry (with apples from the trees in the yard), coffee, cereal, meat, cheese and at least four types of home made preserves. We were continuing on north, and had a hard time making any time as it seemed that every five or ten miles we needed to stop and take another picture of the mountains showing yet another side of their beauty. We had pretty good roads as far as Calligasta and then we were in for a treat...some 30K of roads that barely held on to the hillside, and were often covered with shale or mud from the heavy rains the day before. It seemed there was heavy equipment everywhere, whose main job was to shovel the debris from ... read more

In an effort to make up time we had skipped Argentina's San Juan region, only to realize that it contained a National Park we really wanted to visit. So we traveled 400km back north to the town of San Agustin de Valle Fertil. San Agustin de Valle Fertil is a small town surrounded by scrub land that acts as a gateway to the Ischigualsto National Park. We know it was going to be small when we boarded the bus because the parcels being loaded had only someone's name and the town's name, no street names were needed. We arrived in the evening and arranged to go on an excursion to Ischigualsto the next morning and seeing as there was another national park just over the state border, we booked onto that one too. Then a friendly ... read more

One large awakening of the imagination for womankind. Valle de la Luna, or the valley of the Moon, is a desert. I have never seen a place like this up until now. ... read more

La Rioja, though dull by day turned out to be more interesting by night. By then we´d settled down in the store room that the hotel owner had set up for us to use and temporarily settled our stomachs with some rather dubious yellow candyfoss from an enthusiastic and talkative street vendor. We coped with this by adopting the standard British approach when confronted with an excitable person, first tried by us in Madrid airport, of assuing that what´s being said is whatever is most convinient for ourselves and acting accordingly, often leaving foreigners so shocked that we are allowed to proceed unimpeded. Thus we had been the first to board our flight on the assuption that the fellow was shouting "Yes of course you should board first, please continue" and in a similar manner procceded ... read more

Leaving the twisty roads of the Andes crossing behind, we arrived at San Juan back in Argentina. Having chosen a hotel within walking distance of the bus station, we decided to give a taxi a miss and started to make our way there, only to find the city's prostitutes as soon as we turned the corner lining the street behind the station. Bit of a shock, as we thought we may have just wandered into a dodgy area (though it was still broad daylight), but they didn't seem to give us a second glance so no problems here. A greater shock was the infernal heat, especially after having visited much cooler places over the previous 3 months; we certainly wished we had paid a bit more for an air conditioned room, as ours only had a ... read more