San Juan to La Rioja

San Juan
About two hours north of Mendoza is the rather underwhelming city of San Juan. There's nothing wrong with it; it's a smaller version of Mendoza, with lots of shops and lively in the evening. But if you don't want to shop there's not a lot to do other than sit in the plaza and watch the world go by, which is what we did. Though most people hanging out in the plaza were teenagers, so we felt rather old!

We had come to San Juan to see if we could get out to some more rural places, either Barreal or La Union, or to find a tour. But after a good few hours of researching buses and tours, and various options on the Internet, we decided it was going to entail too many long bus journeys at antisocial times, when we weren't sure what we'd find at the other end. So we decided to take a bus to La Rioja the next day, where we hoped to find better options.

So we're now getting to know the bus stations of Argentina! A lot of the long-distance buses leave very early in the morning or travel over night. But as we wanted to see the countryside we've been travelling by day, but two days in a row is probably enough for now! The country is huge and we're now in the 'Cuyo' or desert region which sweeps up along the east of the Andes. So the views consist of very straight roads, the odd bus station in a dusty town, desert and rocks and the odd tree - and repeat for several hours! And we've had distant views of the foothills of the Andes accompanying us all the way. As we've headed more north-east, the landscape has become less desert and more green with more trees and vineyards growing in the red earth. And it's hard to believe it's autumn here as the leaves are only just starting to turn, and it's so warm and sunny - way into the 20s most of the day. Though noticeably colder in the morning and night, which is a bit of a clue. And it's in the high 40s in the summer, so this is cool for the locals!

La Rioja
La Rioja is the provincial city but it's small in comparison to other cities we've visited, and is has a slow-paced feel about it. A nice central plaza, but unfortunately for us not a tour office in sight! It's a bit off the tourist trail. Fortunately we found a tourist office and although they said that all the tour offices were closed all weekend, we found some other people looking for a tour and the tourist office put us in touch with a guide. Several hours later we were booked onto a tour for the next day of the two national parks we wanted to visit - with five other Argentinians. Result!