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Published: November 16th 2010
view from the bus
just over the border into argentinaWhile having a few drinks in a bar in La Paz we noticed that on the bottom of each page of the menu there was a joke making light of each country’s stereotype. The joke for Argentina was as follows:
“How does an Argentinean commit suicide?”
“He jumps off his ego.”
As you can see from this joke it is common belief (amongst other South American countries) that Argentineans are quite arrogant and feel they are superior to their neighbours. We had no problem with the prospect of them being conceited; to us it meant we’d saved the best country until last. If they were indeed extremely proud of where they come from, then they must have good reason to be. However the only thing that seemed to change as we entered northern Argentina was that we were paying more money for less. We paid the same in Bolivia for a double room as what we had to pay in Argentina for camping. A four hour bus in Argentina was the same price as a twelve hour overnight bus in Bolivia. To us, it all looked the same. We were left wondering why Argentineans were smug,
gay times
gay as in fun... if anything they should be embarrassed that they charge over-the-odds for the same service, food, scenery and accommodation as you would find in any other country on the continent. Fortunately we later found out that the northern-most province of Jujuy is by far the poorest in Argentina, and shares many similarities with Bolivia. Things were to get a whole lot better as we made our way south through Argentina.
We were thankful to even get to Argentina, as we had an epic day of travel making our way from Tupiza in Bolivia to our first stop in Argentina, which was to be Tilcara. We woke at the ungodly hour of 3:15am to make our 4am bus from Tupiza to the Bolivian border town of Villazón. Unfortunately this is the only time of the morning buses leave Tupiza for the border. It’s either wake up incredibly early or get the afternoon bus at 2pm, which we felt left us too little time to get to our final destination for that day. So we arrived at Bolivian Immigration in Villazón at 6am, expecting that if a bus arrives at that time then the Immigration office would surely be open. We were
Seedy Barney
Earlier on he was drinking a litre of beer and smoking a cigarette. Needless to say no kids bought balloons. wrong. We had to wait until 7:20am when finally they started processing us. To say that the Immigration office wasn’t open during this wait is a lie. It was open and there were staff there, albeit watching cartoons, but for some reason they refused to process anyone. We were told they were waiting for a colleague. Who this colleague was and why he was so important is still a mystery. At least we had a bit of entertainment to make the wait a bit more interesting, in the form of a German guy screaming at one of the officials “¡SEÑOR! ¡¿COMO?!” It looked like he was going to burst a blood vessel on his forehead he was that furious. It had very little effect on the immigration official as he just shrugged his shoulders and turned away. We were no closer to exiting Bolivia.
When they finally started processing people they called for all Bolivian nationals to stand aside and allow the foreigners to move to the front of the line. We were a little perplexed but happy to be on our way at long last. We walked over the bridge and were now on Argentinean soil. We were
met by two immigration officials sipping traditional
mate from a gourd and speaking Spanish with an accent we could hardly understand. Welcome to Argentina.
We made it to the La Quiaca bus terminal just in time to board a bus to Tilcara. It was here that we experienced another Argentine custom – paying baggage handlers (
maleteros) to throw your bags on the bus. I use the term throw as they are far from delicate with your belongings. After the arduous task of hurling your bag onto the bus they naturally expect compensation. I know Aussies are infamous non-tippers, but even the most avid tipper must be hesitant to part with a few coins for this “service”.
We arrived in Tilcara a few hours later and immediately made a bee-line for Camping El Jardín. We were eager to finally use the tent I had been hauling around for over four months, and knew we needed to camp in order to save money. After several months carrying the tent without using it we began wondering why we had even brought it. However once we walked in to the grounds of El Jardín we soon knew the effort was all worth
it. The campsite was beautiful. There was ample grass, it was well-shaded and there were enough barbecues to sink a ship. The only drawback was that there were two school groups also staying there. It wasn’t all that bad; it just meant Tahlei had to wait ages in line at the toilets whilst all the teenage girls spent far too long trying to look their best.
The town of Tilcara was fairly quiet with not a whole lot going on. If we weren’t camping we probably wouldn’t have stayed two nights and would have gone on our way. There are plenty of walks to do in the area, seeing canyons and cacti, but having spent several days in southern Bolivia we were pretty over both of them. We spent most of our time just hanging out. We ventured out for dinner one night where we both ordered a
menu del dia. Our four months in South America has seen us eat more than our fair share of them, although this was the first time we had received the main course first and the soup second. We were starting to think that Argentina was more backwards than any country we’d
been to so far.
We did a day-trip to Purmamarca, a village 20km south of Tilcara famous for its seven coloured mountain. We didn’t intend for it to be a day-trip, essentially we wanted to stay a night here. However the campsite looked more like a dusty car park, it was impossible to get a meal, staff at all the shops were rude, the place was crawling with tourists (god only knows why), and the three local
panaderías didn’t have any
pan. How this has become a popular place for honeymooners is beyond me, it was hardly romantic at all. We decided to quickly walk around the famed seven coloured mountain, take some photos and get out of there. On our whirlwind tour of Purmamarca we were able to find a cool little photography gallery where we tried to kill a bit of time before the bus came.
After a couple of largely uneventful days in the province of Jujuy, we made our way further south to Salta. Jujuy and Salta are poles apart. As I mentioned before the Jujuy province is comparable to Bolivia (except for prices), whereas Salta seems better placed in Europe rather than South
America. It is a city that oozes class and we started to realise why Argentineans think they are better than the rest. There are lovely parks all around the city, the plazas are leafy and bordered by beautiful architecture, and all the streets are tree-lined and filled with trendy cafes. We ended up staying at Hostel Correcaminos (Roadrunner hostel) which was relatively cheap and situated in a great location. It was a really nice hostel and would have had a great atmosphere if more people had been staying there. It was much better than the place we looked at first, which felt more like a retirement village than hotel. Plus it was two-thirds the price! We could have easily spent more time here.
Our Salta stay fell on a very important night for Tahlei and I, as we were celebrating our ten year “anniversary”. I hate that word as we aren’t married but I can’t think of a better word to use, so it’ll have to do. In fact our night in Salta was a day before our anniversary, but as on the actual night we were to be on a 12 hour overnight bus we thought it best
to celebrate a day early. So we decided to splurge and go out to a fancy restaurant for some tasty Argentinean beef and fine red wine. The night was a huge success. We ate at La Leñita on Calle Balcarce. The main meals cost about two days worth of our budget, but it was damn good. Tahlei had a rump steak the size of her arm, and I had a mouth-watering sirloin. We washed it all down with a nice bottle of Malbec, the typical wine variety of Argentina (it was the second cheapest bottle on the menu, how romantic). To top it off we were serenaded by two of the waiters. Well, they were dressed as waiters, but I didn’t see them set a single table or take any orders. I think it was a cheeky little ploy by the restaurant to make the entertainment seem a little less tacky. Even so, they had great voices and played the guitar very well for waiters. Our favourite song had to be “Ojos de Cielo”, and we even bought their CD as a keepsake to remember the night.
It was in Salta where we started another love affair, this one
with Grido. This is an Ice-creamery chain found all over Argentina. It’s cheap, has a ton of varieties, and they dip their cones in chocolate. It’s heart attack kind of food. We also made the first of many visits to a Havanna café. Havanna is an Argentinean institution. It makes
dulce de leche (thick, creamy caramel) and
alfajores (chocolate covered, caramel-layered bisuits), and makes them well. You can always remember your first Havanna
alfajor. Mine was in an English class when one of my ex-students Fernando brought a box of them in after recently returning from a trip to his homeland. From that day forth I was determined to have as many Havanna
alfajores in Argentina as I could manage.
While on the subject of food I must make a small complaint. Travelling through Bolivia we pretty much lived off
salteñas, small savoury pasteries originating (so we thought) from Salta. I was looking forward to tasting the perfect
salteña, taking it straight from the source. I imagined a nun handcrafting them from an ancient recipe, alas it appears they are a purely Bolivian delight and I may have eaten my last one for a long time. As if this
wasn't hard enough to (not) swallow, it turns out
empanadas, what I thought were an Argentinean staple, are not the abundant street food I expected to find. When we were able to find them they were tiny, a far cry from the plate sized culinary delight I frequently purchased from an Argentinean
alimentación in Madrid.
A large part of the problem with taking an overnight bus isn’t just the discomfort of trying to sleep sitting upright; it is having to keep yourself occupied the whole day in the lead up to the actual bus ride. We chose to have a nap in the park and do a little shopping to pass the day before hopping on a bus for Córdoba that night. We wanted to buy a Frisbee and some dice so we can play Yahtzee. We’re starting to get sick of the travel Chess/Checkers/Backgammon set we bought in Ecuador, even more so since Tahlei beat me at Chess for the first time in ten years. We bought dice at the first place we found them, parting with what seemed like a reasonable 15 pesos for five dice. It was only when we saw at the next shop they
were 25
centavos each we felt a little ripped off. The Frisbee wasn’t to happen; we asked at about a dozen toy shops where most of them hadn’t even heard of one.
Every person we’d met along our travels that’d been to Argentina raved about the quality of buses here. “Sure they’re expensive, but they’re like a hotel on wheels” they’d say. So needless to say we were a little curious, even a little excited, to board our first overnight bus in Argentina. Our ever undependable guidebook suggested Flecha Bus to be one of the best in the business. All this combined with a price tag of 260 pesos for a 12 hour trip had us expecting fully reclining seats, a five course dinner, tuxedoed waiters and an open bar. We were sadly disappointed. The seats reclined to only 120 degrees, dinner was two ham sandwiches and an alfajor, the steward was more interested in hitting on the girl seated behind us than actually serving us, and there was no grog to be found. I would have loved a drink, as drinking myself into a coma was the only way I could have slept on that bus. Besides the
aforementioned deficiencies there was music blaring out of the driver’s compartment to contend with. It had me wondering whether our bus was being driven by an 18 year old P-plater. Yet another reason for lack of sleep was a surly policeman rifling through my carry-on bag at a checkpoint at 2am. He failed to find my coca lollies.
We arrived in Córdoba an hour late and far from looking or feeling our best. Any bad feelings or moods were soon forgotten when we were greeted at the bus station by our good friends Blake and Rhiannon. They too were on their way home from Europe, having lived in London for the past 4 years or so. We have done our fair share of travelling with them in the past, and were super excited to travel with them again. We would be travelling together for 12 days and had loads planned to pack into that short time.
After a hug, a handshake and quick debrief (we hadn’t seen each other since a weekend trip to Budapest in May) we flagged down a couple of taxis and made our way to Hostelling International Córdoba. It was only a few blocks
El Che
Actually he's just Ernesto here. from the main plaza, had a decent bar, great rooftop terrace, comfortable dorms and one of the friendliest receptionists ever. We decided to get a four bed dorm as we were all on a tight budget.
We didn’t do a whole lot in Córdoba. We spent most of the time catching up with Blake and Rhiannon over numerous bottles of Quilmes (the most popular beer in Argentina and a damn fine drop too). Córdoba is Argentina’s second city and certainly feels that way. It is very lively, has some nice architecture and some pleasant pedestrian malls, but there’s not a terrible lot to keep a tourist busy for more than a day or two.
We did manage to take a day-trip to the town of Alta Gracia, in the Sierra de Córdoba, which is famous for being the childhood hometown of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. His family moved here from Rosario to find relief for little Ernestito’s asthma problems. He lived 11 years in the house which is now an interesting little museum. It's strange that someone synonymous with socialism came from such prosperous beginnings. Alta Gracia seems to be a rather wealthy little town; Che's old
barrio in
particular felt upper-middle class.
Having digested El Che’s revolutionary exploits, we turned our attention to digesting some fine Argentinean meat. The local tourist office had recommended Parrilla Damian as having the best cuts of meat in town. The girls tucked into thick, juicy sirloins which Tahlei claims to be the tenderest steak she’s ever had. Blake, the budding food critic, thought his ribs were a little stringy (when he posts his new food blog I’ll add the link). I tried my hand at a
parrillada completa, a mixed bag of off-cuts and innards. Most of the time I didn’t have a clue what I was putting in my mouth. It was interesting.
Although our first impressions of Argentina were that it’s not so different from Bolivia, within a week we ate some fantastic Argentinean beef, sampled some great wine, and experienced the European sophistication of two attractive cities. We’re slowly becoming accustomed to the high prices and strange pronunciation of “ll” and “y”, now all we need to do is drink some
mate.
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Liliana
non-member comment
This chapter is much more quiet, but no less interesting Liliana