Argentina Part I

Salinas Grandes / Tilcara / Quebrada Humahuaca

Chile was another hard place to leave, but we made the call and moved on to ARGENTINA!!! The drive from Chile to Argentina was amazing. We climbed up to the Pasa Jama at over 4800m drove in the high alpine for quite awhile and then dropped back down, spectacular! While looking for a place to camp Pete got the van stuck on a sandy road. Luckily we had a passanger , Mathias from Switzerland, who helped Karen push Patience out of the sand. We then found a gravel pit off the highway...welcome back to wild camping, woohoo!! The next day we set off for the Quebrada Humahuaca and its 7 colour hills. On the way we passed a big salt flat where we were able to snap some pictures and drive around on the salt. We arrived in Purmamarca and were instantly impressed with this tranquil little town. We wandered around for awhile and then got hungry so we asked around for a place to eat and were pointed towards a closed door where we were told we could find some lunch. We walked in to find a single room with only one table and it was occupied. We were told to wait on the couch and boy are we glad we did. The chef/guy who owned the house cooked us up an amazing Locro (a stew made of corn, sausage, beef, and beans) and some fantastic empanadas. After lunch we decided to keep moving to the town of Tilcara to spend the night. After a little searching we managed to find a place to camp, had a little siesta and then headed into town. We enjoyed a few more empanadas at a local restaurant and then stumbled into some live regional music. The pan flute player was out of this world. The next day we slept in and then cruised towards Salta.

Salta

Karen spotted what seemed like a good short cut and somehow we found ourselves on a two way back road the width of a cycling path. It wound us back and forth and up and down for ages. The curves were the tightest we’ve driven yet, which says a lot. It took us about 2 hours to go 40km so we decided to stop for the night at a little town with free camping at the soccer pitch. The next morning we started off again at the same pace until the road finally widened and straightened and we pulled into the town of Salta. It was so nice to drive in a city and not fear for our lives. In fact this city was too safe and every street light had four cycles instead of two to make sure there weren’t any accidents. This is a brutal system that is all throughout Argentina and wastes way too much time, but what can you expect from a country that siestas from 1-5 everyday. Maybe we could learn a thing or two. As always we went on a bit of a wild goose chase to find the municipal campground, but we finally found it and settled in beside the biggest pool we have ever seen. Although since it’s winter down here it was empty, bummer. The campground was pretty basic, but there was hot water and heaters in the bathrooms, score! We showered up, had a siesta and then headed in for our first night out in Argentina. There’s something about cities at night that makes them magical and we were finally back in a beautiful colonial town all lit up. We found an awesome restaurant on the main plaza and had a steak covered in blue cheese that lived up to every expectation we’d had from the past 8 months of bad beef. We also downed a bottle of wine and finished off with a great cup of coffee at midnight just as everyone else came in for dinner. Argentina is full of night owls. Although I guess we would be too if we had a 4 hour siesta every day. When we finally decided to call it a night it was after one and after waiting an hour for a bus home we didn’t get in until after 2, latest night in a long time. Welcome to Argentina! The next day we slept in, hand washed almost all of our clothes and then enjoyed a tub of ice cream, another Argentinean favourite, before heading to bed early. The next night we decided that we should go out for another steak, when in Rome... This time we went to the hip street north of town and searched for a place with some atmosphere that wasn’t blasting music. This took us quite awhile and we ended up settling for an okay place well after midnight. Pete then dragged Karen out for a quiet drink and we spent another hour or so searching for a place until we finally ended up at an Irish pub at 3:30 in the morning. All we’d done is have dinner and the night had passed us by, crazy. We crawled into bed at 5:30 and spent the next day sleeping and enjoying the sunshine.

Cafayete / Quilmes / Pacha Mama Museum

We decided to take the low road to Cafayete through a beautiful canyon of red rock with formations such as the amphitheatre, the toad and the devil’s throat. We were finally in a country where we could drive short distances in a day and sleep wherever we could pull over so we took full advantage of this and slept by the river in the canyon surrounded by the peering eyes of foxes in the bushes. The next morning we arrived in the sleepy town of Cafayete where we finally entered the land of vineyards. We visited our first winery and then headed into town where we had the best homemade Alfajores (a cookie sandwich filled with dulce de leche), fantastic empanadas and extremely potent white wine ice cream, yum. We window shopped, chatted with some locals and then decided to keep truckin’. We made it as far as the town of Quilmes and decided to check out the pre Incan ruins before sunset. We didn’t know what to expect as we’d already seen some pretty amazing ruins, but these were fascinating. The area itself was over 30 hectares and about 5000 people lived there from 1000AD. There was a mix of restored and unrestored ruins winding their way through cactus fields and up into the mountains. The Quilmes people were warriors and managed to fight off the Incas and only succumbed to the Spaniards in 1667. The focus of their lives must have been guarding their territory and grinding corn as there were watch towers and mortars everywhere. We finally left as the sun was setting and found a great place to camp on the side of the road. We’d been given a tip that the small town of Amaiche del Valle had an amazing museum so we decided to check it out on our way to San Juan. We were not disappointed as the museum was surprisingly large and very artistic. Every inch was decorated in native rock including the walls, floors and roofs. No paint was used and yet they were able to create intricate patterns and statues of different colours and textures. It was a great place to explore as every corner held something new and beautiful. We got back on the road and wound our way up and over another pass and into a different world. The dry and barren landscape was replaced with lush forest, fog and a winding river. It was a nice change and a beautiful drive. Along the way we stopped for some homemade cheese and bread on the side of the road and ended up with gourmet goods. It was getting late as we hit the lowlands and we lucked into a gas station that let us camp on their property. We thought we’d lucked into the best spot until the morning when we discovered we were in a garbage dump, oh well. We decided to get out of their early and Karen went to fill up the water jug as Pete backed the van out of the spot. Pete thought that he was in a clear open field so he decided to give her some gas which made Karen turn around just in time to see Pete slam into a poor defenceless tree. Lucky for him the tree bent back and our bumper took the hit. Patience was fine so we said sorry to the tree and Patience and took off. Next stop, San Juan for some more wineries. It was a bit of a drive so by the time we got there, visited the tourist information centre and went grocery shopping it was already dark so we followed some directions and found the big municipal site. Unfortunately it was Saturday night and some hooligans took over the abandoned building across the street for some early morning partying that didn’t end until 9:30am so the next morning we had a late start. We managed to visit two wineries including champagne tasting in a cave and an interesting museum tour in a winery built in 1880 where we sampled a sweet malbec (Graffigna). We’d heard there was some amazing climbing in an area at the end of calle 11 so we decided to head there for the night. We had a hand drawn map to guide our way, but were driving in the dark and ended up going the wrong way into private mining grounds where we had to be escorted back to the spot where we made the wrong turn and got back on track. We found a great spot to camp and passed out until the winds picked up and we thought the van was going to be pushed over. It turns out that we lucked into Argentina’s version of the Chinook and we woke up to our first warm day in a long time. We headed out to the rock and only managed to climb a few polished, slippery routes before we called it a day. We were definitely spoiled by the rock in Chile. The next day we were going to climb again, but decided just to keep moving and drove on to Mendoza.

Mendoza

We arrived in chilly Mendoza to find all of the campgrounds closed and were told that there had been an attack on some tourists camping in the streets just two weeks ago so we begged one campground to let us stay for the night and then moved into the city in the morning. We ended up at a scruffy hostel with super friendly owners, a huge room with patio doors and an older crowd of tourists, perfect! The first night we went into town and ended up getting tickets to a local dance show and then went out for another steak dinner. The next day we were woken up by, goooooooaall!!!!, the Argentineans scored the first goal. We got out of bed to enjoy the game. We watched the second half in the town along with hundreds of screaming fans and were stoked when Argentina won. The whole town went into party mode and paraded around the streets. I can only imagine what it’s going to be like if they win the world cup...GO ARGENTINA!!! That afternoon we went to Maipu by bus with an English couple Roz and Dave to go on a biking winery tour. We rented our cruiser bikes at Mr Hugo’s and cycled out to the first stop for some olive tapenades, dulce de leches, jams, homemade liquors and some awful absinthe. It was enough to warm us up for the 6km bike ride to Familia Di Tomaso, the oldest winery in Argentina open to visitors. We were given an awesome tour of the winery and then sampled some of their wines. The best part was that their wine can only be bought at the winery or ordered online with excessive shipping fees, very exclusive and good wine. On the way back we stopped at another winery for some bbq’d meats and some more wine. When we left it was starting to get dark and we were joined by a police escort. It was quite a spectacle to be followed very slowly by two police men on motorcycles flashing their lights. We finally got back to Mr Hugo’s safe and sound and said goodbye to our escorts. Mr Hugo then plied us with more wine and put us on a bus back to Mendoza. All in all a great day in the countryside. The next few days were spent watching soccer, going out for dinner, chatting with Roz and Dave, walking around town and the park and enjoying city life. It was nice being around people and culture again after camping on our own for so long. That’s what we get for traveling in the winter when all the campgrounds are deserted or closed. Next stop...Cordoba!

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