Don't cry for me Argentina

Above the village of Cachi
see all photos »

It´s about 5 in the morning as I write this, we were out all night and have been learning to Tango... more of that later but Jo's toes are increadible sore!

We checked out of our hostel in San Pedro after a little difficulty. It´s pretty normal for buses to leave at odd times of day so most hostels have a small room for left luggage. When we came to check out we asked (in my best spanish) and to a guy with one tooth (about average for the town!) if we could leave our bags for a couple of hours and we got a flat "NO!". At that point I then asked if we could have a late check out. The answer was still "NO!" with a dismissive gesture. Given it was about 9 in the morning and we only wanted to leave our bags till 12.30 we turned around to go and put them back in the room until the last check out tme of 11. He curiously watched us until he realised what our intentons were. When he twigged he became pretty outraged telling us that if we were ready to go we should leave. I explained that we had paid for the room until 11 and we were going to leave our bags there. Bingo. Suddenly we were allowed to leave our bags at reception and he would look after them. There were however limits to his generosity we could only leave them until 11 and if we weren't back by then he would throw them out on the street.

Classy transport
see all photos »

Charming....

Anyhow we got our bus and 2 planes and we arrived in Buenos Aries a couple of weeks ago. We got there on a Sunday to discover that nothing actually opens on a Sunday. We wandered half way around the city desperately trying to find somewhere to feed us. We did find one place where I had my first Argentinian steak (distinctly underwhelming) and mooched about the city for the next few hours. Just as we headed back on our route to the hostel walking down a windswept version of Oxford street the place burst into life. It turns out that Sunday doesn´t necessarily mean closing only daylight hours mean closing. They keep the oddest hours here, I'm used to siestas but most shops don't open until about 5pm which is true all over Argentina consequently they don't start dinner until about 10pm and it was perfectly normal for us to walk into a restaurant last night at midnight they were even touting to the constant flow of passsers by at that time.

Maradonnas footprint!
see all photos »

The next day we got onto a "Super bus" It was only infact a regular bus but it was like nothing we have ever been on before. In Bolivia we were used to the whole squased in feel, flapping chicken next to you etc etc. Over here though on a large coach you only get about 16 seats on the whole thing. each one is capable of lying completely flat and is long enough for my 6'2" frame. They even serve complementary whisky and champagne to help you sleep. Proper first class service! We´ve done 3 overnight journeys and are really not looking forward to our flights in a couple of hours.

In Mendoza we went on the best and worst wine tours in the world. The first was organised by a company and the winerys (only 3 in the whole day!) that we visited thought it was a major imposition that we should be allowed to taste any of ther wine. After a visit to the biggest vinyard in the country they allowed us to taste a sip of the cheapest of the 60 odd wines they sold. Needless to say at about a pound a bottle it tasted like piss. Anyhow we remembered their names and avoided them completely on our second wine tour. This consisted of Jo and I having a half bottle of red in about every pub cafe or bar we could find in the city...... great day, great city!

Next on the list was Salta up north . There we visited the small desert town of Cachi. In Argentina they have a serious problem with a lack of small change. The banks dispense only 100 peso notes. No one in the world is able to take 100 pesos except a couple of Hotels or restaurants in which you have ordered a meal for more than 50 pesos and even then they grumble like hell. Needless to say you guard you change carefully.

Cachi like I said is a small Picturesque village set in fantastic scenery under one of the biggest mountains in South America. It doesn't have a bank. It happened to be the 17th the day we were there which also happened to be the day Pippa (Jo's sister) came back from Iraq. Jo wanted to check everything was OK at home so we used a photo booth in town. Unfortunatley the phone call although prety short came to about 15 Pesos or about 5 more than we had in change. I offered a 100 peso note only to be laughed at. I explained I had nothing else at all so she called her two children over and sent them off with the 100 note all over the town to call in some favours. 20 minutes later nothing and the kids had run out of ideas. At that point she got quite angry so I pursuaded her to give me the not back and I would have a go. Fine but we would have to look after the kids. For half an hour all over the city we were acompanied by two small kids (6 and 8) their presence was slightly unsettling but even when we tried to buy other things with the money no one had change. Eventually we found someone we knew who would give us the 5 pesos we needed and have a drink with us in exchange. We lost our little friends who scurried off but gained a friend for a drink. It was in a busy restaurant and although we had a little grumble from the waiter he gave us our change!

Throughout Argentina I have been searching for the "perfect steak" everyday steak was on the menu as I strove for perfection......

Sorry to disapoint folks but it wasn't that good.

You're stunned I know

The steaks were pretty large and at one point I had a 500g peice of meat but it just wasn't that tender or well cooked. In fact the best steak I had was on our day trip to Uruguay (Beautiful town combled streets, lovely beaches which we explored courtesy of a beach buggy).

Jo found the eating quite difficult in Argentina too, there was no fresh veg and when we ordered the vegetarian and celiac option on the buses an interesting aproach was taken. Food would be given to us on the bus (a la plane style) and we would explain that we had ordered a vegitarian celiac meal we'd checked when we booked the tickets, got on the bus and it was even printed on our tickets. The Hostess would then look confused pick up the tray and walk off. When we asked for our food the hostess said "but I thought you couldn't eat it" we said " can we have an alternative? " the answer was an enphatic "no".

A couple of nights ago we went to a Tango show. Jo, in an effort to encourage me, kept making helpful comments along the lines of "oh this is simple", "you could do this easily" and my personal favorite "They're basically just walking around". The couples on stage got more and more enthusiastic until they were just a perfectly timed blur of limbs. At that point Jo relented a bit and did admit that they were quite good really. I thought they were fantastic, I think I've rarely had to say something was indescribable but I don't know any of the words for what they were doing, it's just something you have to see for yourself. There was perfect timing and the couples were stuck together down the lengths of their bodies apart from when different limbs stuck out at opertune and expressive moments, and they moved quickly, very, very quickly. Well I tried to describe it but reading that back you don't get the impression of what we were watching. Indescribable is really the only word that I can use that covers it.

Well that's it really, we did try Tango ourselves but the less said about that the better.

Its about 3 hours before we get on the plane and it feels quite wierd to be going home (well England) even if it is only for 10 days. Those of you we are seeing we can bore (or shock) you with the unedited version of these entries and those of you we wont then you'll just have to read the next one of these and see us when we get back.

cheers

Rupert

Hi all,

Just to let you know we´ve not taken leave of our senses, it´s actually quarter to nine in the morning here. We´d originally planned to gt up at 5 and do this to try and get us back on English time, however 5 bottles of vino tinto put an end to that.

Since we last wrote we´ve been on a self made wine tour of Argentina, starting in Buenos Aires where we discovered half bottles of red leading us to plan a city tour, stopping every 10 minutes or so to sample the next bottle. Lots of fun. Sadly though we soon forgot the half bottles and once we´d discovered our favourite Argentinian tipple we progressed to the full monty. Great way to see the city, making sure we took in all the sights, whilst avoiding getting too cold from the winter weather.

Our next stop on our Argentine tour was Mendoza. Mendoza is a relaxed, chilled out town in the West of Argentina. It also happens to produce 70% of the countrys wine (so no real surprise we added it to our itinery). So, when in Rome and all that. We couldn´t help but have a bottle or two of the local produce. We also momentarily forgot the lessons learnt from our New Zealand bike wine tour (you´d have thought ending up upside down in a ditch underneath a bike would stay with you for a while) and booked ourselves on the local bike tour.

Unfortunately for all my cycling hadn´t magically improved and was often accompanied by shouts of terror (much to the alarm of the guide and rest of the group), although this time I managed not to fall off. Progress. As Rups mentioned this possibly was due to the wineries being far more interested in our seeing their vats than drinking their wine.

Mendoza was also a shopping hotspot and I managed to buy yet another gorgeous dress for Zoe´s wedding (am loveing that the wedding gives me the best excuse for dress shopping), completely impractival for travelling, over budget and I have no idea how I´m going to pack it, but will deal with all those things when the time comes.

After a few chilled, but hazy days in Mendoza we headed on up to Salta which is in the North of Argentina. I´d been very excited about visiting Salta as it´s in the North and therefore might be warmer than the other places we´d visited. Wrong. On arriving we were met with the wettest greyest English weather day we´ve had since we left the UK. Good practice for being back home I guess. Salta is another center of wine production and so we did what all Brits do in the wet, we hid ourselves in a local restaurant for a bottle of vino and dinner, during which somehow we got onto English politics and Rups got himself so excited that someone 5 tables away actually had to ask him to quieten down.

Salta is surrounded by some amazing towns and gorgeous scenery and we spent a lovely few days exploring it from there before getting our mammoth bus journey back (the journey took 6 hours longer than our flight to the UK will take later today). The bling bus though was fantastic. Rups will have already explained all, but my personal favourite moment was when they asked me if I wanted champagne. Erm, let me think....

Coming back to Buenos Aires was a huge shock as it marked the last few days of the South American leg of our tour so we decided to fit in as much as humanly possible, including a trip over to the neighbouring country Uraguay, which was beautiful and very much like the South of France. We have also visited the Buenos Aires cemetary, the famous Evita gallery (too tight to buy a tour so weren´t actually sure which gallery it was, but we took photos of the whole square just incase), danced the Tango, posed with 6ft paper mache models of Maradonna, saw a Tango show (very bohemian - Moulin Rouge complete with compulsory bohemian dwarf in tights), practiced my improving Spanglish and drank red wine in the central square. Fabulous.

Rups also has mentioned the enforced diet I´ve been on since being here. Just to manage expectations, despite the best efforts of the Argentinians I haven´t actually lost any weight since being away due to the emergency chocolate I carry at all times and my new obsession with banana splits.

So, in a couple of hours we´ll be in the air, heading on back to good old blighty. I´m really excited about seeing as many people as possible, however am also getting quite concerned about reintroducing us back into society. After 6 months of constantly being in each others company and keeping each other entertained I´m starting to think we´ve crossed into a new dimention of what is acceptable dinner conversations.

The first 6 months have been a ball, South America is interesting, entertaining, frustrating, varied, stunning and so much more, but now it´s back to the UK.....

HUGE congratulations also to Kylie (of bugga bugga fame - see Oz blogs) and to Matt for getting engaged last weekend - yay! just another excuse for dress buying.

Love to all

Jo xxxx