Advertisement
Published: January 2nd 2009
San Juan
The main square and Brian trying out his spanish on the localsSan Juan lies to the north of Mendosa and like Mendosa was created out of desert by the hard work of the immigrants from Italy, Spain and Chile and of course many other places. It is no small thing to make the desert bloom and to produce such world class wines.
Its other claim to fame is that it where Juan Domingo Peron came to public notice for his efforts after a disasterous earthquake in 1944. We did not find any statues to him but one to his wife Evita herself is tucked away in a small park off the main drag. Having seen her grave in Buenos Aires it was nice to see her remembered here in San Juan.
Apart from that I cant say that the city has much to recommend it. We arrived on New Years day and the place was closed down and empty apart from a few security guards and the many street dogs. In Argentina, as in Chile there is large population of stray dogs wandering about everywhere humans are scavaging what they can. They are a danger on the road and as there is quite a bit of road kill many dont
San Juan
The countryside around San Juan make it. They are often limping and damaged and it is hard for dog lovers like us to see them all looking mangy and thin and unwelcome.
Once off the main roads the many pedestrians, dogs, chickens and bikes makes driving an interesting event, made more interesting here as many of the traffic lights are out or hidden by trees. So far so good and we have not hit anything ...yet....
This mornign we drove to Zonda a beautiful valley and inspected the champagne caves. France may object to sparling wines made outside of Chanpagne beign called Champagne but no one has told the sanjuanista's this yet. It tastes very good too. From there we wandered aound and found some more wineries. Here are none of the large corporate style wineries complete with guards and the need for appointments. The wine maker's themselves and their families are only to happy to share their products and from 2 we found they make as good a wine as we found anywhere. Chosing what we will bring home and what we will drink is going to be very difficult.
In the afternoon we drove futher north to the small town
San Juan
An avenue of trees leading to Zonda pf San Jose de Jachal supposidly renown for its guacho traditions and hand made blankets. There was no sign of this and the town is a dirty dusty dead community with nothing at all left of its proud past. Sad to see but an interesting drive across desert and with great views to the Andes.
Tomoorw we cross back into Chile over the 4722 meter high pass Paso de Agua Negra which should be a spectacular drive. Stay tuned
Advertisement
Tot: 0.106s; Tpl: 0.037s; cc: 9; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0448s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
