Northern Argentina: More wine and Native Peoples

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The seven hour journey from Santiago to Mendoza was a novel and wonderful experience. It started off a bit drab but once we hit the foothills of the Andes it was time to put the book down (Winter of the World by Ken Follett ; a great read if you must know) and stare out of the window for several hours, with the only interuption being the border control point. The climb up the Andes is steep and so the road snakes up the side of the mountain very slowly (27 or 28 bends in total) until a wide, rocky valley cuts through to Argentina. There are many ghost towns and deserted buildings between the two border control points and a disused railway which we followed all the way down to the arid plains of Argentina. It's a bit erie in places, especially when some of the buildings look like they had just been abandoned the day before, not decades ago. There was the impressive sight of the Aconcagua towering above it's neighbours at 6,962m (the highest point in the Andes) and the natural bridge made by the emittance of the hotsprings that are scattered across the area. As we decended, the mountains begain to change colours and became vibrant, like a rock rainbow. Eleanor got very excited and took quite a few photos of the hills ad mountains. I was more interested in the railway, which zig-zagged it's way across the valley, and the old road which from time to time popped up alongside the road we were travelling on.



The bizzarre thing with Argentina is the police's need to check your ID every ten minutes when you're in a motorvehicle. Having just passed through border security we had to wait for half an hour at a police check point to have our documents checked...someone should really point out the amount of paperwork and time they could save themselves...time they could devote to eating doughnuts or surpressing free speach. I think all the different police forces in Argentina are in competition with each other to seee who can inconvenience you the most, like the national rail companies in the UK.

Mendoza seemed okay on first appearance, except for the fact that they eat dinner at the mst ungodly hour of 11pm (we struggled to find a place serving before 9!), and it is a fairly nice town with museums, parks and the obligatory plaza (5 I think). The place sells itself on the back of the wine industry. Every traveller raves about the cycle tour of the vinyards and the guidebooks perpetuate the myth. Mendoza's vinyards seem to cluster around a small sample of busy, dirty roads, plus you have to cycle out of the city to get to them, through all the traffic. It's not a particularly appealling prospect, and we dodged it (we saw a few suckers on their bikes from the bus though) in favour of a more savvy option. We just went straight to the vinyard. The wine tasting was free, great, but consisted of two wines, boo! The Chardonnay was a huge let down, so we purchased at glass of Sauvingnon Blanc to counteract this. It was pretty tasty but nothing compared to Casas del Bosque. The Malbec was a much more robust tipple and the Merlot we purchased was a bit of a let down despite being praised by the staff and some independent review that was on display. The museum was fun especiall the cow skin converted in to a grape press with the tail used as a tap! But all in all the wine experience here was a bit of a let down. It felt like the vinyards didn't really care that much about the customer, it's clearly too easy to get people through the door based on the region's reputation. They don't have to try any more, so they don't. Shame on them.

On Mother's day we tried to go to the museums in town. Despite all of them professing to be open, it was a barefaced lie. We were stood outside the Modern Art Gallery at 12.00 and it said it was open from 11.00-17.00. It was shut. Lights off and locked. The story was the same all over town. That's just lazy. At least the museum with the Inca mummies in had the decency to be closed for renovation, and say so! Mendoza was seeming to be a bit careless and tardy. At lunch, so guy tried to scam me to rob me, but a kind woman thwarted their attempt. The whole thing was redeemed by the cafe owner being a huge rugby fan and having the Heiniken Cup on the TV. We decided to get out of Mendoza and head north, perhaps where wine and history weren't taken for granted.

The overnight bus to Tucuman should really be uneventful but one of the most immense thunderstorms I've ever expereinced occurred on the journey. The whole sky was sporadically lit up in green and hailstones the size of golf balls slammed in to the bus as if fired from some meterological gatling gun. It last 15 minutes and it seemed the windows would be smashed. The bus driver just stopped. The bonus of the storm was it distracted us from some crappy Reese Witherspoon/Tom Hardy rom-com crap on the TV.



We left Tucuman on the first bus to Cafayate. It's a major wine producing region, the whole valley seems to have been handed over to grape production, and home to the Quilmes Ruins, some of the most amazing pre-Incan sites in South America. Quilmes is a 5km hike down a dusty road off the main bus route, and we did this in the midday heat. It was oppressively hot, the sun baking our brains, and we were tired upon reaching the site (you can do an organised tour but the cost is high and someone will inevitably be shuffling you around the site). However, we were rejuvenated when azing upon the ruins. The site is small, occupying a natural gulley between two tendrals of a lare hill. The remains of the low walls of the buildings and animal pens pattern the ground and the hillside. It was great for exploring and there were hundreds of catcti, goat and llamas. Apparently, tthe people who lived here beat the Incas and then held the Spanish off for years before fially being subdued, enslaved and shipped off to Buenos Aries. The ruins didn't appear to be a major tourist attraction (or they came when the sun was in a more hospitable vector) which added to the mistique of the place.



Cafayate itself seemed like a sleepy town. What action was to be had was normally found around the plaza (not surprised to see one of those here), the "action" seemed to consist of eating icecream (malbec and torrentes flavours included), shopping for curios or trying to avoid tripping over kissing teenagers. There was little traffic and the siesta here was a real one, it shut the town down for atleast 3 hours. We loved this place, and would have gladly spent longer in this place, it was tranquil and serene and seemed to exist at a normal pace despite it's tourism focus. One evening we headed to Chato's Wine Bar for more wine tasting (this guy is a teacher by day but his hobby is wine and he has hundreds of bottles to choose from), which was a brilliant evening and saved us many trips to different vinyards. On oour final day here we thought to climb the moutain that casts it's considerable shadow over Cafayate. However, when we got to the start point some locals told us the path was "dangerous" and that we should go to the cascadas instead. With hindsight this was likely a ploy to get the local native community some money as they charged for entry to the valley, however, it was a warm day and we decided to head this way instead. The route should take 4 hours for the round trip, we did it in 2 but it was much fun. The "path" id s a goat track and it crossed the river innumerable times as it wound it's way towards the cascadas. There were many on the journey, with cool pools to allieviate the heat of the day, we indulged once, and it was freezing! We didn't get the panorama of the valley but we did have an amazing morning.



Salta is the last major population centre before Bolivia. We spent a day here, and whilst it was an okay town, nothing is particularly wonderful or significant abut it. Oh, except the Inca Mummies! They are very cool. Literally. They were preserved due to the conditions at the top of a 6000m volcano and the bodies are almost in perfect condition. Only one of the 3 is ever on display at a given time but the museum was insightfull and extremely sciencey! But Salta, to my mind, is little more than a stoppping off point for Bolivia. We took at excursion north to see the seven colour mountain (literally 7 types of colourful rock stacked next to each other, fascinating) and another preincan ruin. Our guide had a lot of scatalogical humour (nice to see humour knows no racial boundaries) and an obsession with Boca Juniors. Our ultimate destination was Humahuaca. At 2000m+ above sea level it was the location of Argentina's pre-1986 World Cup training. The local amatuer team beat them 6-4 on the first day (but got duly thrashed as the pros got used to it). Apparently, the national team will never win another competition due t breaking some promise to one of the saints or something, personally I think they just need to have better players. Humahuaca seemed to be constructed entirely of adobe, except for the huge Mapuche monuent in the centre of town. We just hung out, ate some llama (that'll teach them for spitting at me when I was ten on that farm in Wales), enjoyed the sun and the pleasant village atmosphere. It was the perfect way to finish our Argentine adventure before heading to Bolivia and the Salar de Uyuni.

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Photos

Cafayate
Wine...well embryonic wine....

Road to the Border
Look at all of those turns.

Path to Mendoza
You can see the railway bridge and some of the colourful valley

Eleanor loves wine
At the wine tasting in Mendoza. Not quite as much fun as Chile or Cafayate

Pink Water
The fountain was presumably dyed pink for Mother´s day, or Mendoza is just a wierd place!

Quilmes
Much better than the lager!

Huge Cactus
Quilmes is littered with them!

Cascadas
Ellie climbing the cascada

Cold Pools
Refreshing...freezing!

Valley of Cafayate
Lovely view from outside of Cafayate

Salta Cathedral
Reflected in the bank windows.

7 Coloured Mountain
7 types of rock. Striking.

Humhuaca Town
Town Square from the monument

Humhuaca Momument
Sunset.