Wine Wine Wine - A week in Mendoza

The Mendoza region in Argentina is famous world wide for wine and in particular Malbec. This means we pretty much spent a week just hanging out, drinking wine, eating meat and drinking more wine. 

There are about 4 different wine regions outside the city and the easiest to get to is Maipu. The thing to do here is rent a bike and cycle around, dropping into whichever bodega takes your fancy. As you read that you probably pictured riding down a country road with grape vines either side of you like I did. It wasn't until we got to Mendoza that people told us you are actually just cycling around something similar to an industrial area and big highways. Not so scenic. After hearing this news we decided to splash out and do a top of the line wine tour. We came to Mendoza for wine so we might as well make the most of it. 

We went to four different bodegas during the day, each one had it's own character. We had our first tasting about 10:30 am. By the end of the day it's safe to say we were feeling it a bit. Of course we drank some of our wine in the hostel though. 

The view from the first bodega

We had to try and pair the different foods with the different wines. This was actually quite hard.

Yes, that vine really is from 1928

After the wine tasting at the second bodega we also shared in some yerba. This is a big this in Argentina and is so weird and interesting that under this photo is not the right place to explain it. If you're interested here is the wiki page.

Super fancy cellar

At the third bodega the tasting also consisted of an amazing 4 course meal, each course paired with the right wine.

The fourth and last bodega featured an extensive collection of ponchos (see the walls) and possibly the largest couch I have ever seen. The tasting was in a dungeon like room in the basement which was also fund. 

We didn't do a lot in Mendoza City itself. It was nice to wander around with all the trees though. They need a special irrigation system to survive as Mendoza is essentially a desert.

We were planning on going to Maipu anyway (because wine) when a Germain-Swiss couple in our Hostel asked if we wanted to rent a car with them the next day to visit a specific bodega (owned by the eccentric Swiss Dieter Meier) and get a little closer to the amazing mountain range near by. We said yes and had a fantastic day. It was amazing to feel the freedom of having your own car again. 

The Views from Ojo de Vino

The area around Mendoza was beautiful

We stopped on the side of the road to eat our modest picnic lunch

The view from the lunch spot. Our car looked so tiny.

There are a few sky fields outside Mendoza but they haven't opened for the last 5 years because there has been no snow. When this photo was taken it should have been ski season. A lot of the area relies on the the melted snow as a water source so who knows what will happen in the future. 

Inca Bridge

There was no snow but as you can see it was still pretty cold

Aconcagua - the highest peak outside of Asia at 6 960 m. We tried to go to the view point but for some reason you weren't allowed to drive to it anymore, making it a 1 - 2 hour walk. We couldn't be bothered with that, so this is the best we got. 

We took a different route home that involved some extremely windy dirt roads (that probably weren't covered by our car company's insurance) through a national park. It was worth it for the different landscape and animals we got to see. This fox was right up at the side of the road just hanging around which was amazing (I've never seen a wild fox before). Sadly though some people in another car were feeding it something.

Side Note: Please remember to NOT FEED wild animals. Seriously. We've seen too many people doing this through-out this trip. 

We also got to see guanacos (well we are pretty sure that's what they are.) They are similar to vicunas, being the wild ancestor of llamas. We'd heard about them before on different tours but this is the first time we actually got to see some. 

We really enjoyed our time in Mendoza. Our original plan was to break up our time between Mendoza and Buenos Aires by visiting Cordoba in between but we are really glad that we decided to skip Cordoba in the end and dedicate more time to Mendoza and Buenos Aires.



Update with photos from Alex's phone

So if Alex had been writing this blog there would have been a lot more mention about how the Copa America (an international football/soccer competition) was going whilst we were in Bolivia / Argentina. Here he is, blabbering about that:

Hello! So this competition includes all the countries you're likely aware of in South America, plus a few guests from other parts of the Americas (this time it was Mexico and Jamaica). 

For a few weeks there was football on the TV nearly every night, much to my delight and Vanessa's dismay. It was held in Chile meaning we were painfully close to the action but I thought it'd be a bit cruel to rearrange our travels to spend a lot of time and money on something which wouldn't really interest Ness. I will make it to a big tournament one day! Hopefully in a Scotland top instead (wishful thinking).

We were able to catch a couple of matches in local bars including Argentina's last three matches. We were in Mendoza for the semis and the final, so only a 7 hours drive away from where the matches were taking place. I settled on watching the match in an 'Irish' pub which had a great atmosphere but shocking bartenders. The culture in Argentina is apparently to give the pint as much head as you can unless specifically requested not to.

To my surprise there were a sizable number of Chileans in the bar and they weren't shy of letting you know who they were supporting. Oddly there was a camera crew in the bar when the match ended so when the Chileans started celebrating they only received a couple of threats of violence rather than any action.

Me enjoying some Mate before we went out to watch the football. From what I saw it was uncommon for guys to wear their team shirt but they would often wear tracksuits instead. The girls would all be wearing theirs though.

The bar - it had stools and everything.

The crowd before it really filled up.

Our BBQ at the hostel. A Swiss friend was in charge of the grill. The meat was fantastically cheap yet good quality so you could eat well for a few dollars each.

One of the steaks portioned up. The wine was a Malbec we bought at a bodega.

Salta and Cafayate

Salta

Apparently we didn't take many photos in Salta. We didn't do a lot here, it was a pretty relaxed three days. We went on one free walking tour where Alex was very popular with some local kids on their own tour (at one point we was surrounded by 20 of them listening to him talk - some of them were filming him.) We walked up the local look-out, slightly hungover, where we didn't even bother taking any photos - this is when you know you've been on holiday a long time. We visited a local museum to see some frozen mummies (Human Inca sacrifices found in the Andes) and a not so good modern art museum. 

This pretty much sums up our Salta experience.

There are orange trees along a lot of the streets but no one eats them because they are really bitter. People used to use them to make marmalade but I don't think anyone could be bothered anymore.

This is a convent full of nuns who come out once a year for a particular celebration. No one knows exactly how many nuns are in there. They make jams, sweets etc which you can order inside through a hole in the wall. There is something like a lazy susan in the wall where you place your money on one side and they place the goods on the other side and it's swung around so you never see the nuns.

Cafayate

Cafayate is a lesser known wine region of Argentina. They are known for Torrontes - a white grape, apparently the only grape that is actually Argentinian. It usually makes a nice refreshing fruity wine. 

We stayed here for two days. While we never visited a bodega (winery) we didn't let that stop us enjoying some local cheap wine. Instead we indulged in visiting a local cheese factory, specializing in goat's cheese. We also accidentally ended up on a private tour of the Quebrada de las Conchas (Ravine of Shells) which was a good chance to practice our Spanish with our guide away from other native speakers. 

Our first night in Cafayate we somehow still hadn't eaten a steak in Argentina so I thought it was about time I gave it a go. I ordered at a local restaurant and was very surprised when they brought me out half a pizza. This was a bit of a blow to my confidence. I still don't really understand what happened. At least the pizza was decent. 

Dried up grapes on the vine in our hostel

The goats who made the delicious cheese

We tried to go on a tour but for some reason couldn't (the lady spoke very fast Spanish and refused to slow down) so we ended up just ordering what turned out to be a huge cheese platter (complete with both goat's and cow's cheese)

We also met this extremely friendly cat at the Cheese Factory who would not leave us alone

In town we enjoyed some wine flavoured ice-cream. This one is Malbec and is surprisingly good, the Torrontes flavoured one was better though. 

The Quebrada de las Conchas is basically a really nice drive with lots of cool places to stop off and have a look at. Half way through this tour Alex's camera decided to give up and completely stop working, leaving us with only my phone for photos. The next day it fixed itself but it's on it's last legs. Everything is starting to fall apart just at the end. So many of our clothes are full of holes.

The different colours here were amazing

El Sapo - The Frog

A different way for your horse to get some exercise 

Good-bye Bolivia, Hello Argentina! - Tupiza to Tilcara

Our last stop in Bolivia was Tupiza. This place is supposed to be great for wild west scenery. There is also some connection to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but I never quite figured it out. The best way to see the scenery is by horse or jeep. In the end we didn't do the one activity Tupiza really has to offer. The tours were more expensive that we had anticipated (when you are coming to the end of a country it's an art to try and spend just the right amount of money before the border) and I had a cold and didn't fancy riding a bike around (the cheaper option). 

The one thing we did do was walk up to the look out, complete with Jesus statue (almost every town in South America has one of these). There were pretty good views up the top and some giddy school girls asked to have their photo taken with me (usually they want Alex but not today!). I always wonder what happens to these photos, am I on some school girl's facebook page?

View over Tupiza - it was a dusty town

The walk up to these miradors is usually lined with scenes from Jesus's crusifiction. Jesus has blacked up on this one - complete with "Jesus is black" caption.  

In the end we weren't overly impressed with Tupiza. The internet was terrible, even in internet cafes, and the town just generally seemed quite dead. It was a tough time trying to find somewhere good to eat. It's a bit sad that this is how we ended our time in Bolivia.

We only had about two and a half weeks in Bolivia in the end, a bit of a rush through. I wish we'd been able to get a bit more off the gringo trail and see some different parts. Bolivia was colourful and crazy. I'm not going to miss the annoyingly combined showers with toilets (resulting in a very wet room) but I am going to miss the cheap private rooms (we didn't stay in one dorm during our time in Bolivia!) and the amazing market smoothies. 

We took another shorter than expected bus to the border town of Villazon. We still had a decent amount of Bolivianos left and I wasn't sure if we would be able to change them so we wandered around the town and bought some toiletries (they'll be cheaper than in Argentina) and stopped to have lunch (we don't usually have lunch on border run days, only snacks). Everything was going great, we ended up changing Bolivianos into Argentine Pesos and strolled across the bridge into Argentina. 

We were pleased to find short lines at immigration (I had read about people having 2 hours waits). We stamped out of Bolivia, no problem. Alex stamped into Argentina, no problem. I tried to stamp into Argentina, problem. Turns out Australians (as well as Canadians and Americans) need to pay a reciprocal fee on the internet before getting to Argentina. I could not pay this at the border. So I was in no man's land for an hour (and Alex was technically in Argentina) while we ran back into Bolivia to find an internet cafe. This was exhausting with our big bags and I was horrified to find I had to pay $100 USD to get in (you better be worth it Argentina.) Although later I spoke with some Americans and found out they had to pay $160 so it could be worse. I still loathe reciprocal fees though, it's not my fault my government is a dick. 

Back at the border there were still no lines so we sailed smoothly into Argentina. We walked into town and got a bus to Tilcara, a small town in the north of Argentina. We found a hostel that was decently priced (we were worried about how expensive Argentina was going to be) and changed our money at an unfavorable rate in the hostel. There's not much choice though at 7pm in a 6 000 person town. 

We had read about dinner not starting until about 8 or 9 pm and that many restaurants won't even open before then so we stayed in the hostel until about 9 pm to go find some food. We found a great little restaurant where we had delicious pasta (all that Italian immigration at work) and of course a bottle of wine. We ended up being the last one's in the restaurant and clearly the staff were waiting for us to leave so they could go home. This made us a bit confused as to what time really is the best time for dinner.

After dinner we went to bed, setting an alarm for the next day as the hostel had an early check-out by backpacker standards (10 am) and we needed to fit breakfast in first. I woke up the next day before my alarm went off, I'd had a thought: what if we'd changed time zones and we hadn't even known! Turns out I was right, which meant we actually didn't show up at the restaurant until about 10 pm the night before. This also led to a rather rushed morning as we'd stayed in bed almost an hour longer than we had meant to. With this and the visa issue at the border we were worried that we had gotten too lazy to research properly! Maybe not much of a surprise after so long on the road.

We didn't do that much in Tilcara. Of course we went up another mirador, this time with a cross instead of a Jesus. Then we went back down into town to find lunch. We settled on street calzones. We were really struggling with what times Argentinians eat their meals and had trouble finding a cafe open at lunch time. We spent the rest of our time in Tilcara waiting for our late bus in the bus station. 

It might sound (and look) like Tilcara and Tupiza are pretty similar but we felt the change between Bolivia and Argentina almost instantly after crossing the border. Never have we felt such a change between countries, except maybe Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Bolivia was great but after 8 months in Latin America the promise of that European feel that Argentina offers has made us quite excited.

Salar de Uyuni - 3 days of beautiful views and ridiculous temperatures

One of the most famous things about Bolivia (and really the only thing I knew about it before this trip) is Salar de Uyuni. It's the world's largest salt flat. Many many many years ago it actually used to be a lake but it dried out leaving these salt flats. In some places the salt is 10 m thick. In other places it's quite thin and you can break through it to see brine underneath. During the summer a thin film of water gathers on the surface making it super reflective. Photos during this time of year look amazing. We were a bit sad we missed out but it was still an amazing trip and because we were in dry season there was less chance of something going wrong.

After a night in Uyuni and chowing down on some prime Boston Pizza from Minuteman (this is like the only thing to do in town) we headed out on our 3 day Salar de Uyni trip. It was 3 awesome days driving around, listening to tunes and taking in same crazy landscapes. 

DAY 1

We left the office at 9:30 am and started a long drive down into the very south of Bolivia. There were long stretches where not a lot happened but the further south we got the more there was to see. 

Alex was prepared with his bag of coca. Thank-fully none of us got altitude sickness.

Our Car in the Salvador Dali Desert, named so because it reminded someone of his paintings. 

The goal of the first day was to get down to the Laguna Verde (Green Lagoon). It's green because of some minerals, making it slightly toxic. This is pretty much the corner of Bolivia. Behind that volcano is Chile and out of frame to the left behind some other mountains in Argentina. It was extremely cold and windy out here. We were thankful of our extra jumper panic buys the day before.

Apparently it's greener if it's windier. 

Our driver who we had a lot of fun with.

We got to our accommodation, a hostel in the middle of no where, had dinner and prepared for a night in the host springs. The big dilemma was how to get from the hostel to the hot springs, which was about 100 m away. In the end we settled for changing into togs in the hostel, putting our warm clothes back on, wearing thongs and making a mad dash for the changing rooms right next to the springs. I was so cold by the time I stepped into the hot springs that it felt like I was burning. Eventually this sensation subsided and I could relax and enjoy the night sky (which was blurry for me as I didn't think to wear my glasses. I'm told it was spectacular though). 

The Hot Springs

DAY 2

We started the day with pancakes (a welcome surprise) and my first taste of dulce de leche (caramel spread). Little did I know that I would be eating this almost every morning in days to come. 

I think that morning was maybe the coldest I have ever been. While we waited outside for the cars to be prepped my toes and fingers went numb. When we were in the car I put two more pairs of socks on. Our driver told us it was about -11 degrees. My toes didn't thaw out until about an hour later.

We found the cars covered in ice in the morning

While we were mulling around that morning the owner of the hostel was running around with a llama head in his hand shouting "Llama, Llama!" Alex went into the kitchen to investigate. The llama head was thrown on the ground and the owner and his wife were sorting through some entrails. This head probably ended up as a soup, which is good for helping you sleep apparently.

First stop on today's agenda was checking out the geysers. There were projects set up to hardness energy from them but they moved slow and there isn't a lot of money so I don't think much has happened. 

This one was man made

Between destinations we saw a heard of vicunas. This was the first time we'd been able to get a real good look at them and finally take a nice photo. I was very excited. 

Our driver told us a jumper made from vicuna would cost about 500 USD.

Laguna Colorada (Red Lagoon) is another beautiful lake that gets its colour from minerals. This one is a popular hangout for flamingos. We weren't able to get too close to the flamingos before they flew off, thank god for zoom. 

We were first greeted by some steamy llamas

Next stop was Arbol de Piedra (Stone Tree). It was surrounded by lots of other interesting rock formations that made for good climbing. 

Next stop was a mirador to check out an active volcano. Here I had the pleasure of sitting next to one of the oldest species of plants in the world. It was sticky.

We stopped off to see this railway that's used to transport goods to the port in Chile once a week

Then it was onto the hostel for dinner and rest. This hostel was quite special - it was made out of salt. No one was game enough to lick the walls though. There used to be a hostel you could stay at in the middle of the salt flats (also made out of salt) but it was closed down due to pollution issues. It's now a museum.

DAY 3

Today was the big day. The day we got to see the salt flats. We woke up at 5:00 am to watch the sunrise. There were beautiful pastel colours among the mountains as we waited. As the sun got higher we started to get more excited as we realised we were completely surrounded by salt as far as the eye could see.

Early mornings can be rewarding

After the sun was up we headed for Isla de Pescado (Fish Island). It looks like a fish from the air. It's covered in crazy giant cacti. We were told by our guide to go for a walk around the island while they got breakfast ready. 

After breakfast we were told to go for another walk while they packed up. After walking around the other side of the island and into the abyss we got bored so had a group yoga session.

After a short drive deeper into the abyss it was time for silly photos! Because there's nothing around Salar de Uyuni is the perfect place for good perspective shots. I didn't realise this was a thing and I wish I'd spent a bit more time before hand coming up with ideas. We were still able to manage a few good shots though.

All over Bolivia we had seen Dakar stickers but we had no idea what it was until out Salt Flat tour. Is a rally that originally went from Paris to Dakar, Senegal. In 2009 they moved it to Chile and Argentina due to security threats in the middle east that lead to the rally being cancelled in 2008. The rally was supposed to extend into Bolivia in 2014 but wasn't able to due to flooding on the planes.

The Dakar logo that we saw everywhere - made out of salt

We had lunch near the salt factory. We bought salt for 1 BOB (about 0.20 AUD) for 1/4 kg. This crazy low price means the workers here are quite poor. There's not much pay off for all the work it takes to get the salt ready for cooking.

After lunch was our last stop - Cemeterio de Trenes (Train Cemetery). All these trains are from the 80s and were dumped here when there was a big down turn in work in Uyuni. Turns out a train cemetery is a lot more fun that I thought.