Author Archives: Simon

Mendoza – drinking and driving with the police

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Thanks to our friend Karoline for this title, which sums it up just perfectly! Mendoza is an oasis in the parched flat landscape east of the Andes, where the locals divert the flow of water from the mountains to irrigate the land, producing acres and acres of vineyards. The weather and wine gave us a very good reason to come here!

What better way to soak up the sun (and the wine) than by bike? The three of us spent a great day in the countryside of Maipu sampling the local delicacies and getting a bit of exercise in at the same time. And, in that strange Argentinian way, we were assisted along the way by the tourist police, on hand to help with punctures – and apparently any difficulties arising from the inevitable drunk driving! Those worried for our safety need not; we remain fairly sensible travellers despite the lovely local liquid.

Curiously, every tourist in the area seemed to go for the same bike-hire operation (Mr Chu) – rumour had it the bus driver was being tipped to drop us all off directly outside his place. We instead went for the much less busy Orange Bikes, with good new gear, brand new helmets – and cheaper than the competition at 25 pesos each. Plus, in case we didn’t manage enough during the day out, an invitation to join them in drinking more wine after we got back!

We took in a wine museum, the beautiful Di Tomassi winery (the oldest in the area), and soon got into the routine of touring and tasting. At Di Tomassi, we were shown inside their former brick fermentation tanks, coated with honey wax on the inside, and with sparkling crystals of residue from the process on the ceiling. Next stop, an olive oil producer which was a bit of a disappointment. Everywhere else we went, we were greeted with warmth and open arms; here it felt like we were an unwanted distraction. I persevered and paid for a tasting, hoping to find out more about the tricks of the trade and how it all worked. Sadly, it was not to be as the guy running it just left me with a plate of bread and different olive products and just walked off, wishing me well. I’m still not quite sure what I was trying, but we all took advantage of the poor service to also sample the various bowls of raisins they’d left out on the table. A tasty byproduct of the vineyards!

Our last stop was the smallest bodega, and the best. Originally built in the seventies, the place went bankrupt and was abandoned for many years before being bought and resurrected by a French couple with a passion for wine. Fortunately, while the buildings had been abandoned, the vines themselves had been lovingly maintained by locals who used to work there – and so the new owners were quickly able to start production. While we were getting the tour, we met one of the owners, and got to witness them filling a barrel with wine to ferment. Karoline also got to experience it more closely than expected, as the barrel filled up too quickly, overflowing and spraying wine everywhere – and on her shoes. Fortunately, a bottle of (their) white wine was on hand as the best antidote for the stain! Not only did we all enjoy the wine here, but we were all made to feel so welcome with them almost forgetting to charge us for our tasting – many other places had demanded money from the moment we stepped through the door.

As the sun set, we had a leisurely (and perhaps slightly wobbly) cycle back 12km to our bike hire place – and of course finished the day with one more glass of red. It’s perhaps symbolic of the fact that not everybody is a wine conneseur that the bike hire place brought us a bottle straight from the freezer (yes, of red wine), with ice cubes floating in it. Some might have been horrified; we were just happy to sit back and reflect on a great day out and look forward to another fine bottle of £1 wine to follow for dinner!

Simon

Bariloche – Mountains of Chocolate

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We’re on the bus again. Behind us are the beautiful lakes and landscapes of Bariloche, and ahead are the vineyards of Mendoza – albeit in about 20 hours time. With us is our good friend Karoline from Austria, who we met in our Spanish class in Buenos Aires and is joining us for some of the journey northwards.

We’ve just spent a fantastic week here in the mountains. The place has a distinctly alpine feel to it; we even had cheese fondue last night! For a few months from late June the town becomes a ski resort and the log cabins, beautiful peaks and shimmering blue lakes are a walkers’ paradise the rest of the year. And this is just the tip of the provence – further south are the delights of Patagonia with glaciers and trekking that we sadly have to leave for another day.

When we first arrived here we were greeted by an icy cold wind, a real taste of how the winter is finally coming for us after postponing it for a year by travelling. After some shopping – jeans for Laura, a jacket for me – we were better prepared to venture out and do battle with the elements. In the case of Bariloche, that means mountains – but of chocolate! We think it might have originated in the Swiss colony established here many years ago – the area is famous in Argentina for its chocolate delights and so it’s a pretty ideal place to spend Easter!

While we were here they were holding a chocolate festival in a bid to revive tourism following a volcanic ash cloud blotting out much of their income during the summer season. Best of all, it meant the chocolatiers of the town had constructed the World’s Largest Easter Egg, a monster weighing in at 7.5 tons and about 10m high. There was a build up for days in advance as we saw the egg take shape and the smell of molten chocolate drifted over the square.

The great unveiling itself however was a bit of a calamity due to the surprisingly good weather. The scaffolding surrounding the egg was taken down in the early hours of the morning, after which the sun started to take effect. We were in our hostel overlooking the square when we realised something was going on – it was still an hour to go before the great cracking, and a crowd had already gathered, and stewards were running around frantically pulling out plastic sheeting to catch the chocolate. It turned out that the side facing the sun had melted and part of it collapsed – so we all raced down for the inevitable distribution of the booty. The egg itself was looking a little the worse for wear with a quarter of it missing, and fantastically, a stream of molten chocolate was running over the white letters advertising Bariloche and the sponsors. Fortunately it was a great recovery – the slightly embarrassed officials on the stage declared it a ‘chocolate glacier’ apparently affected by climate change, a pickaxe was symbolically plunged into the remnants of the shell, coloured balloons were released into the bright blue sky, and after a very long wait we got our share of the somewhat molten and manhandled chocolate – in my case a kilo of fine milky goodness. And writing this a few days later, I still have a huge chunk of it in my bag!

There is of course life beyond the chocolate. The national park around Bariloche is simply beautiful, with the town sitting on the shore of a beautiful lake nestled between arid mountains. We stayed in ‘Penthouse 1004’, an incredible hostel on the top floor of a block of flats with stunning views, and most importantly a real sense of home about it with wonderfully friendly staff and some fun other guests.

We’ve been on various day trips to explore the surroundings – hiring a car to see the famous seven lakes (we lost count along the way), and a couple of days walking to viewpoints and hidden beaches on the lakeside. I also spent a day cycling the ‘circuito chico’, a fun but exhausting 25km route up and down hills, but brilliantly finishing at a microbrewery. In the meantime Laura and Karoline went horseriding.

Everywhere you look the scenery is in stunning colours, with the ground a mix of dusky, dusty yellows, broken up by the translucent blue of hidden lakes with white-crested waters whipped up by the wind. Between it all are forests of christmas tree pines waving, with the occasional brilliant streak of bright yellow trees among them. Right now there’s not much snow visible on the peaks, but I can imagine it really perfects the image in winter.

I spent a long time dithering about whether to continue northwards as planned or to perhaps go further south and adventure a little more and see some glaciers. Sadly time and money have got the better of us and so it’s onwards in the direction of Chile and Bolivia – but I will definitely be back in Bariloche before too long – the summer skiing seems very tempting right now!

Simon

(Some photos by Karoline Kuehnelt)

Falling behind

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So, the blog’s fallen behind a little!

I’ve just added some new posts about the end of our time in Brazil, and a few more will follow shortly. Since we’re posting them with the date we were at the place rather than the date
they were uploaded, they’re appearing below the more recent stuff – so scroll on down to see them!

Thanks,
Simon

Las Islas Malvinas

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The Argentinian flag over the war memorial, with the British gift of 'Big Ben' behind


Today is the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War. Appropriately, we’re in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We’ve been here for a few weeks of Spanish lessons, dancing and culture, and will soon be heading off to pastures new in the form of Bariloche in the mountains.

Yesterday I paid a visit to the war memorial here in BA. A continually lit flame stands beside the rolecall of the Argentinian dead on a grassy slope, with two cermonial soldiers standing guard motionless, apparently happy to appear in tourists’ posed photos much like those at Buckingham Palace back home.

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Soldiers at the War Memorial


The monument stands in a wide open square where curiously the other structure of significance is in fact a gift from the British, a large clock tower nicknamed ‘Big Ben’ but looking nothing like it. It’s perhaps somewhat symbolic of the mixed relations between the two countries – in spite of the increased right-wing rhetoric featured on the news in the build up to the anniversary, people here have been warm and friendly when we’ve mentioned we’re from the UK; there is a clear acceptance that Britan and Argentina can and should get along side by side.

However, that’s not to suggest that Las Malvinas (as they call them here) aren’t a hot topic and seen as the symbol of national identity. When we were going round the Casa Rosada, the Presidential Palace, one of the centrepieces was a large map on a wall depicting a collection of islands – we tilted our heads and tried to make out South America, or perhaps some alternate suspicion of the world. It was only later we realised what they were. I found it a little embarrassing given that I’d expect most folks in the UK (ourselves included until recently) couldn’t place them on a map, and it’s probably fair to say don’t know much about them. We’ve heard various views here: that they’re becoming a big issue because of oil drilling rights; the historic nature of Argentina’s claim to the islands; the nationalism whipped up at the time by a military dictatorship on the brink of collapse, and the Thatcher government with domestic troubles of its own; and of course the counterpoint that’s all over the news back home: the right of the islanders themselves to self determination – and that they want to be British.

It goes without saying that we’re keeping our heads down today – we decided to leave our matching Union Jack kazoos at home for once, and we won’t be visiting the ‘Malvinas’ empanada joint where we experienced the sole racist comment of our travels so far – the staff behind the counter repeating something along the lines of “The Malvinas are ours and we will take them back” believing that we couldn’t understand their Spanish.

It will be interesting to see where the debate goes on the Malvinas. Our Argentinian friend Javier pointed out today that the issue is deep rooted and has become fundamental to Argentine identity in its post-dictatorship democracy – but clearly the UK isn’t going to let go any time soon. Either way, we’ve decided Port Stanley (that would be Puerto Argentino to those here) will be one place left off our itinerary this time round.

Simon

PS. We’ve fallen a bit behind with the blog! I’ll be adding in some updates from the past month or shortly – we haven’t become hermits, and there’s much to talk about!

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Sunlight on a statue in the Rosedal this morning. Nearby we were amused to find one of William Shakespeare

Foz do Iguaçu

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A lot of water


Foz de Iguacu isn’t the biggest waterfall in the world, or even in South America – but it’s probably the best. Mesmerising and awe inspiring, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

However, you have to get there first! We’d not quite prepared ourselves properly, and had left it until the very last minute to race to our 16 hour bus from Bonito in the searing midday heat after a huge all-you-can eat lunch. The trip then necessitated a change of bus and 4 hour wait until the early hours of the morning – at which point we thought we should mark our last night in Brazil with a drink – Caipirinha of course! Surprisingly for Brazil, this was actually quite hard to do, and so we enlisted a fellow traveller to join us and went in search of a bar.Unfortunately bus stations are often on the outskirts of town, and this was no exception. After half an hour of wandering past car dealerships and shopping malls, we went for plan B – do it yourself.

A supermarket sold us a bottle of premixed Caipirinha, but it was warm – so we then had a further hunt for ice, including a solo trip for me through a shop with the assistant desperately trying to understand my broken portuguese and offering everything from fizzy water to frozen fish (they were on ice), finally to Smirnoff Ice. I left disappointed, but we eventually found success in the garage down the road, and even managed to get the security guard at the bus station to take a photo of us with our drinks. As the time for our departure rolled round, we were somewhat unimpressed (although merry anyway) at the lack of a bus; it finally turned up 4 hours later as it was beginning to get light – but things went from bad to worse as we were further delayed and the service was eventually cancelled and we were transferred to yet another bus. We finally rolled into Iguacu at 3pm, 8 hours late and after a 24 hour adventure across three different time zones!

In the few hours of daylight remaining, we headed to the falls. Iguaçu is actually hundreds of waterfalls all together in a 5km stretch of plumetting spray, across different levels of height and with an international border between Brazil and Argentina right down the middle. Each side has a national park at the water’s edge, with walks alongside that means you can experience the full crescendo of awe as you first see the mists of water rising in the distance, hear the deep bass rumble of the torrent, and finally end up right in the middle of the whole thing, soaked to the skin and beaming with pure natural energy. The real highlight is the Garganta do Diablo, the “devil´s throat”, a canyon where the water falls on three sides, creating an incredible sight. We were mesmerised.

We then had the fun of crossing the border, unfortunately not an exciting tale of sailing over the falls in a barrel or across the ravine with jetpacks, but instead taking what we feared was the last local bus as night fell. This was all fine until the bus got to the border (15km from the town) and drove off while we did the paperwork. Fortunately after 45 minutes of slightly nervous waiting with some fellow travellers while debating whether we should try and walk it or hitch a lift, our onward transport turned up, and we were into Argentina at last.

The next day we took to the Argentinian side, which is bigger and impressive, but a bit less immersive – you get to see the falls from the side and the top but not quite all around as in Brazil. You do, however get a fantastic perspective on the Devil´s Throat, with a platform perched right on the edge. We stayed for a long time, mesmerised by the endless rush of water over the edge, re-emerging as mist from below. It was also somewhat disturbing to see the airborne wildlife struggling to embrace the falls, with a fair few dragon flies, butterflies and birds disappearing into the mists apparently to meet their fate. We read that the birds actually do this all the time, and survive – they seek rocks right in the middle of the falls, and emerge later unscathed.

As we were leaving the falls, we came across what from a distance looked like a pile of tortilla crisps lying on the ground; as we got closer we realised they were in fact bright yellow butterflies in their hundreds for some reason gathered round a single spot, basking in the sunshine. Perhaps they were drying off from a plunge off the edge, but for us they were a beautiful end to a stunning couple of days of nature at its best.

Simon