First week in Argentina

Hola!
We arrived in Argentina a week ago and we've hardly stopped yet. Finally made it to an internet cafe, so here's a summary of our adventures so far...


Buenos Aires
We spent the first two days in Buenos Aires, a friendly and relaxing city, so a nice start to the trip. Though we were greeted by damp grey weather for our first day, but we walked for miles nonetheless! We started with the famous Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada, only a couple of blocks away from our hotel, thanks to David's air miles! 

Then through the main shopping area and out to Recolleta to visit the cemetery and Evita's grave. Finally back to the centre and across about 20 lanes of Avenida 9 de Julio!

 

After a quick pitstop back at the hotel we headed for Palermo and wandered around the designer shops but decided not to revamp our wardrobes.Then for a very nice dinner in a local restaurant that had the best empanadas in the city, apparently! I'm no empanada expert, but they were very nice especially when washed down with some lovely malbec. We finished the evening with a stroll through Plaza de Mayo to see Casa Rosada illuminated - in pink, of course!
 

Our second day, my birthday, was a gorgeous sunny day with a bright blue sky! And so we moved from monochrome to colour, helped by a visit to La Boca and its colourful houses. Time for a beer in the sunshine and we started to feel more like we were on holiday! 




 
Then for a walk through San Telmo and the antiques shops, and on to the redeveloped port area and a nature reserve, by which time we were ready for a break from all the walking! 

In the evening, David treated me to a lovely tango show and dinner in an old, traditional cafe near the hotel. I don't think we've mastered all the tango moves as yet!



Iguazu
Up early the next day for a flight to Iguazu, right up in the north of Argentina. A complete change of scenery, climate and pace! We landed at the little Puerto Iguazu airport, surrounded by lush green forest, and even in the morning it was warm and humid. We spent the afternoon visiting Iguazu Falls on the Brazilian side which was easy to get to by bus. We were excited by our first glimpse of the falls and things just kept getting better as more falls revealed themselves around every corner! Most of the time was spent viewing the falls from a distance, getting a good perspective on things. Though some of the walkways allowed us to get quite close - and quite damp! And all the colourful butterflies were amazing!

 














We spent the whole of the next day on the Argentinian side and we really needed the whole day - we were both surprised that you could spend two days looking at waterfalls, but that's what friends and guidebooks had advised - and they were right, David persuaded me that we needed to get there early to see wildlife, so we were in the park by just after 9. We started with a path through the forest and saw monkeys, capybarras (we think - they look like giant guinea pigs with loing legs!), possibly a sloth (it was hiding in the foliage, so hard to tell), and lots of birds, butterflies and insects that seemed to prefer biting me rather than David. 

Then we headed out to the falls again, this time getting closer via walkways that took us to the botom to look up, and over the top to look down - we also took a boat across to an island for yet another perspective on things. After all the rain a few days before, there was plenty of water and everything was so lush and sparkling - beautiful.

 














We finished the tour with a trip out to look down over Devil's Throat, where the power of the water was awesome.

Mendoza
Most of the next day was spent flying to Mendoza (via Salta) and we watched the landscape change from lush green forests and huge rivers, to flat plains with massive fields, and finally to red, dusty rock and desert, with the Andes as a backdrop. This would be our home for the next three days...

We were welcomed to Mendoza by the ministry of tourism with a free taxi ride into the centre and a bottle of wine, so things started well. Though by the time we arrived at our self-catering flat, we were tired, and the trip to the supermarket to find things to cook proved a bit daunting - so we ended up with pizza. Slightly better than other pizzas we suffered in Iguazu, but still slightly strange - the Italian influence is not so obvious when it comes to pizza!

The next morning we were feeling more energetic again and we explored the city - a bit of a concrete jungle in places as most of the city had been destroyed by earthquakes, but there were some pelasant squares to wander round, and as with Buenos Aires, everything was very relaxing andf friendly. It's the fourth biggest city in Argentina, with a population of about 1.8 million, and it's a bustling city even if there's not much to visit.

We booked ourselved onto a wine tour in the afternoon and headed for Maipu and its vineyards. We were taken to two wineriers - one fairly new one, where we tasted torrentes, malbec, and even carmenere which is rare in Argentina (and not as good as the stuff we'd tasted in Chile!) - and then an old winery set up by an Italian immigrant in 1910 - where we tasted sweet wines - white and red sparkling wines, some marsala and something else that was rather too sweet. None of the wines we tasted are exported to Europe, and unfortunately there's no room in our rucksack to bring any home!

 














Next it was time to head up into the Andes - we're so close to Chile and it's only about six hours by bus to get to Santiago! We'd booked onto a day trip into the mountains, which meant another early start, but it was worth it as we saw the sun rise and enjoyed early morning clear views of the mountains as we drove along Ruta 7, which is the main road up into the mountains and into Chile. First up through the foothills and then up into the Andes proper - good to be back! There has already been some new snow and parts of the Aconcagua national park has been closed as there have already been a number of climbing accidents. But even though we didn't get right to the Chilean border, we got great views of Aconcagua before the clouds came in. And we walked for about 1.5 hours at 3,000 meters and didn't feel too bad - some gentle acclimatisation! On the way back we got some lovely clear views of the colourful rocks - red, orange, black, grey, green, cream - and lower down in the valleys, the lovely autumn colours of the poplar trees that are grown to provide shelter from the sun and wind - thanks to all the irrigation channels that run through the desert.

 














Now it's time to head north and we're booked onto a bus to San Juan later today. We're not entirely sure where after that as we're yet to work out what's possible by bus. We know we need to be in Salta in about a week's time...