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Published: November 9th 2008
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San Pedro de Atacama - Chile It was heavenly to arrive in Chile after the dodgy food and accomodation on the Bolivian Salar de Uyuni trip. Our room was clean and cosy with and the hostel had a free pool table. We went out for lunch and found a wholefood restaurant with organic food and a yummy 3 course meal. The food was heavenly, really was, and not just because the taste of bad spagetti lingered in our mouths after the salt flats. Ok, well maybe thats part of the reason why.
We just chilled in San Pedro, getting our strength back. Had a lovely dinner date with Liz and Josh (from the salt flats) and played a lot of free pool. The main thing we wanted to do here was to go star gazing which is meant to be spectacular in the Atacama desert - however as we were near full moon we couldn't do it as wouldn't see much. Ah well, not to worry.
As San Pedro is pretty touristic it was a pretty pricey place to be. So us, Liz and Josh took a bus over to Salta in Argentina after a day or two. The
bus was so civilised. They gave us cups of tea and sandwiches. Man, this is a good start to Argentina - I can see why people talk about how good the buses are here...
Salta - Argentina So we arrived in Salta. Magnus and I had booked into a hostel that had pretty high reviews. However, on check in we realised that the reason it had pretty high reviews was because of its party atmosphere. And it was Friday night - cue banging music until 4am. Doh, we must be getting old.
Now that we had made it to Argentina it was time to try out some steak. We decided with the Americans to have an Asado (BBQ) and get larded up. However, on closer inspection of the grill area of the hostel we decided it might be safer to eat out... We caught a taxi from our hostel out to a restaurant called Viejo Jack which has some great reviews. Taxi driver said, yeah yeah I know it. He drove us there and stopped across the road from it. "That will be 8 pesos, oh and by the way the restaurant isn't open." Cheeky bugger took us
there knowing full well it was closed. Hmmph, well with 1 hour to kill until the restaurant opened we strolled into town, ordered some starters elsewhere (fried block of cheese - hmmmm) and then headed back. Boy was it worth the wait, this was the hugest and thickest slab of meat we have seen. Was just gorgeous and so was the red wine that went with it. Yummmmmmm.
The following day we bought some trainers (San will start marathon training) and took them out for a spin. Soon realised I was getting some rather funny looks from the locals and decided that Salta was not the place to run. Instead we took a cable car up to the hill and lookout point in Salta and walked back down. Nice view, hot day, tasty ice cream.
Mendoza - Argentina After a few days in Salta our little gang took the bus down to Mendoza. Now we are talking. Wine region of Argentina - the area produces 70%!o(MISSING)f the country's best wine. Hello!
The area is famous for its Malbec so the first thing we all did was head out for dinner and order a bottle. Seriously yummy!
After all the litre bottles of beer everywhere else that we have been this was a refreshing change! The wine was so good we had to order another bottle along with desert.
The next morning, before heading off to the wine tasting San got up early, put back on those new trainers and tried out the slightly decrepid treadmill in the hostel garage. 10 pathetic mins later and was time to stop -should I blame the dodgy treadmill, boring garage, blaring heat, new shoes or last nights wine? Hmmm, well whatever it was it was not a good start to marathon training. Booo.
Me, Magnus and Liz headed off for a session of wine tasting and chocololate tasting was also mentioned. Yum. We first went to a Weinert wine factory which was full of massive tanks of wine and huge barrels. One barrel could fill 52,000 normal sized bottles of wine. Man, thats a lot wine we are surrounded by - pass us a straw. After the tour of the factory it was time for the wine tasting - a dissapointing 2 glasses of wine, one red and one white. Oh, and also a glass of non alcoholic
grape juice. whoo hoo. We ended up buying a bottle of the non alcoholic grape juice - not sure thats a good sign for the vineyard.
The next factory was an organic bodega called Cecchin which only used natural methods to produce is wine. Again a short tour (similar to the first) and then a tasting - again only one red and one white. Boo. We bought some red (a malbec that we were not able to taste). Silly really, as if they gave you more to taste people would probably buy more.
Oh yeah, almost forgot, on the first wine tour we encountered a group of school children on a tour. Call me old fashioned but I am not convinced that wine tasting is the ideal school outing for 11 year olds....
After the wine we went to an olive oil factory (yup, as exciting as it sounds) and then to the chocolate and liquors tasting. This was a bit of an odd place as it appeared to be that this guy just figured out how to get his home distillery to work and then invited people to take a look and buy some of his
home made hooch. Hmmmm, we tried a bit of the home made absynthe - it was frightening stuff.
On our last night in Mendoza (which was our last night with Liz and Josh too) we decided to have that BBQ and bought a load of steak and chorizo to have along with our purchases from the wine tasting. A nice chilled evening with nice food and company before heading off on our own again.....
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