Uyuni to Potosi and our 1st night in Potosi (27 Jan) – Bolivia

We woke up early, packed, had breakfast and got to the bus station at 9:15am. We saw a rickety old bus pull up that had no front bumper at all and we thought, oh no! Our bus was only leaving at 10am so we waited a bit and that bus started spluttering and bunny hopping it’s way down the road at 9:40am so we were relieved it wasn’t ours. We were very happy to see our nice bus pull up with all its bits intact and no black smoke in sight. The bus ride was 5 hours and it was a stunning bus ride through the mountains, canyons, fields of llamas.

I basically stared out the window for the whole 5 hours. As soon as we got out the bus there was a taxi waiting so we jumped in and sped off to our hostel. Our hostel was fine although our room was freezing. We were starving as it was 4pm and we hadn’t eaten since 8am so we found a restaurant for lunch/dinner. Pete ordered a steak roll so him being vegetarian didn’t last long!!

I didn’t have a great feeling about Potosi. I don’t know why but it just looked like a big, dirty city and my first impressions weren’t great. The city use to be the richest city in South America and Europe due to its abundance of silver. Nowadays however, the silver has been depleted to very scarce levels and the town is a bit run down and overcrowded.

The town centre was quite nice with some beautiful old colonial buildings and streets lined with shops selling clothes, bags and hammocks made from llama wool. Pete likes it here but for some reason this city is just not for me. Pete booked us onto a tour of the Cerro Rico silver mine, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it but said I’d go with him as he really wanted to do it. We had read a lot of reviews from people who have done it and said it was an amazing experience.

I wasn’t so sure. Anyway that evening the hostel was playing a documentary about the Cerro Rico mine called “The Devils Miner”. We decided to watch as we thought it would give us some history about the town and the mine, well I wasn’t prepared for what the movie was actually about. It followed a 14 year old boy around who has to work in the mines as his father died and he is the main bread winner for the family now. His 10 year old brother also works in the mine. It was so sad. There are 800 children that currently work in the mines. It is such hard work and really scary for the poor kids as they are afraid of the devil who they call “Tio” as they have been told that God cant reach that deep into the earth and that “Tio” eats miners alive if you don’t take him offerings like coco leaves, cigarettes etc. if they don’t die of accidents involving explosives or run away carts, most of the miners (who start working at normal age) die around 35 years old because of silicosis of the lungs from breathing in all the dust so those poor kids that start work at 10 have no chance.

I spent the rest of the evening in tears after watching the movie and just didn’t feel morally right to go to the mines to watch these people work in such harsh conditions. I just felt like it must be hard for them to see tourists come and go….we can go back to our “safe” lives but they can’t leave. It must be especially hard for the children to see people with nice clothes and nice cameras come and go. In the movie all the 14 year old boy wanted to do was go to school and to one day be able to leave the mines, leave Potosi and maybe travel to Europe….reality is he will probably never leave the mine. The tourists do take presents down to the miners like chocolates, alcohol, cigarettes, food, cold drinks etc and someone said that some of the money from the tours goes to the miners but I am a bit skeptical of that and think it probably just goes to the tour operators and if the miners do get anything I doubt it stretches down to the children.

Even now as I type I have tears welling up just thinking about it. This place has been quite a harsh reality check…..

Turpiza to Uyuni (Salt Flats) Day 4 (26 Jan) – Bolivia

DAY 4

It wasn’t raining so Alfredo woke us up at 4am. Irma made us coffee and some breakfast and gave us cake she had baked the night before as a snack for the car – bless her. We drove the 30 mins out to he salt flats (Salar) and witnessed such a beautiful sunrise. There was some water on the salar which, once the sun came up, gave off a perfect reflection of the surrounding mountains, clouds and anything on the salar. We walked around for ages just trying to take it all in.

We took loads of photos of our reflections, the jeep reflection, the clouds, mountains etc. We then drove to the Salar Hotel. This hotel has caused much controversy as nothing should be built on the salar and people are worried about the pollution from the hotel. The hotel itself only has about 6 rooms and is made out of salt. It was quite amazing to see the big salt bricks they had used to build the hotel as well as all the tables and chairs made out of salt!

We went back onto the salar to a different point as the sun was now fully up and we had such a laugh taking funny photos. Alfredo showed us how to use trick photography to make it look like Pete was a giant about to crush all of us under his foot and another one of us standing in his palm and him trying to blow us away. They came out brilliantly. We then stopped at a little town called Colchani, the village where they run the processing of the salt. There were loads of market stalls around with people selling amazing jewellery boxes, ashtrays, ornaments etc all made out of salt. There were also loads of clothes made from llama hair. As my handbag broke and i had to ditch it a few weeks back I bought a nice handbag made from llama wool which is wonderfully soft. If I had more space in my backpack I would be bought a jumper, socks, hat, gloves, pj bottoms but unfortunately space is precious so no shopping for me!!! 😦

As we were up so early we got back to Uyuni at 11:30am. Irma served us lunch and we had our final meal as a group which was quite sad. We were really lucky to have such good people in our group and such a genuinely nice and fun driver and cook. We are really going to miss Irmas unique laugh that always made me laugh and the way she would always chatted away and laugh even though she knew we didn’t understand. I will also miss how well she looked after us and of course Alfredo’s music in the car 🙂 (I still have one song running on repeat through my head 2 days later!!!)

Anyway we said cheerio to the gang and irma planted a nice big toothless soppy kiss on Petes lips which was very funny, she came for mine but I managed to do the double cheek kiss instead. Shame Alfredo was so short that I think it is the first time I have had to bend down a bit to hug a guy. We then walked into the centre of town where we had booked into Hostel Piedro Blanco for the night. It was really nice and we had a big ensuite room with hot water!

We went for a walk around the markets, Shame everyone is quite short around here so Pete couldn’t fit under the gazebos. We went into a building that had a big food market inside and I really wish I hadn’t. There was a meat section that was really hard to stomach. Not just from the sight but the smell. This one guy was sawing lower jaw bones in half (I think llama jaw bones) and then hanging them up in front of his little stall. This lady was talking to him and tapping her pen against some of the teeth (like you would tap a melon) as she casually chatted to the butcher. We also saw insides, tongues, a whole llama head, a whole skinned sheep just lying on a table, eyes bulging out and some other unidentifiable things in buckets. There were no fridges in sight and the smell of rotten meat was quite pungent. Pete even walked out of there a vegetarian!

We escaped the market and decided to get a nice cold beer and enjoy the sunshine. We later found a place that had happy hour and decided to go for pizza and some cocktails. I was amazed to get one of the best mojito’s I have had in a while and the pizza was really good too so we had a great evening in Uyuni 🙂

Turpiza to Uyuni (Salt Flats) Day 3 (25 Jan) – Bolivia

DAY 3

We were allowed a “sleep-in” until 6am as Alfredo wanted to be on the road by 7am. Irma fed and watered us and we set off at 7am on the dot.  We drove brought some great landscapes – rolling hills, yellow and green circular grass patches and different colour sandy hills.  The weather wasn’t great so we didn’t get great views of the huge volcanos that surrounded us in some parts.  The first highlight of the day was when we stopped at Desierto de Siloli where we saw the famous “stone tree”.  This place was crazy and once again made us feel like we were on another planet.  The stone tree was brilliant and looked to me like an ostrich head.  It is crazy how such a big piece of rock (head) can be held up by such a thin and small piece of rock (neck).  We ran around like kids as there were so many amazing rock features to see.  All the shapes have occurred naturally and just by wind erosion.  We were told that here in this desert the wind blows close to the surface of the sand and that is why a lot of the rocks are thin at the bottom and big on top. 

Alfredo had to literally drag us away from there.  We passed a few more lagoons and another volcano but it was raining so we didn’t have good visibility.  Then we got to the “Valley of the Rocks” what an amazing place.  Just miles and miles of strange rock formations.  There is one they called the Condor and it really does look like a bird in flight.  Rose was in her heaven!! 

We went to a really cute town called Alota where once again irma whipped up a great lunch.  We walked around the town for a bit trying to take in how other people live.  This town was in the middle of nowhere in-between beautiful mountains but it must be freezing in winter.  It was really eye opening to see how people can still survive off the land with no modern gadgets and gizmos.

We left there and drove for ages before driving past a big silver mining town called San Cristobal.  We made a very quick pit stop there and then headed onto our final stop – Uyuni.  Just before we drove into Uyuni town we stopped at an old train cemetery on the outskirts of town.  They had made swings and a seesaw out of the old metal.  Pete and Theo got onto the seesaw which was hilarious because pete weighs double what Theo does so pete just got stuck at the bottom and Theo at the top.  You could also climb on the old trains that looked like they were straight out of an old western movie.  I never thought i would ever say this about a train cemetery – it was great fun!

We carried onto Uyuni which is a strange Mid-size, very dusty, busy, bustling desert town.  There are no shops as such, only market stalls.  We stayed on the outskirts of town and the 4 groups on the salar tour all stayed in one hostel which was fun.  We had to pay if we wanted a  hot shower which pete and i did but the water was not hot, not even warm!  Pete also got shocked in the shower as it was an electric shower and Petes head was too close to be top so he kept getting a light shock every now and again. (no health and safety standards over here!). 

Anyway after we had our cold showers we walked into town to book our tickets to Potosi (the highest city in the world sitting at 4070m) for next morning.  The ticket office looked so dodgy and no one spoke English so we just hoped we hadn’t booked onto one of the really rickety old busses!  We got back and had our final dinner with the tour groups which was lovely.  We then had a briefing from Alfredo who said he would check the weather in the morning and if it was not raining we would leave at 5am, if it was raining we would leave at 8am.   After dinner we were all shattered so Pete and I retired to our room that had no light and no curtains and the fattest pillows I have ever seen – if you used them you would basically sleep sitting up…

Turpiza to Uyuni (Salt Flats) Day 2 (24 Jan) – Bolivia

DAY 2

Got woken up at 4am by Alfredo and got ready, had coffee and set off at 5am as apparently we had a big day with loads to see.  It was dark for a bit but great driving on the windy bumpy hilly roads in the dark.  As the sun started to come up we reached an old abandoned inca gold mining town.  It was quite eerie but also beautiful to see it at that time of day.  We carried on to a couple more small towns, the sunrise over the snow capped mountains was breathtaking. 

We carried on over quite rugged terrane crossing fields,  winding our way around mountains and crossing streams to a lookout over Lake morejon.  The lookout was at 4855 meters above sea level.  Alfredo explained the different minerals that make up the lakes which is the reasons why they have different colours. As the sun was coming up Pete noticed that the sun had an aura around it which looked like a circular rainbow. As the sun rose higher the aura got larger and more vivid. Rosa who is studying to become a geography teacher at the moment said that this happens very rarely and a whole lot of conditions need to be met in order for it to happen, so we felt very lucky to see something so beautiful and so rare.  We managed to get a great photo of it (which I will put up on FB once we get to a place with better Internet speed).

We drove through to the national park entrance and through a couple of villages. There really isn’t much around. Alfredo said that the villagers pretty much survive on llama meat. We stopped and took some photo of the llamas in a paddock at one of the village. We got some great pics, they really are funny looking creatures, they all seem to have quite distinctive faces and come in a range of colours and sizes. They also seem to struggle to run, it’s as though they are not quite sure which legs to use – it is quite funny to watch.

After the towns we drove along a beautiful stretch with jagged mountains and deep canyons. We crossed a big swamp area and stopped to take some photos. The mossy plants were a brilliant bright green colour and contrasted well against the multitude of colours that the surrounding rocks presented. It felt like a little Eden amongst the arid landscapes.

Lake hedionda sur was our first proper lake stop. The lake sits on a vast range of differing minerals as are all the lakes. The minerals gave this lake a beige colour and it was like a mirror. The water was very still and produced the most amazing reflections of the mountains and snow peaked volcanoes. It was our first look at the flamingos too. There was quite a flock of them. They seemed to struggle to fly in the high altitude but when they got going it was a real sight as they only flew about a meter above the water giving off the inverse of themselves in the reflection.

We then drove on to Lake Kolpa, named after the predominating mineral Kolpa. Alfredo explained that the Kolpa is used in hair washing products and as with most of the minerals, they are exported to Chile. Irma got her plastic bag out and proceeded to collect the white powdery stuff (apparently she makes her own shampoo). 

We drove over Salar de Chalviri – It wasn’t much to speak of other than the fact that we drove over it and the mountains that seemed a hop skip and a jump away took about 45 minutes to get to, the distances are very deceptive.

We then went to “Desert of Dali”. It is a valley with nothing but sand as far as the eye can see at the foot of an inactive volcano. The only features are a set of large misshapen rocks randomly scattered on the hillside.  This “forest of stones” is due to the volcano erupting thousands of years ago and splaying these huge lava stone formations and rocks across the landscape.  You can understand the name of the area as it felt very surreal.

We drove past Lake Blanca and got our usual speech… “it has got borax, sulphur, lithium, . . . ” in Spanish of course.  Our next stop was Lake Verde – it was a brilliant turquoise colour which was simply stunning.  Only problem was the brilliant turquoise colour is born from the high levels of arsenic and magnesium in the area. Alfredo did not want us to hang around too long as he was concerned for our health, nice!

 After the lakes we stopped off at Rio Amargo hot springs for a quick dip and some lunch.  The sulphur did smell a tad like rotten eggs!  Rose and i decided not to swim but the boys did.  Irma made some lovely meals, the only problem was that we did not see any refrigeration or coolers  in the car and we kept being fed meat! (I didn’t eat the meat but the guys did and all seemed fine).

 With our bellies full of food we headed up to “geothermic land” to geyser Sol de Mañana which sits at 5000 meters above see level. The area consists of very smelly steam vents frantically escaping out of the ground and many multicoloured bubbling mud pots. As you can imagine, the place felt quite other worldly.  It was great fun watching the mud spew into the air. Irma came with us. She is a very cute tooth deprived granny with the most infectious laugh. She was running around like a shoolgirl pointing and giggling much to our amusement. The altitude started getting to Pete, giving him a cracking headache. We left and after dropping about a thousand meters and chewing on some coca leaves all was well again.

The last stop for the day and also our stop for the second night was Lake Colorada. We dropped our kit off at a very cute and simple dwelling in a village called Huaylljara which sits at 4340 meters and left irma to crack on with the cooking.  Alfredo drove us the 30 mins or so to the lake – where do I begin, it is home to 600 000 flamingos, in a valley surrounded by multi-coloured mountains and snow capped volcanoes, has brilliant white borax minerals built up like mini icebergs all around, has yellow islands of sulphur and to top it off, the water is a deep pink due to some type of algae. There’s not much else to say, just try to picture it!

We made our way back to the accommodation scratching our heads, thinking we had perhaps been spiked with some South American halluciogenen after the sights we had just seen.  As per usual, we had our coffee and biscuites waiting for us and a couple of hours later a hearty meal prepared by Irma.  We shared one of the bottles of wine that we had bought in Mendoza a few days earlier.  Alcohol at 4300 meters gives you quite a kick.  After a very long and eventful day we passed out at about 9:30pm to build up some reserves for the next onslaught of visual overloads.

Turpiza to Uyuni (Salt Flats) Day 1 (23 Jan) – Bolivia

Woke up at 6:30am so we could pack, check out and have breakfast before we left on our 4 day 4×4 tour to the salt flats. We were very excited.  Met the guide, Alfredo and the cook, Irma (none of them could speak a word of English) and the other 2 people booked onto the tour, a German girl Rose and a French guy, Theo.  Theo can’t speak English but speaks Spanish and luckily for us Rose can speak French, English and Spanish! 

 We loaded our stuff onto the very nice 4×4 and set off.  The scenery was just spectacular.  We went through 2 canyons, Palala had spectacular red formations and spires reaching 4200 meters.  We then drove up and up and up to get to a fantastic viewing point of El Sillar or “Valley of the Moons” where due to water erosion the landscape looks like the surface of the moon with lots of peaks and craters. We then went past an old deserted gold mining town called Nazarenito and another small mineral town called Chilcobija. 

 We saw loads of llamas and donkeys on our journey… llamas are such strange looking creatures but have the cutest faces.   We stopped at a town close to the Chilean boarder called San Pablo De Lipez and they had the funniest looking military base we have ever seen. It looked like a giant sand castle for kids and there was a horse statue (moulded out of what looked like paper mashe) and it looked like one of those kiddies rides outside of supermarkets.  They also had a soldier statue that looked like woody out of toy story.  We (well Theo in Spanish) spoke to a couple of young (20ish) guys there and we found out that they protect the boarder against anyone trying to smuggle drugs over so that was quite interesting.  

 We continued on to the town we were going to sleep at that night – San Antonio de Lipez that sits at 4200 meters above sea level.  The town only had 250 inhabitants.  Definitely the highest and smallest town we have ever been to.  It was really cute.  Houses made from stone and mud and the roofs  were thatch like.  Irma made us a great veggie soup for dinner and also mince and mash. 

There were no showers or heaters so we all wore every item of warm clothing we had with us to sleep in.  Shame Pete was really suffering with the altitude and had headaches and nausia.  Luckily an Aussie girl, Rebecca on another tour that we were travelling in tandem with had altitude tablets and gave Pete some.  That sorted him out really quickly.  We had to set off at 5am so Alfredo was waking us up at 4am to get ready!  Needless to say we were all tucked up in bed (all of us in one room) by 10pm.

Hiking to Canyons and Horse Riding in Turpiza (21-22 Jan) – Bolivia

21 Jan – We decided to stay in Turpiza for 3 nights so we could have a day to relax and sort out our next plan of action.  We went to the travel agents in our hotel and booked our 4 day 4×4 trip to the salt flats for 23rd and book onto a horse ride in Turpiza for the following day. 

We then decided to hike up to the towns viewpoint and then did a 2km hike to El Canyon.  It was stunning, they describe the place as having rainbow mountains and we could see why.  Some of the mountains were yellow, some where red, others were green and bluey grey.  The canyons also had dramatic shapes from the water corrosion and some had massive spires.  The hike was great but we could definitely feel that we were at high altitude (2950 meters).  We both felt quite breathless and the hike wasn’t that strenuous.  We got back to town, had pizza for lunch (South America rivals Italy for the number of pizza restaurants they have!!) and then just relaxed at the hotel. 

We had heard there was this great “saloon style” restaurant in town and we went there for dinner.  It was very cute inside and did have wooden swing saloon style doors at the entrance but the food wasn’t great (well mine wasn’t) Pete enjoyed his big meat platter and the hottest jalapeño poppers we have ever tastes – called snake bites.  I had one bite and it took me 15 minutes to recover and for my lips to stop burning!  Pete of course was in heaven (until the next morning that is when the snake bit back 😉 )

 22 Jan – we had booked our horse ride for 10am that was suppose to include transport.  When we got downstairs they delayed it until 10:30 as they couldn’t find a guide who wanted to work on a Sunday.  They finally found someone and sent us on a local bus to the stables.  We got stared at most of the way as we were the only “gringos” on this rickety old bus.  

After about 15 minues we got there, strapped on our chaps and Stetsons and met our guide (who was about 14 years old!!!) then we met our horses.  They brought out a lovely old chap called Almo for me and they brought out a young frisky stallion for Pete!  I was a bit concerned that a young stallion wasn’t the greatest idea for someone who has only been on a horse 3 times but there was no other option so we saddled up.  It was about to start raining so the horses were a bit on edge.  As we headed out Petes horse decided to buck and start running.  Luckily Pete managed to hold on and stop him!  Poor Pete! 

The weather started improving after that so the horses were happier and the rest of the ride was great fun.  The scenery was amazing, we we through 3 canons and again the rainbow mountains, spires and dramatic rock faces were amazing, not to mention the cacti.   We rode for 3 hours and when we got back we thought we would get picked up and taken back to the hotel but no such luck, we had to walk. It was only 20 mins and it was nice to stretch the legs. We just found it funny they didn’t bother organising transport for the outing. 

We went for lunch and it started pouring – the streets literally turned into a river.  We stayed in the restaurant for a while and started chatting to a German, French and English guy until the rain settled a bit.  We later bumped into the French and English guy and landed up having dinner with them which was nice.  We went to a nice Italian restaurant and had pasta and red wine – always a winner  in my eyes!

Argentina into Bolivia (20 Jan)

We managed to have an ok nights sleep on the bus. Woke up at 7am and we were going through cactus country.  The cacti were huge.  We watched the scenery for s bit but both fell asleep again and got woken up by the conductor serving breakfast (which was a box with some Melba toast, jam, a stale cupcake and some super sweet local biscuit thing which seems to be the norm).  I am going to have diabetes and no teeth by the time I leave here from all the sweet stuff they serve.  Even the coffee on the bus is served black and really sweet. 

 We got to La Quiaca at  9:15am, what a place. Very dusty and all the buildings look the same colour as the dirt road.  It was such a change from the rest of Argentina and we immediately felt like we were on another planet.  We managed to get a Taxi the short distance to the border and found our way to customs to exit Argentina.  We then made our way down the road to join the queue of people waiting to get stamped into Bolivia.  We waited for about an hour before we got to the front.  It was a bit unnerving doing this border crossing ourselves and not really speaking or understanding Spanish but it was fine.  

It was fascinating watching all the people coming and going carrying their bags of goodies to sell. There were a lot of elder ladies dressed in traditional dress of thick stockings, pleated skirts with colourful tops and cardies and they all wore hats.  Some were like top hats or Charlie Chaplin style bowler hats and others were straw with loads of colourful flowers in.  They looked great.  Most of the ladies have long black hair they wear in plaits.  It is so different to anything we have seen and I’m so glad they keep up the tradition.  These ladies also carried loads of stuff on their backs that they hold in place with colourful shawls – I felt quite lazy watching them and then wheeling my backpack around!!

Anyway we were stamped into Bolivia and crossed over into Villazon – this place is crazy.  The road running up from the boarder was lined with busy market stalls selling everything from food to electronics to clothes.  There were about 100 taxis lined up and about 101 money exchange places.  There were just people (and stray dogs) everywhere and you couldn’t  walk on the pavements due to the market stalls but if you walked on the road the taxis, busses, cars and trucks just hooted at you.  It felt very chaotic.  We just tried to get to the end of the road so that we could gather our thoughts.   

We couldn’t find a bank or ATM so luckily we had some US Dollars on us which we exchanged and walked a little further up the road looking for the bus station.  Just before we got there a lady was shouting out Turpiza which was where we wanted to go so I said yes – she started rattling on in Spanish and couldn’t speak English so we stood there for about 15 mins trying to work out what each other were saying.  We eventually managed and got her minibus to Turpiza (2 hours away) for £2.50 each – bargain!

We were the only foreigners in the 8 seater minibus and the driver insisted on pumping the local music so loud we thought our ears were going to burst.  At one stage he played a local song that just sounded like a bunch of people had grabbed any instrument they could find and start randomly playing – Pete and I couldn’t help but giggle.  The rest was good though.  The scenery was awesome, it started out with cactus country where people had built these cute mud huts.  We then reached some great mountains and valleys.  Some of the mountains were red sand and had dramatic shapes.  We really do feel like we are in cowboy country.

 We reached Turpiza safely after nearly having a head on collision with a big truck who was overtaking on a blind corner up a steep hill!  We had booked ourselves into the best rated hotel in the town and we were very pleasantly surprised when we got there – it was really nice.  We had a great big room with a lovely ensuite and the hotel had a nice swimming pool – all for £18 per night (so much cheaper than Brazil, Chile or Argentina).  The town is quite sweet but it definitely feels like the Wild West.  No wonder Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid roamed these parts! 

Anyway after 30 hours of travel to get here we had a nice relaxing day and evening just enjoying our nice surroundings, comfy bed, hot shower and fluffy towels!!

Travel day to North Argentina (19 Jan)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM! 

We woke up at 5:45am, quickly got ready and packed the last few bits away and was glad I was able to phone my mom to wish her happy birthday :). The guy at the hostel couldn’t get hold of the taxi people so we landed up walking most of the way to the station before we managed to flag down a cab so not the greatest start.  Anyway we got there on time and settled into the “El Rapido” bus for our next epic bus journey.  The day was pretty uneventful, we stopped in some one horse towns that were so hot we thought our skin was going to melt off, thank goodness he aircon on he bus was working!!  The landscape changed from acres of vineyards to just flat and arid areas with mountains in the background to flat salt plains with nothing in the distance to really lush and dense mountainous areas – we went through some stunning passes and winding mountain roads and managed to update my blog notes and also catch up on some reading which was nice 🙂

Vineyard tour & Pizza Party in Mendoza (18 Jan) – Argentina

We woke up at 10am so missed breakfast. Both of us had a bit of a hangover, it was a really slow start to the day.  We had booked onto a winery tour and thank goodness we chose the half day one which only started at 2pm because it took me until then to start feeling ok!  The wine tour was great. 

 The wine tour was just out of town in the Maipu area. They first took us to an old traditional winery, Don Arturo that only produced organic reds (Melbec, Cab Sav and Syrah) it was such a beautiful vineyard and I was in my heaven tasting all the wines 🙂 it was really interesting to see how they only use man power and no chemical additives for this wine and it is all fermented and stored in French oak barrels.  It takes between 2 -4 years before their wine can be bottled and sold and they don’t sell to supermarkets, only to select and exclusive clients. We loved the Syrah (which I don usually drink) but it was divine so we bought a bottle. (unfortunately only one as we don’t have much space in the backpacks :()

 We were then taken to an olive oil factory called Pasrai which I must admit I wasn’t overly excited about.  The tour was ok but I did find it a bit dull – I much prefer finding out about wine 🙂 it seems like such a mission to make olive oil and a lot of manual effort has to go in so i do now have a new found respect for olive oil.  The tasting part the end was the best.  They drizzled bread with different versions of their olive oil – virgin, extra virgin, filtered, non-filtered, garlic infused, basil infused, oregano infused.  It was really really nice.  They put green olive paste on bread and drizzled it with the oregano oil  and some sun dried tomato paste with basil oil which was delicious. 

 We then went onto the 2nd vineyard, Vistandes, this was a very modern vineyard that used all the latest technology to produce their wines.  It was really interesting to see the contrast in techniques from the first one.  They fermented their wine in huge 500 hecta litre stainless steel barrels and due to the technology the fermentation process can be reduced.  We had a very enthusiastic guide and I think he was more excited about drinking the wine at the end than anyone.  He literally speed talked his was around the vineyard and finally relaxed when we go to the tasting room. He was pouring us huge half glasses of wine (which was great and I’m definitely not complaining) instead of the usual taster portions. We had a torrontes white wine which as so different to any white I have ever tasted, Pete liked it but I wasn’t sure about the taste.  We loved their Cabernet savingnon so we got a bottle of that too 🙂

 The tour ended at 7pm and we quickly went to the bus station to book our tickets for the next day.  We changed our minds about 3 times as to where we should go but after a quick deliberation we decided we should try get to Bolivia as quick as we can as we will only have 3 weeks there and we have spent quite a bit of time in Argentina now.  We sadly decided to skip the places in north Argentina that we wanted to go for and booked ourselves onto the 26 hour bus to the border town of La Quiaca – eek!

 The hostel was having a joint pizza party with another hostel that night which we had booked onto and it started at 9pm so we rushed back, stopped at the supermarket to stock up on supplies for the bus ride, packed the room up and went to the party which was at Mendoza Inn backpackers. It was great, as much pizza as you could eat and 30 mins of free tequila from 10:30 -11:00 for £5 and the pizza was all home made and amazing. I opted out of the tequila but Pete had some. The place then turned into a huge party.  Pete and I left mid flow and got back at 1am, we had to get up at 5:45am so that we could get a 6:30am taxi to the bus station. 

Travelling to and 1st night in Mendoza (17 Jan) – Argentina

We woke up at 6:45am and we arrived in Santiago at 7:15am so that was a bonus.  Jumped off the bus and ran around looking for the busses that could take us onto Mendoza (Chile’s version of Stellenboch and their main wine producing region – bring on the Melbec!). We are going back to Santiago in March before we fly out and will spend a few days there then but for now we want to see other areas.  We found a bus leaving at 8am, quickly booked our tickets and ran to catch it.  We settled into our next 7 hour bus ride to Mendoza.

 We arrived in Mendoza at 3pm and decided to walk to our hostel after sitting on busses for 17 hours.  The walk was a bit longer than expected, about a 25 min brisk walk, thank goodness for backpacks with wheels 🙂 it was good to stretch the legs and see a bit of the town.  We checked into Hostel International, it was huge.  This place was a real party hostel and had a full on bar/club on the ground floor plus a swimming pool, games area with pool table, ping pong etc. our room was pretty average but clean and had a decent ensuite. 

 We bumped into Alejandro in reception, an Argentinian guy we met in Uruguay –  he gave us a matte drinking lesson (matte is a kind of herbal, extra strength green tea from the Yerba plant that people drink in Argentina).  You drink the dry yerba leaves out of a mate cup and through a special metal straw called a bombilla and there is a real art in preparing it which Alejandro kindly showed us.  It is crazy as people carry their matte and a flask of hot water with them wherever the go.  Anyway we tried it once but none of us like it as it is really strong tasting. 

 We agreed to meet Alejandro in the hostel bar for drinks later and we headed out to get some late lunch and to sample some local wine :). The town is quite big and well laid out with really wide streets and pavements.  There are loads of tree lined avenues which are really pretty.  The town was built with water ducts along every street and these ducts go all the way to the Andes so that water is brought down from the mountain into the town and surrounding farms/vineyards. it is really cleverly done.  We found a great little square of restaurants and I had wine whilst Pete asked for an extra grande cervesa (beer) and got a huge litre glass full so he was happy.  The wine was also really nice. 

 We walked around town for a bit then went to the hostel bar, played pool and landed up chatting to loads of other travellers as well as Alejandro.  The bar was selling a drink of white wine mixed with sugar and some melon pulp and then served inside the melon which a couple of  people in the group were Drinking and passing around – it was quite nice and refreshing.  We had such a great crowd of people from all over the world at the hostel – Denmark, Holland, Brazil, Israel, America so we landed up drinking until about 2am.