Mendoza and Salta

Turns out I did not kill the townsfolk, since they have now ceased making their satanic humdrum. Thus I shall bring to you the last update, which should bring you to the present day.

After walking the length and bredth of Mendoza searching for a suitable hostel, we gave up at a hostel called BreakPoint (maybe because they´re so stuck up that they test your Breaking Point), and promptly wanted to leave. However, our tired legs and sore backs forced us to swallow our pride and book into the pricey lair for the night, with the promise of finding a better digs the next day. The next day our promise was kept and, after being chased out the hostel for waking up after checkout time (God forbid!), we had a late breakfast and then did indeed find a better digs, for a lower price (not bad eh?). After all that, we decided we needed the great outdoors, and so we checked out the massive San Martin Park (San Martin was an oke (boet!) who helped convince the Spaniards to let many South American countries rule themselves independently, and then promptly packed his bags to live in Europe soon after - he´s now a hero who has everything from main roads to parks to newborn babies and pets named after him). His park was rather nice though, and the three of us (Nadia, Jax an I) enjoyed its grassy knolls while eating olives. That night we went out and Jax had her first Parilla (read MeatFest).

The next day we decided to check out for ourselves if Argie wine had anything on their Saffer counterparts, and since we were getting nowhere by drinking many bottles of the stuff, we decided it was time to check out the winefarms. Most of the best winefarms are situated within winespitting distance of Mendoza, and there are a few routes on which you can see 10 or so estates in a day. Thus we took a bus to Maipu (pronounced, comically, ¨MyPoo¨). After searching around in Maipu for what seemed like ages, we found some bicycle rental shops in Maipu (imagine that!), and decided to cycle out of all the flies in Maipu and into the fresh air. Our first estate was the gigantic La Rural Estate, which pumps out a staggering 8 million litres of wine a year (sis on them!). However, though they made average wine with no passion, they did have a huge museum which contained hundreds of different instuments used in the Argie winemaking of yesteryear, right from when they had to do everything by hand, until contact with Buenos Aires allowed them to get the FAB invention of the Scissors, up until the present day. They also showed us about 50 different tools used by a Cooper to make barrels, and then told us that the cooper uses every single instrument to make one wooden barrell. I will no longer call them mere BarrelMaakers.

We then ode on, about 5km to our next estate, Bodega ICantRememberTheName. It´s a lovely family run estate which has been in one family for generations, and continuially makes small batches of good wine. We tasted their Malbec Rose (gooood), their syrah (naaat bad), their Malbec (great), their Tempranillo (interesting), their CabSav (disgusting, tasted like a Bergie´s morning vomit), and their award winning red blend (award winning). We then decided we needed some food, and so enjoyed a fantastic lunch on the porch of a sunny guesthouse opposite the farm. As the time ticked on, we realised we would not see all ten farms, and so picked two more to see. The first was Familia Tomassini, another family run Bodega who´s origins stretch bad to the Italian immigration of AVeryLongTimeAgo. They gave us a quick tour of the winery, before giving us some different malbecs to try. We then got back in the saddle (I now understand why Lance Armstrong in fact had an advantage, only having one... thing in mind), and headed for an olive farm, where they make many olive products, most notably olive oil. (Father, I did intend on buying you some and sending it back, but Jax was already over her limit of liquids allowed on the plane - sorry!). We then discovered that a raw olive off the tree is a surprisingly awful thing to eat, and oh how we did wash our mouthies out afterwards.

Upon reflecting on our day of wines and cycling, we can offer the findings that, on the whole, the Argies make some darn good wines. Give them some malbec vines and they will give you a very pleasant experience, before giving you some Malbec (which is an even more pleasant experience).

The next day we decided it was time to leave Mendoza and head North for the town of Salta, where we are now (yay!). When booking our bus tickets, with our seats at the arriba floor of the bus, with a huge window in front of us, we were unwittingly guaranteeing ourselves incredible views of the countryside between Mendoza and Salta, which, though barren, is quite special. Our ride was constantly watched over by the looming peaks of the Andes, to our left, and the vast expanses of karoo-like plains to our right. In front of us lay the open road, which stood as an obvious metaphor for our journey through this continent. Sorry if all that sounded like David Attenborough or Michael Palin in his current phase, but the enormous expanses and staggeringly beatiful sunset in the desert landscape with a straight empty road stretching for miles, clearly had an affect on me.

We arrived in Salta in the morning, after 18 hours, and found a humble but friendly hostel, El Andaluz, where we promptly had a midmorning siesta until our stomaches woke us up and led us to the beautiful town square lined with adobe pillars and archways, where we enjoyed a cheap but tasty lunch and watched the town softly hum in the afternoon sun. The poeticness of the situation was ruined by the discovery that Salta Beer is awful (mixed with my murderous desire for a Windoek). All in all though, our first impressions of Salta were that of a very charming and warm town where the people look more native than european and bells sound throughout the town at noon. Nice. These impressions continued when we took a cable car ride up a nearby mountain from where we could appreciate the sheer beauty of Salta, which is known affectionately by most as, Salta La Linda (Salta the pretty).

We had realised that this was serious gaucho country, so we decided to go for a horseride with some real rough manly gaucho´s. We travelled to a nearby ranch where we had a fantastic asado and ate far too much meat. After shaking off the MeatSweats, we saddled up and mounted our trusty steeds. Nadia´s horse was named Gypsey and liked to eat a lot, Jax´s horse was (I can´t remember the name but it was nice), and my giant steed, Espatacu (I AM SPARTACUS!), was very old, but wise and limber. Both manly Gauchos commented on how nice my brown suede shirt is, and were eyeing it out intensely. Ha. We had two gaucho guides, one of whom bore an uncanny resemblance to Che Guevara. In fact we have decided that on his epic motorcycle journey, while in Salta, Che impregnated a local who gave birth to our gaucho guide. Both Che and the other Gaucho, (who had no name, only a desire to tame his wild horse) were incredibly skilled riders, although Che was somewhat of a show off. We were treated to a long ride with incredible scenery and periods of rapid galloping while being forced to hold the reigns with one hand (its the Gaucho way). One of the highlights was when we stopped so that Che could show us his skills with a lassoo, and promptly told Sam (Dr. Who), an Asian American guy on the ride with us, to run as fast as he could, so that Che could gallop after him and lassoo his right foot in mid stride while atop his horse. As it turns out, Sam used to sprint semi-professionally, and was the fastest damn thing we have ever seen. Che found the speed at which sam disappeared into the distance so amusing that he could not operate his lassoo, even his horse, for quite some time. Eventually though, Sam gallantly lost the lasoo challenge, as Che proved far too skilled for him.

The very next day we rented a car to drive to Cachi, an isolated mountain town at an altitude of 2500m, where there isnt a lot to do. We had heard that the drive there was beautiful and since it was only 150km away, we thought, what the heck! It took us four hours to drive those 150km, since we had to navigate through high mountain passes (3400m) and an endless plateau of nothing but Cacti (Cactii?). The scenery was intensely barren yet completely impressive. So impressive in fact, that I cannot describe it (and I´m really tired), so you´ll just have to see the pics.

Here are some others:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/steveo.zogg/Mendoza

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/steveo.zogg/Salta