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Published: August 9th 2007
Final Destination In Argentina that is. We've now made it oop north to the little town of Salta which feels like quite a different world from the rest of the country. Religion is even more conspicuous here with multi-coloured churches on every corner and nuns in coffee shops.
It would seem that nutrition is slightly less important than spirituality. It's virtually impossible to eat healthily here. The only thing you can have five a day of are empanadas. We particularly liked the menu in one cafe which had a list of ten sandwiches. Five types of cheese, two ham and three kinds of cheese and ham.
Eating wasn't the only option though as we discovered in the excellent Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montañas complete with preserved Inca mummy from the surrounding mountains.
Having spent 21 hours on a bus getting to Salta we felt the thing we needed most was another bus journey, so we booked ourselves a day tour to the Quebrada de Humahuaca. Fortunately there was plenty of time to get off the bus and enjoy exploring the indigenous villages along the way.
The level of development was somewhat different to Buenos Aires with
For whom the bell tolls
Another day, another churchdirt streets, gauchos on horseback and churches with ceilings of cactus wood. Of course it was still possible to buy coca-cola everywhere.
Lunch was heaven for vegetarians with a choice of llama, goat stew or locro, a local corn stew with some random meat thrown in to surprise you. All this was fantastically accompanied by a ludicrously loud pan pipe band looking for their tourist buck. Just like being back on Buchanan Street on a Saturday. They were outdone however by a child who invested so much emotion in his poetry that it's possible he'll run out by June. All this was worth sitting through for the scenery along the way with fabulous multi coloured hills lining the roads.
Which was a bit of a change from Mendoza where all roads are merely a break in the endless landscape of vineyards. Some of which we found it necessary to visit. All in the interests of research of course. They were a mixed bag, from a large overtly commercial operation that rushed us to their shop as quickly as possible in order to make room for the next group.
The second was a far more pleasant experience with
What a grubber!
David tries a different type of tasting in Mendoza. One's Carolyn's. Honest! a small family run operation and some proper lessons in how to taste a wine. Who knew you didn't just put it in your mouth? After a brief visit to a fairly new operation that specialised in liquers (sadly without dulce de leche available for tasting) it was time to soak up the alcohol with a monstrous serving of lunch, accompanied by a never ending flow of vino tinto, so fresh the bottles weren't even labelled yet.
We also discovered that Mendoza has another speciality aside from wine. The local population seem to be obsessed with ice cream. It would appear most residents consume roughly their own body weight in the stuff each week, the brighter the colour, the better. And as a result there are several quite magnificent ice cream parlours to choose from. Our particular favourite did a fine line in fruits of the forest, in 1/4 kilo measures for about a pound.
Our last few weeks haven't only consisted of stuffing our faces with the little luxuries in life though. We did make a stab at taking in some culture along the way with the ever popular ferry across the Rio de la Plata from
Green fuel
A novel way of compensating for emissions in Colonia Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. As well as another couple of passport stamps to add to the collection, it gave us the chance to have a wander round an almost perfectly preserved colonial town.
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LINZICA
Lindsay & Jenica
good times
great photos! It brought me back to all those places which i've visited along my travels. thank you for posting so many! Happy trails. jenica