Bikes and Wines

Mendoza is an adventure paradise - tour companies offering everything from paragliding to rock climbing. Its also at the heart of Argentina´s wine region with both small and large bodegas producing a staggering array of vino. Jonny and I aren´t really the paragliding type, and white water rafting produces welts on one of us so instead we did what Jon enjoys - spent a day sampling some of the finest wine at bargain prices. We chose not to do a stuffy bus tour of the wineries and instead rented bikes from a company that specializes in biking wine tours and who´s employees though Jon had an uncanny reseblance to Wolverine (check out his sideburns).

We were picked up from our hostel (late again) and shuttled out to the Maipu vine region, just south of the city. There we were given a map, two bottles of water, a voucher for lunch and our choice of 1/2 a dozen bright yellow bicycles. We requested helmets and after some rummaging we were given a bright yellow shell for Jon and a fushia pink for me.

Our first stop (a mere 600m down the road) was the large Rural winery, which produces 6000 bottles an hour. We got a very excellent tour in Spanish, which left us with no understanding of how the winery worked but did include two free tastings in the very tastefully decorated winery lobby. Starting to get into the swing of things, we hoped back on our bikes and headed to tast liquors and chocolates. Sadly, the chocolate wasn´t very good, but our chocolate liquor shots made up for it. Sometime during the tasting Jon´s bike got switched for another company bike, complete with flat tire. We got a nice tour of the liquor making process while we waited for our replacement tire to arrive.

After lunch we hit a much smaller winery, Vino El Cerno, where we got a tour in English, a lesson on how to taste wine and a chance to stand in an old wine vault. Then it was off to another small winery, where we got three tastings (which I actually enjoyed). More than enough wine for me!

I´m no more of a wine expert than when we started out, but the trip was enjoyable and a great break from the hussel and bustel of the city.

Jonny in the celler with some aging wine.
Showing off our very nice helmets.
Vines in front of the Andes - a pretty nice spot for biking!

Salta and Area

Salta is located in the Northwest corner of Argentina, near the borders of Bolivia and Chile. Only one bus company travels there from Iguazu, so we were forced to travel FlechaBus, in semi-cama, while watching the music videos for DanceMix ´96 and eating ham sandwiches (for breakfast, lunch and dinner). It wasn´t as nice as our last bus trip and we were very glad to see the city of Salta after 26 hours!

The city itself is a mix of clothing stores, old colonial buildings and modern high rises. There are also a couple of spectacular churches and loads of great food. Our main purpose for visiting Salta had been to cross over into Bolivia for a quick tour of the salt flats before continuing south through Argentina. A look at our calender told us that there wasn´t going to be time for that if we wanted to see the rest of Argentina, so instead we booked ourselves a one day tour of the valleys that surround Salta itself as well as onward tickets to Mendoza.

Our tour started off on a sour note with our guide being nearly an hour late to collect us from the hotel, but improved once we found out that there would only be 4 people on the tour and that we would be able to see the sites that we wanted for as long as we wanted. The trip was a loop through northern Argentina near the Chilian border, visiting canyons, salt flats and crossing over several high passes. We lucked out and got clear, sunny weather which allowed us to see the spectacular colors of the various canyons we drove through, as well as enjoy the glare off the giant Salinas Grandes (salt lake).

We arrived back in our hotel exhausted after 12 hours of off road driving and site seeing, but pleased with what we had seen. The scenery was amazing, although I don´t think the photos do it justice. Its hard to capture a giant salt lake in a single photo! The two shots are of the valley we drove through before heading up to the puna (high altitude desert). The rest of the photos follow in the order of the tour.
The road up out of the valley. We climbed over 2000 m in less than 30 km, up to 4200 m.

Salinas Grandes, a large salt lake. The locals are mining for salt by digging holes through the crust, which then fill with the salty water. Once the water evaporates, the almost pure salt is collected for export.
Salt tables on the Salinas Grandes.

Vicunas on the puna. Apparently they are the producers of the most expensive wool in the world. They look like a smaller llama, which we also saw.

Cactus on the puna. They were everywhere!

Valley through which the ¨Train to the Clouds¨used to run. By this point we´d been in the same car for 11 hours and I was too exhausted to take many pictures. We also stopped at some pre-Inca ruins.

Worth 1000 Words...

Just as I finished the last post, the rain cleared and we were able to continue our tour of Iguazu falls. Jon flagged the bus down just as it was leaving the station, and we made it to the park before anyone else caught on that it wasn´t raining. If you´re ever in this part of Argentina, the falls are definatly something to check out. And if you´ve only got a short while at the part, the lower circuit is FAR better than any of the other scenic walks to the falls. We were so glad we made it back today, as it was the walk we chose not to do yesterday and it rewarded us with the best views of the falls.

View of some of the falls from the lower circuit walk. I can´t honestly remember the name of any of the falls, but they were mostly spectacular. Now and again they would sneak in a small, boring water fall with some fancy name and Jon and I would walk over to see it, fooled. But mostly we just saw huge curtains of water cascading through lush greenery.

Closer view of the falls. We hike this trail twice we like it so much. Our one disapointment was that the boat that ran to the island in the middle of the falls wasn´t running. Apparently the morning storm had damaged the trails, so we were unable to get as close to the falls as we could have. I guess we´ll just have to come back some day!

Coatis - small racoon like animals that were everywhere! Signs warning you not to feed them were up in english, spanish and picture form, but the coatises seemed to be doing just fine. I took some video of a family of them walking across one of the waterfall bridges, which may make it to the web at some point.(Obviously) Us in front of the star waterfall on site (which was too big to fully capture in one shot). Also available on video at a later date.

About a zillion other photos of the falls were taken, and will be sorted and posted apres trip for those of you who crave more waterfall shots.

Rain in Iguazu :(

We took the overnight bus from Buenos Aires to Iguazu Falls on Friday. We loved our fancy seats which folded into beds, the fact that they served a hot dinner and drinks plus a breakfast the next morning. The movies left something to be desired, although it turns out that Mr. Beans Vacation is the perfect movie to watch without sound. The 18 hour trip passed blissfully quick as we slept our way north to the jungle. And Puerto Iguazu is jungle - it was hot and humid when we arrived in the town with its red dirt roads and green palm trees.

After settling into our new accomadations (where we actually got a double bed!) we purchased some tickets and got on the bus to the falls. It was hot and crowded at this major attraction but we sweated our way though half of the sites before calling it a day and planning our return the next day. This morning, we woke early to beat the crowds and hurried to the bus station. We arrived at the terminal just as the clouds broke open and heavy rain started. At first we considered going, thinking that the rain would quickly pass bringing back the sunshine we'd had the day before. But I wanted a long sleeved shirt, so we went back to grab it before catching the next bus. As we walked back to our hostel, the rain turned into tropical storm and the power went out. We waited hopefully at the bus station for things to turn better, but 4 hours later we are still in town, and only now is the rain slowing down. I think we're going to try going again now - the weather forcast is for rain again tomorrow and we've already got bus tickets for our next destination leaving Monday morning.

I'll post some pictures of the falls when I locate our USB cable in the pile of stuff that exploded from our packs as we searched for rain jackets this morning.

In Buenos Aires

We arrived safely in B.A. yesterday afternoon after a long and cramped flight from Calgary to Toronto to Santiago to B.A. We spent what remained of the day wandering in San Telmo (where our hostel is) and sleeping. Today we were a bit more adventurous and headed to book bus tickets and see the city center. We love the old buildings and the busy streets. Plaza de Mayo was nice and we strolled the shopping distract and sat in the sun in a park. Our first impression of B.A. is that its much more developed than other countries we´ve travelled to. Its sort of luxurious to be able to wander in a city like this. It has a subway (which is just as nice as the Ctrain), and amazing icecream! Mmm... and the pastries! Jon is in heaven and may not want to go anywhere else. Nice as it is though, we are both looking forward to seeing how different the rest of the country is.

We are going to spend the rest of the day sitting on the patio in the sun and testing out a bottle of Malbec we bought ($3). We´ll likely have a siesta as well, this is vacation after all!

Tomorrow we are taking an overnight bus to Puerto Iguazu to see the falls. We splurged and bought "cama" class seats (which fold into beds). They are on the second story of the bus and looked quite comfy from the pictures I saw. From what I understood, food will be served and movies shown. I think it will be nicer than our plane ride here!

Take Off

I hate packing and preparing for trips like this. There is always the nagging feeling that I've forgotten to do something. I worry that I've decided not to pack something that I'm going to regret not having, or packed something that I'll never use.

We spent all day today rushing between doctors appointments and trying to complete all the little tasks. This evening we packed, and then repacked trying to get our gear to fit comfortably in 50L packs. It never seems like a lot of stuff until you try and get it into you pack. But its done. Or I think its all done. Anyways, the bags are full and I'm not bringing anymore!! Argentina here we come, ready or not!