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Published: September 30th 2008
(note: this is quite a long blog as we have lumped our final 3 weeks into 1 blog.. might be an idea to take an afternoon out to get through it!!) With only 3 weeks left in South America and a little sad at the thought of leaving we were glad that we were back in Argentina where they have the best of seemingly everything.. food, drink, music and people (both Sophie and Dale have developed a liking for the Argentinians!)
Our last few weeks consisted of mostly city experiences and we took in the sights and sounds of Salta, Cordoba and Mendoza before having to go back into Chile for our flight out of Santiago to New Zealand.
We were particularly looking forward to getting to Salta because our friend from good old Northampton was there and we were excited at the prospect of meeting up with a familiar face for a catch up.
Salta
We didn´t arrive in the city until about 11pm, but because Argentina evening activities don´t get going until 10 or 11 we went straight out with a couple of Swiss guys we´d met on the bus to a fantastic place they
had visited a month or so back on a previous visit. La Casona del Molino is a real treat, not only does it serve gorgeous food but they also have great entertainment in the form of a guitarist in the corner and everyone in the restaurant singing along to traditional Argentinian and Spanish songs. It was a great evening and so unexpected too which made it even better, so good in fact that we went again the following evening!
We met up with Jay the following day and took a walk up to the mirador which made us all feel much healthier than the lazy people taking the cable car! It´s a good place to chill out over a drink and take in the city sights so we spent quite a while up there catching up on Northampton news, chilling out and persuading him to come to the great restaurant with his friends that evening as we were sure he´d enjoy it.
We all piled into La Casona again that evening and although it was slightly different to the previous night with not quite so many locals, it was entertaining all the same with an enthuiastic drummer taking
part this time. We also had a shock when a very traditional Argentinian looking man spoke to us and it turned out he was from Yorkshire with the strongest Yorkshire accent you have ever heard.. he´d lived there for 15 years after settling down whilst he had been backpacking across South America.
The rest of our time in Salta was spent shopping and city sightseeing, it was nice not to have to do anything and just have lazy days drinking coffee in cafes and walking aimlessly around seeing what we could see. Our next stop on our city tour was Cordoba so booked ourselves on a semi cama night bus (after the buses in Bolivia anything that is not a minibus seems like a luxury) and we set off into the night..
Cordoba
After getting a great nights sleep on the bus we woke up in Cordoba.. how´s that for timing! It´s brilliant to fall asleep in one city and literally wake up in the next.
Cordoba is Argentinia´s 2nd largest city and we noticed this straight away in the city centre because it has literally the most shops that Sophie has ever seen in one place..
Wine bottles
We didn´t taste from these as they were empty!and that includes London city centre so that is one hell of a lot of shops! They have shopping arcades on nearly every street with the biggest one taking up 4 floors, the best thing though is that every shop sells fantastic things, not that we could buy anything but it was nice to drool at all the things on offer!
After a day walking round the city Dale had plans for our 2nd day and that was a visit to Alta Gracia, the first major home of Che Guevara so our Che tour continued...
We had both expected this town to be a very small place so were surprised when the bus took ages to travel though the centre of it and onto the bus terminal. We took a walk round the town to find the museum and found that this must be where the really rich people in Argentina live because all the houses were amazing, huge houses in all shapes and styles and each immaculately kept with beautiful gardens too. What was not so good about them was that each came complete with a small yappy dog that barked as you walked past each house
and once one went off the rest started, it got quite annoying after a while and worse when people had left their gates open and you weren´t sure if these yappy dogs were going to come out and nip at your legs!
The Che museum is actually his old house from the ages of 2 - 15 and they have now converted it into a museum documenting his life. On Monday it is not open until 2pm though so we found a really nice restaurant to sit in until it opened.. strangely this restaurant was at the side of a shell service station so not the best of views but the food was top class as with the majority of Argentinian cuisine.
The museum is very well kept and has all sorts of memoribilia, Dale was most excited at one exhibit which was the motorbike that he used when he travelled across South America and wrote the motorcycle diaries. It also has his original resignation letter to Fidel Castro as well as many other personal photographs of him throughout his lifetime.. we enjoyed our time there until about 10 coachloads of tourists piled into this small house and
you could not move so we made a quick exit out of there!
Mendoza
Another great night bus ride and this time we woke up in Mendoza where we´d been looking forward to the famous wine that was on offer.
We spent a long while in Mendoza taking things easy after a busy few months. The hostel we stayed in, Hostel Savigliano, was fantastic, perhaps the best we have stayed in with lovely lounge areas, a huge kitchen and such friendly staff that nothing was too much trouble, so many days were spent lounging around enjoying the sunshine.. that was until we got a few rubbish weather days and had to think of something else to do!
We visited the zoo in the huge park on the outskirts of the downtown area and did this with a couple we´d met in the hostel. This was a good day despite the rain that decided to come down while we were halfway round. The zoo is huge with many big cats which, while being exciting was quite sad as the conditions were not great and we felt particularly sorry for 2 lions in such small cages where they just
paced back and forth the whole time. We were sure that conditions like this were not allowed any longer but maybe they are in Argentina??
Whilst being here we also made the most of the tenedor libre restaurants which are amazing. Our favourite by far was Las Tanjeras which had all you can eat, steak (Dale was in heaven!), seafood, salads and 100´s of other dishes and the best dessert selection ever.. the sweetened whipped cream was a dessert in itself and Sophie made the most of eating vast quantities of this with her flambéed banana pancakes.. YUM! Whilst it was a bit over our daily budget at £10 for the 2 of us with beer, it meant we didn´t have to eat for another 24 hours with us each managing about 5 plates of food each time we went!
Another long awaited trip was on the list for Mendoza and that was the wine tour which we´d read about whilst being in the UK. Mendoza is a famous wine region with Malbec being the main produced wine and many people take a trip out of the city to the neaby small town of Maipu where there are
The bike & Dale
he was most excited about seeing this! many many bodgeas and vinerys to visit by pedal power... yes the bikes were back! We hired our bikes and set off to visit as many as we could in one day with each bodega happy to offer samples of what they produce and we really enjoyed the sampling even if we did start a little early at 11am! You can have a look around and see how the wine is made and be amazed at the huge barrels that must contain enough wine to keep a small country contented! Our favourite place was where they made chocolate and flavoured liquors. It did however feel little early to be drinking a shot of such strong alcohol at 11.30 then getting back on the bikes for some wobbly pedalling on a busy road where all drivers seem to be competing in a Grand Prix! Sophie did fall off the bike at one point (not being drunk just rubbish at biking!) but thankfully that was when there wasn´t a HGV passing by otherwise she would not be here to tell the tale!
After over a week in Mendoza not doing a lot we also decided to squeeze two more trips into
Jaguar sleeping
Yes they were all tired of pacing round their cages all day! our final days. The first being an activity we were going to save for New Zealand but decided to try a trial run here in South America.. White Water Rafting! We booked ourselves on a half day trip to the River Mendoza where they have rapids of up to grade 3 (quite tame but good for beginners). The sun was shining and we were looking foward to the adrenaline rush after many days of pure relaxation. The day was excellent and Sophie has at last found an adventure sport she really loves and can´t wait to try it again! We all paddled hard with Dale taking the lead and successfully managed to complete the 11km without anyone falling into the water.. that was until the last photo opportunity when the guide told us all to get in! We all sat there for a few seconds wondering if he was joking, but when he said it again we knew he was serious so over the edge we all went into the cold brown water all clinging to the sides so we didn´t drift off down river without a paddle! Photo opportunity completed he then had to haul us all out the
Rafting crew
We are in the middle! water back into the safety of the boat. This is definately somthing we will be doing again and we even hope for higher grade rapids now we are no longer rafting novices!
Our second activity was another fantastic one and involved lots of snow, one of the highest mountains in the world and wet feet! Along with Anya and Claude from our hostel we all caught the bus at 06.00 for the 4 hour bus ride to Puente de Inca where there´s a national park for viewing the mighty Anconcagua standing at 6962m.. it is a 10 day hike up there so we decided to just go and have a look from a distance! Both Dale and Sophie were so excited when we approached the park and saw that there wasn´t just a bit of snow.. there was LOADS! Our trek from the park entrance to the mirador lasted about 2 hours and at first the snow was quite firm so we walked across it without any problems. It was later on in the trek when the sun had melted it a bit that we started to take steps and with each one fell hip deep into it. We
White Water Rafting in grade 3 rapids
dale is front left hand side and sophie is at the back right. never tired of seeing the funny side as each one of us was walking along ok then you would see them sink into the snow and have to struggle to get back out again. The view of Anconcagua was amazing, it´s difficult to appreciate the height from such a distance so we were amazed when Claude (an experienced guide) told us that the distance between the 2 peaks on the top was 2km! It really didn´t look that far! On the way we met up with some other day trippers, Michelle and Pablo and the 6 of us had to try to make the journey back again complete with now very wet feet all squelching in our boots, but the fun of sinking in the snow didn´t relent. Claude decided to take us an alternative way back to the village.. no point in going the easy dry way on the road.. and we walked though a train tunnel and then across a very delapadated bridge at a great height! Sophie got a bit scared at this point so Claude had to hold on to her to keep her nerve whilst she was inching across a pipe with a long drop
down beneath her! We really loved this day, not only did we have great company but the sun shone all day and combined with our first experience of seeing so much snow, since neither of us had ever been skiing before, we could not have asked for more.
So our time had come to make our final journey across to Chile ready to catch our flight to New Zealand... on the 30th September not the 2nd October which Sophie had thought for the entire journey.. it´s a good job she checked! We caught the bus to Vina del Mar and spent our final few days relaxing on the beach and making the most of the tv in our room (such a luxury these days!) in anticipation for our flight out of here...
We are a little sad at leaving South America after a fantastic 4 months, we could not have asked for more and despite some of the problems we endured we would love to come back to this amazing country one day to experience more of what it has to offer... next time though we will have done a Spanish course before we arrive!!
Next stop...
NEW ZEALAND for 2 months in a campervan!
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