La Boca Tango

Cusco, Peru Day 1

I’ve arrived in Cusco and my first day in Peru. So far, no altitude sickness. I’m grateful for that since, from the last several days, I already feel like I’m in an altered state of consciousness.

I touched down, checked into my hostel, and immediately went to the Western Union office, where cash was waiting for me. I am now ok on the cash front. No word yet from my bank on my claim.

My first impressions of Cusco are good. As the flight landed, I got a view of the countryside, which is stunning. Jagged mountains, the countryside dappled like a quilt made in earth tones, th town made up of red clay colored roofs and nestles in a pocket created by the mountains. And once in town, the feeling is relaxed, mellow, and easy. The squares and are pretty with brightly colored flowers and green stretches of grass. The people colorful dressed in either traditional garb, like you see in this picture, or in modern clothing. The buildings are quaint or impressive, made out of stone and stucco.

I still can’t eat. It’s been two and a half days and I’ve had water and two cups of juice that I was served on the airplane. The thought of food makes my stomach churn sickeningly. I hope for a full and uninterrupted night’s sleep tonight.

The hotel bar is blasting techno and the Israelis and Australians are already drunk and loud and it's only 7:30pm. I hope the sound doesn’t carry to my room.

All I want is to curl up in a ball underneath some warm covers and read my book. I guess these last several days have really left me feeling pretty raw. It’s all still resonating in my head and body. It’s like I’m looking over my shoulder every second, wondering who is going to hit me with the next big earthshaking surprise.

I’ve emailed a guide to see if/when I can catch a trek up to Machu Picchu. We’ll see what I hear back.

Buenos Aires Days 7 and 8

Day 7

My brain was full from seeing so much in the last many days, so I spent the day visiting the Jardin Bottanico Carlos and the Jardin Japones, both in the Palermo district of the city.

I walked peacefully among the trees and plants and sculptures of nymphs and cavorting cherubim, all the while listening to the throng of traffic as it ceaselessly pummeled the pavement just outside the gates. The Japanese Garden was particularly hilarious. While being Zen in design, a circular saw whined relentlessly somewhere in the background, oftentimes joined by the thunderous cacophony of low flying 747s taking off or landing at the nearby international airport.

In the evening, I received some personal news that sent me into a spiral. I began to consider cutting my trip short to come home. I slept for maybe an hour, fitfully, and had a long call home at four in the morning to my best friend, seeking grounding and counsel.

Day 8

I woke up from my hour of sleep and logged in to my bank account to check my balance. Both my checking and my savings account had been completely drained.

I wondered how things could get any worse.

Apparently some thief in Brazil skimmed my card and has been withdrawing money from my account for the past month. And when my checking account hit zero he or she then drained my savings account. In personal crisis, I find that I am now also penniless -- my accounts have been taken to the tune of $2700. I spend the day in a haze trying to use the on-again-off-again skype connection to have multiple, repetitive, frusrating conversations with my bank to resolve the issue. I filed a claim for all the stolen charges, and since I’m traveling, I can’t close my accounts or receive a new card. So, at this point, if and when I get reimbursed for the stolen funds, I have to call my bank each and every time I need to make an ATM withdrawal.

I tried, without success, to get in touch with people at home with funds who could help me. And finally, toward the latter part of the afternoon, got a response and arranged to have my Skype account refilled (I was unable to do that without any money in my back account) so I could have access to a phone as well as have cash sent to me via Western Union to be picked up tomorrow in Cusco, Peru.

This experience has reminded me yet again that we are not islands and depend on each other to make it through the difficulties of life, as well as celebrate the joys it brings us.

The level of vulnerability I feel is epic, and I am so alone and isolated. The sheer discomfort of it has stolen my appetite. No food today, I can’t eat as the thought of it makes my head spin and my stomach seize up and twist inside out.

This is travel – the good and the bad. Sadly, it seems, when it gets to this level of bad, the problems are so much, much more difficult to solve and the aloneness so much, much more deep.

So I leave B.A. with a bitter taste in my mouth.

I have many more stories to tell about Buenos Aires, and maybe, at some point I will. Now, I just want to put it behind me.

Buenos Aires Days 5 and 6

Day 5

I went to La Boca’ Caminito area, famous for its blue-collar roughness and locals-only attitude. Ironically, this attitude has created quite the tourist attraction, and the residents and shop keepers eat it up like dog food. To be honest, I didn’t like La Boca at all. It was the most flagrantly touristy area I’ve been in in Argentina. Street hawkers aggressively tugging at your shirt trying to get you to sit down at their restaurant because if you do, they get a commission. Cheap souvenir shops everywhere selling tacky junk. The only thing I liked about it (and I liked it a lot) were all the tango dancers. They performed on the street and at every cafe. I loved watching them, but of course as soon as I would stop to look, a hawker would come up and grab me by the arm and start leading me to a table. So, I took some pictures of the colorful buildings and headed out to the Sunday San Telmo street market. This has to be the largest street market in B.A. It’s massive, covering so many city blocks, I lost count. Booths filled with antique jewelry, pins, books, and silverware, handicrafts, plus t-shirts, CDs, DVDs, and other gifty items. I walked and walked, watching the street performers dancing the tango, puppeteering, or playing in street bands (the best tango couple were slick and well-heeled and about 75 years old, and a woman, likely 80, played a contraption of various drums and whistles… most excellent).

Day 6

I visited MALBA, the other major modern art museum in Buenos Aires. It was a good collection, though not as extensive as the Museo Nacional de Belles Artes. I paid a whopping 22 pesos (about US$7) to enter. A deal by anyone’s standards.

Afterwards, I caught a cab to spend the afternoon in Palermo to sit on the square and sip a beverage while reading and writing. The cab driver stopped and I handed him a 100 peso note that I had extracted from the bank machine the night before. I turned to get into my bag to get my map and when I looked up, the cab driver was yelling at me saying in Spanish that the note I just gave him was counterfeit! I told him I had no other money (which I didn’t) and he began to scream at me and wave his fist in my face. All I could say was that it wasn’t possible that it was fake because I had taken it from a bank. He then screamed that he would take me to the police and I replied, “OK, yes, let’s go!” to which he stepped on the gas, then screeched to a halt then just about struck me in the face. He then pushed me out of his cab into the street.

I was terribly shaken and frightened and it pretty much ruined the rest of my day in Palermo. I don’t do well with screaming confrontation and do even worse with threats of physical violence. And being a woman alone in a foreign city, my vulnerability was heightened as was my reaction to the whole situation.

So here’s the story I found out later. Taxi drivers in B.A. are apparently very crooked and this con – switching out a 100 peso note for a fake note, is commonplace. Sigh. In fact, that evening after I got back to the hostel, I found out that within the last 24 hours, myself and three other people were ripped off. Me and another woman were scammed for $100 pesos each and the two other people had their bags, including their passports, stolen. I think B.A. is not a tourist-friendly destination?

After attempting to have a nice day in Palermo, I tried to go to a bank machine to extract some cash and my card was denied. I had almost no money to get a taxi back to the hostel and no clue about the public transportation system. It was a bad day. Fortunately, I happened to bump into a girl who spoke English and was living in B.A. for a study program. She was so great and helped me find my way to the subway (she was even nice enough to walk me there) and instructed me how to get back to my hostel. Sometimes, you have to rely on the help of strangers. All I have to say about it is, I feel so lucky to have found her. She saved my skin.

Before I hopped on the subway, I stopped at Locutorio (a shop that has internet access and phone booths) and I contacted my bank, who said that my account balance was too low for me to take cash out. I thought that was odd since I thought I had significantly more than zero in there, but I thought, “Well, maybe I’m burning through my money faster than I think?” I transferred most of the rest of my savings set aside for this trip into my checking account. This experience should have been a red flag but I brushed it off.

Buenos Aires Days 3 and 4

Day 3

Good Friday. Everything is closed except… the Cemeterio de la Recoleta. This cemetery, located in a very upscale section of the city (which actually reminds me of the Upper east side of NYC), peacefully rests all the diplomats, politicians, movie stars, high-ranking military officials, heroes, and other luminaries of Argentina. For instance, this is where Evita Peron is interred. The monuments are, well, monumental. Large marble sarcophagi, side by side and wall to wall in small streets or alleys. Looking into them, many have altars and large crucifixes, and stacks of coffins with lace draping. Then there are those that are crumbling and no longer kept well. On one, the wall was falling apart, exposing a casket, which itself was falling apart. I was afraid a skeleton would be visible, but fortunately it hadn’t decayed to that extent, yet. The monuments here are incredible and run the gamut from traditional, old-world, traditional design to the ultra modern. I spent the afternoon taking pictures until my camera battery ran out.

I went to another closed-door wine tasting event in the evening. Anuva Wines was started by an American who had come to BB.A. for a tour of Argentinean wineries, but met his future wife at his first tasting and soon after, married her and became an expat. His wine business has taken off and he seems to be doing quite well.

The tasting was okay. Sadly, I fear that standard wine tastings like this might not suit me as mush as they used to. I found the tasting rushed because people kept downing their wine for their refills without really deconstructing all the characteristics of the wine and without savoring them. Which is what I just kind of do now. A friend who is a sommelier told me, “You’ve now passed into only being able to tolerate industry tastings.” I hope not. The last thing in the world I want to do is become one of those wine snobs. Egh.

Day 4

A visit to the Museo Nacional de Belles Arts, one of B.A.’s top two modern art museums. The collection was HUGE. I love art and I can spend a long time perusing museums, but this collection was so big and massive that I was actually wondering if I’d have to leave and come back another day to complete the tour. I did make it all the way through in one shot, however. And I had a perfect moment during my visit. I rounded a corner to be suprised by the beauty and quiet majesty of a Rothko (my favorite artist). I almost jumped and then stood, still and silent, for 15 minutes just drinking in the ultimate infiniteness of the piece. If you’re ever in B.A. I highly recommend this museum. And it was free?? Yes, seeing that massive collection was free. Art should be available to everyone, not just those who can pay, so the fact that it was by donation only was a great thing.

After the museum, I walked through the street market by the Cemeterio de la Recoleta then again spent the rest of the day within the cemetary, looking at the sarcophagi and taking copious amounts of pictures. I think, all told, I took about 300 pictures within the cemetery. The subject matter was so interesting.

In the park next to the cemetery, people lounged in the grass, hippies played in their drum circles, people bought steaming foods from street vendors or sat sipping espressos in upscale cafés surrounding the park, and people just generally enjoyed being alive on such a beautiful day.

Buenos Aires Days 1 and 2

Day 1

I arrived in Buenos Aires (B.A.) and checked into my hostel. I took a long walk down one of the major pedestrian shopping streets and found a place called “California Burrito Company.” How could I pass that up? Sadly, it was nothing at all like a California-style burrito.

Buenos Aires feels like a big city so it feels familiar in ways to me. Lots of people husting and busting around. Lots of well-lit stores. Lots of restaurants. Cars and traffic. Diesel exhaust and honking horns. It massive and a little overwhelming. The architecture is interesting – lots of French influence, which is interesting because the people here seem to be very much Italiophiles.

Day 2

I took myself on a walking tour of the sights in downtown B.A. I saw the Congressional Building, Casa Rosada, Cathedral Metroplitana with the grave monument of General Jose de San Martin – all of which are distinctly French and Italian baroque. The Casa Rosada is where Evita Peron made her famous speech – you know, the one with the big microphones, her hand raised high in the air and her mouth open as she passionately speaks to the crowd and inspires her people. Mostly, the Casa Rosada (so named because it’s literally pink, the tint made from the blood of cows) is a museum showcasing modern Argentinean artists and their works dedicated to portraying Argentinean life and culture. The Catedral was epic, as they all seem to be here in Argentina. Massive and filled with religious art, numerous ornate altars, statues, icons, murals, and so forth. The monument to General San Martin was grave and impressive. Two ornately uniformed guards stood at the entrance to the monument within the cathedral to guard it, from what, I’m not sure. Maybe they were simply there to create ambiance?

I also took a nice long walk down to the Museo Fortobat, a small modern art museum showcasing the collection of the family Fortobat, an old money, influential family in Argentina. Portraits of the family graced the walls along with pieces from Warhol and Argentinean modern artists. It was a small collection, but well chosen and the museum itself was a very nice piece of modern architecture.

I walked home via Florida Street, THE pedestrian-only shopping street in B.A. Despite the upcoming Easter holiday, it was crammed with shoppers, and we all shuffled along in tandem to make our way up the long avenida.

Buenos Aires is definitely a walking-friendly city. There is so much to see along every street. I’m certain I walked at least five or six miles a day. My dogs were barking at the end of pretty much every day.

I went to a “closed door” restaurant tonight, which basically means it has no “storefront” but may be in a hidden restaurant or in someone’s home. In this case, Casa Coupage was simply a nondescript door on a nondescript street in Palermo Soho, a very hip part of B.A. It’s run by two Argentinean Sommeliers who offered me a seven course meal and an accompanying seven course wine pairing. Unfortunately, I was counting on small samples of wine with the courses, since of course, how could you think of drinking seven glasses of wine by yourself? Apparently not so, even though I didn’t finish several glasses of wine, I think the ones I did drink were being refilled when I turned my back. The evening ended up in a haze and with me pouring into the taxi and later realizing that I had grossly undertipped my servers and left my sweater at the restaurant. Despite my intention and understanding that I would have a sophisticated dining and wine tasting experience, I ended up feeling like I might have made an ass of myself. I went back several days later to retrieve my sweater and drop off the remainder of the tip. Fortunately, my server was there and she seemed neither angry nor embarrassed on my behalf in the least. That tells me I likely held it together despite my less than completely sober state and didn’t do anything too ridiculous. I know that the wine and the meal were excellent, at least what I remember of them.

Update

I know I need to update my blog with my travels in Buenos Aires.  But suffice it to say, I’m glad to leave it.

I had a taxi driver steal $100 pesos from me and hand me back a counterfeit $100 peso note, then accused me of passing him a counterfeit note.  He almost struck me and then pushed me out of his cab onto the street.  I found out later that, apparently, this is a common con by taxi drivers in Buenos Aires.

Also, someone broke into my checking and savings accounts and drained them both dry.  At the end of the day, the thief has stolen $2700 from my accounts.  As you can imagine, this has been a complete and total nightmare – trying to handle the claim with the bank from a foreign country on a phone line that is unstable, wondering how I can get money so I can make it to my next destination, being unable to close my account or get a new debit card, the process I’ll have to go through to get money to continue my travels. 

And this has all come on the heels of some larger personal issues that have knocked me sideways that may necessitate me abandoning my travels early to go home.

I sit now in the Lima airport, awaiting my flight to Cusco.  I’ll know soon from my travel agency what my options are to fly home early and I pick up money from Western Union as soon as I arrive in Cusco.

Please send prayers and thoughts my way as I deal with this very difficult situation.

Mendoza: the Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

Because of my experience the previous night – with no dinner and a lot of wine at The Vines – I missed my 9:30am tasting appointment.

But, once I had breakfast and some aspirin and had a chance to shower and regroup, I jumped in my rental car and headed into Lujan de Cuyo, which is the primary wine-producing region within Mendoza. Mendoza is reputed to have more than 1000 wineries, with many of them in Lujan including the most well-regarded, premium wineries.

Once again, the maps and directions to get out of Mendoza city into Lujan were loose, at best. Google maps directions simply said things like, “Take the exit. Turn Left. Turn right.” What exit? A left on which street? Vague.

I pulled off the highway several times to ask directions, which was entertaining since I speak no Spanish. However, through the kindness of these strangers, I pieced together their hand gestures and caught a few of their words and figured out where I needed to go to get to my first tasting appointment. So after all that, I show up at the winery and they’ve lost my reservation.

This point in the story prompts an interesting observation about Argentineans. For the most part, they don’t give a rat’s butt about customer service. They could care less if they lost your luggage or your reservation. In fact, I’ve been in a couple of situations where, despite my patience and attempts at being culturally sensitive, the person has seemed to actually kind of enjoy being rude. Once, I even calmly asked to talk to a woman’s supervisor because she said she had no power to resolve the situation, and she simply replied, “No!” and then hung up on me. This was a representative from one of Argentina’s major airlines. Can you imagine that in the USA? Yeah, no.

In this case, the security guard at the front gate of the winery put me on the line with an impassive woman who basically, in no uncertain terms told me they had no reservation for me and could do nothing for me. No apologies, no offer of a free tasting, nothing.

So after hitting a brick wall in getting anywhere with this winery, I headed down the road to another winery – one that I had an appointment at the next day – to see if they could fit me in today instead to their next tour and tasting. As if to make up for the lack of care with the first winery, the woman was quite nice and fit me in to the 12:30 Spanish speaking tour and tasting. This should be interesting.

The winery was Terrazas, and it was absolutely gorgeous. The grounds were meticulously landscaped and maintained, but somehow it still looked so casual and effortless. The buildings were all beautiful, even the manufacturing and truck loading building. Deep green lawns rolled over the property, displaying draped day beds, white andirondak chairs, and tables for holding your glass of wine. Tall slender trees with white bark and bright emerald leaves swayed in the gentle mountain wind. Beyond the brick wall were the vineyards. Beyond those were the horizon and blue mountains. And beyond those, snow-capped peaks stretching into the vibrant blue sky. The sunlight seemed silver, reflective. It was a beautiful moment that will stop time and prompt me, unconsciously, to let out a soft exhale each time I remember it.

After having a bit of time to appreciate all this, I joined the small group of people who came for the tour of the facilities and have the tasting. As I mentioned, the tour was in Spanish, so I wasn’t expecting to follow anything but simply have the opportunity to see the winery in action and have my tasting. But what happened was that I realized I could actually understand the tour guide. Not literally every word, but a strong grok of what she was saying. It was a strange sensation, like when you look at those pictures that seem like just a jumble of colors, then you relax your mind, your eyes, and soon an image begins to appear, and then the image pops out at you, showing you it was there all along. That’s what it was like. The meaning of what she was saying seemed to emerge from the jumble of strange sounds. It was a very good moment.

The tasting occurred in a cool underground room and was well balanced and delicious. In certain wines, you can taste the sun, the soil, and the water the grapes were grown in; you can taste the care that someone put into making it; you can taste time and thought and effort; you can taste the life of the wine. These wines were that. Wine is science, magic, and art and it can also be an emotional experience, like what I experienced at Terrazas. This is the beauty of wine.

The next winery I visited was Luigi Bosca. The winery tour wasn’t anything special nor were the facilities. The tasting consisted of a couple of their standard wines – the Finca La Linda brand – which were nice but not notable, and one of their reservas, which ended up being one of the better Malbec’s I’ve tasted in Mendoza. It had some nice cedar and smoke and fruit and a beautiful, long and leisurely finish.

In Mendoza, my main focus was on tasting wine, and I feel like I succeeded. So much so that I actually had to take the next day off of tasting because my palate felt pretty blown out, preventing me from being able to taste the subtleties of the wine. I lounged around the hostel in the sun, reading, napping, cooking a lovely lunch and dinner and heading to bed relatively early. It was a good day.

The next day, Sunday, was similar since everything in Argentina closes down for the day. However, I took a walk around town because it was actually World Malbec day, so I thought that there had to be some wine shops or tasting rooms open to commemorate. But nothing! I think it’s hilarious that likely Mendoza/Argentina created World Malbec day to stimulate their wine business, but all the businesses were actually closed on that day. That’s so perfectly Argentina.

And that brings m to Monday, when I packed up, said goodbye to the friends I made at my hostel (special thanks to Anna, Shane, and Tinto!) and headed to the airport to catch my flight back to Cordoba.

I’m taking a circuitous route to my next destination, Buenos Aires, via Cordoba and Tucuman, but I’ll arrive in B.A. Wednesday, 19 April to start the last leg of my Argentina trip before flying to Peru, the last leg of my entire South America trip. I’ve heard countless stories about how great B.A. I so I’m excited to get thee and begin exploring one of the most sophisticated metropolises of South America. Onward!

Mendoza: Fast, Loose, and Not a Drop of Wine Wasted

The next day, I rented a car in the hopes of making a 3pm tasting appointment about 40 minutes outside of town. Now, driving in Mendoza funny. Funny strange, not funny ha-ha. Maybe funny isn’t the right word. Maybe something more like maddening, confusing, mildly dangerous, or fast-n-loose. Sometimes there are signs pointing you to where you want to go, sometimes not. There are lines on the road delineating lanes, but they don’t seem to be used much. There are a lot of intersections, but very few have lights or stop signs. What you do when you come to an intersection is tap on your brakes ever so slightly to slow your speed a an mph or two, stretch your neck out to try and see if anyone is coming, then blow through the intersection. It’s harrowing, actually. Turn signals? Rarely. It’s all this continuum of drift. The kicker is that the maps I got from the tourist information office weren’t accurate. The map clearly would show where I could get on the freeway, but then I’d get on that street and it would be one way going in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go. I went around and around like this, circumventing where the map showed the entrance to Route 40, then being spat back somewhere in the opposite direction. I tried to take what looked like the long route to get to another entrance to the freeway, only to get completely lost in some desolate suburb. A couple of times, you could hear me muttering curses under my breath and I think once, I actually shouted, “WHERE AM I?” in tense frustration. I did all this for about 1.5 hours. I missed my appointment at Trapiche winery and instead, flustered and angry, found my way back to the hostel.

The tasting day wasn’t ruined however. That evening, I went to a local tasting room called The Vines, which was only a 15 minute walk from my hostel. The Vines is well regarded for serving flights from the top wineries in the Mendoza areas, so I knew this would be a great place to get a great sampling of various wines all in one convenient place. Since it was relatively early – too early to have dinner yet – I went to The Vines on an empty stomach thinking that the pours, of course, would be one or two ounces. I ordered the Uco Valley Reserve flight. The attendant’s first pour, a Monteviejo Blend 2006 (syrah, malbec, merlot) was actually pretty large – maybe more like four ounces. I thought that she might have slipped, but as I tasted and wrote tasting nots in my notebook, she poured my second wine – also a healthy four ounces. So while I trust my tasting notes are accurate, I look back at them and laugh. By my fifth taste, the handwriting in my notebook – which started out so legible and neat – became kind of loopy and sloppy, drifting outside the lines. And then she poured me an extra taste of a rose, which was lovely with strawberry, vanilla, and some lovely tartness, was just some scribbles in my notebook. Yes, there was one point in the tasting that I thought, “I should start spitting,” but the answer in my head to that was, “No spitting on a $250 peso flight, no way. For that kind of money, I’m drinking every drop of this wine.” I awoke dehydrated and with a throbbing headache. I realized I actually didn’t eat any dinner when I get back from The Vines, either. Oops.

Mendoza – Wine, Absinthe, and the Police

On my first afternoon in Mendoza, I signed on for a half-day wine tour. We visited two wineries, the first was Lopez. This is considered the oldest winery in Mendoza. The Lopez family emigrated from Italy because of a disease that struck their vines and destroyed their harvest. They thought they’d have better luck in Argentina. And now Lopez is one of the biggest volume-based wineries in the region. They even still age some of their wines in the massive casks that are considered almost completely antiquated against the current barrel aging. To be honest, the winery seemed more like a factory and the wines that we tasted were terrible – flat and weak. But, the tour was interesting nonetheless – to think that the father of the family likely simply announced that they would pick up and move to Argentina, leaving their fields and home behind to set up in a new country far away. That takes guts.

The second winery, called Vistandes, was a boutique winery and only a few years old. The facilities were ultra modern, cool, and sleek and featured some fine art in the lobby – it struck me as being modeled after some Napa wineries I’ve visited. The tasting room was clad in white and black leather furniture. The tour was lovely and the wines very nice. I bought a delicate and tasty torrontes (the best torrontes I’ve had in Argentina, no less) that set me back a cool $9.

Next was a stop at a shop that made artisanal liquors and jams, and there I had a chance to taste their absinthe, which burned a path down my esophagus and left me lightheaded and goofy. And then on to a small church that housed a statue of the Saint who protects wine crops. She sits like a porcelain doll, dressed in stiff lace and embroidered polyester tafetta, cheeks blushing (perhaps from the wine?), blue eyes softly gazing out over her congregation. In the church was a tiny museum that held antique household objects, rosaries, old photos and similar items. A guitarist played soft, slow Argentinean religious folk songs in the corner.

After, our tour group of 10 trundled back to the van and boarded. But something was wrong. Apparently, the van driver left the van unlocked. Mistake #1. Several of the tourists left their bags on the van. Mistake #2. In their bags, they left their documents, passport, etc. Mistake #3. In a way, you just can’t blame the thief for stealing what he did. It’s like the planets aligned for him to do it.

OK, you never, ever, ever, ever leave anything valuable on a tour van. Ever. That’s travelers’ rule A#1. I thought everyone knew that one. Apparently not. The police showed up and we all had to go down to the police station. The tourists were making their statements and filing their report for about an hour and a half. The rest of us couldn’t leave in case we had to make statements and act as witnesses (or we were under suspicion of being the perpetrators of the crime). During the wait, I chatted with a British guy – maybe 28 – who regaled me with all the drugs and alcohol-fueled nights he’s had while traveling. There were a lot and he seemed quite proud of them. Good for him, I guess. I dunno, if I were in a country whose drug laws are akin to something out of the movie “Papillion” and some shady cat offered to sell me a bunch of cocaine, I‘d just have to take a pass. As this guy, who was very entertaining and definitely helped pass the time, poured his stories out, each one more outrageous and gregariously expressed than the last, I thought, “What a complete idiot.” Sorry, but I mean really… seriously? What an ass. But yeah, he was funny. I’m sure all those stories will seem really funny to him until his bony white butt gets tossed in jail in some Columbian prison somewhere.

Finally, we were all released by the police. Back to the hostel and sleep.

Under the Spell of Mendoza

The flight from Cordoba into Mendoza was hairy…. White-knuckle, drenched-palms, gasps and sighs kind of hairy. Unknown to me at the time, there was a Zonda that day. A Zonda is a particular type of wind that they get in Mendoza. It’s a hot, hot dry wind, and as fierce, powerful, and catty as a diva. So in the last 15 minutes of the flight, we were buffeted around the air – up-down-side-to-side, up-down-side-to-side, up-down-side-to-side... It was like a roller coaster ride except I actually like the “safe scariness” of roller coaster rides. I do not like, however, the very real scariness of dramatic turbulence with what feels like a very real threat of plummeting thousands of horrifying feet to my death, each second its own eternity as I watch the earth rushing toward me.

When the plane’s wheels finally touched terra firma, there was an audible exhale from the passengers, a pause, and then we all broke out in applause. Yeah, it was hairy.

My hostel in Mendoza was fantastic. Hostel Empedrado is like a large, really well outfitted communal house. Two kitchens, several common areas for eating, drinking and conversation, a rooftop terrace with beds so you can nap in the sun, an outdoor patio shaded by grapevines, satellite TV, four computers, and a fun, helpful staff. It’s everything you could want in a hostel. And I had a lot of experiences – cooking with other folks in the kitchen, drinking wine together out on the patio, telling each other our day’s plans around the breakfast table – that made me feel like I was in a family. Those moments in travel are so great. Because I think people are somewhat adrift as travelers, we look to each other to find some commonality and ways to relate so that we can feel grounded with each other. There were a lot of sweet moment like this at Empedrado and I’m grateful for them.

Besides having a great hostel to lay my head and meet and bond with other travelers, the town of Mendoza and the surrounding areas are lovely. The town caters to wine tourism, so it has wine shops, upscale gift shops, and wine bars in the center of town, and surrounding that is your standard Argentinean tourist destination with a central shopping area not only catering to locals but also containing several upscale hotels and tour operators. The town has countless tree-lined streets and many cobblestone streets that give it a lovely charm.

To be honest, I’m having a little bit of a hard time writing this blog post. My mind is bewitched by Mendoza – relaxed, empty, soft. I’m going to try again later to see if my brain is up to the task of describing the rest of my time in Mendoza.

Cordoba… It’s Fine

This is the Chrysler Cordoba. -->

The ultimate in style, class, and sophistication.... in 1979.

I’ve spent the last several days in Cordoba. It’s a city with malls, lots of storefronts all selling the same clothing and scarves with no significant difference and catering to the small city aesthetic, and restaurants all with menus that are fundamentally similar.

It’s a fine place, but somewhat generic for my tastes.

However, I have seen several nice cathedrals and museums. The museums feature artists from Argentina only, mostly artists from Cordoba. I’ve seen some nice pieces and had a fine time walking about the city.

I’ve visited:

• The Museo Historico Provincial Marques de Sobramonte, a small museum that contained furniture, women’s fans and hair combs, dishware, and chamber pots that belonged to a wealthy family that lived here in the mid-1700s;
• The Criptica Jesuitica, a small stone museum which at one time housed the bones of Jesuit priests (which were then moved), then the bones of those who died from a cholera epidemic. Then they crypst was destroyed and then dug up again in 1986 and is now on display;
• The Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes Dr Genaro Perez, a small, quaint museum with some sculptures and paintings;
• The Museo de la Memorial, a small museum housed in the former Department of Intelligence (D2) building, famous for kidnapping, torturing, and “disappearing” those who opposed the government in the 1970s. Its displays were interesting in that they were quite clean, artsy, and modern but set within the slightly still frightening torture and interrogation rooms;
• The Palacio Ferrerya, a larger museum with lots of nice paintings and sculptures from a host of different eras and an attempt at modern design inside the museum itself, with the benches and staircases covered in black cowhide, including the cow hair. It was odd to sit on and even weirder to grab hold of when walking up or down the stairs;
• The Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Caraffa, the main modern art museum in Cordoba, which was large and well architected, but had very little actual art in it. ???
• The Iglesia Cathedral, the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus, and the Parroquia Sagrado Corazon de Jesus de los Capuchinos (all churches), the former two were representative of the style in Argentina. The latter one was quite impressive in size and very representative of the gothic style of architecture.

I don’t know that I have much else to say about Cordoba. It seems to me like it’s aspiring to be a “worldly” cultural center, but feels like the delivery isn't quite there. Kind of like the little redheaded sister who follows the cool big sister around, wanting to wear her lipstick and high heels and wanting to be grown up but just isn't yet so looks kind of funny when she dresses up in the big sister's lipstick and heels. In this case, the cool big sister is Buenos Aires, and the little sister… well you get the gyst.

My hostel is fine, nothing special. Really, I just can’t say anything bad or great about Cordoba. It’s fine, just fine. Oh, the weather is nice.

Tomorrow I leave for Mendoza, the place I’ve been aching to get to since I decided to go a couple of weeks ago. I’ve booked well-regarded hostel there and am set to taste wine. Onward.

I pity the fool

If one more person asks me:

• If I’m traveling alone and then looks shocked and concerned when I answer, “Yes.” Then they say, “Really??” with their eyes wide. I and I say, “Yes, really.”
• If I have any children and when I reply, “No,” then asks in a concerned and troubled voice, “Don’t you like children??”
• How old I am (when the person asking is about 19, which are most people) and when I tell them my age, they try to conceal their shock and surprise with a deadpan, silent nod…

...someone’s gonna get hurt.

Cafayete 2: Mountains, Snakes, Wine, and the Help of Strangers

I’m in the Tucuman bus station right now. I have a layover here for about four hours until I hop the night bus to Cordoba. It’s Friday night and the place is hopping. There’s a live musician plugged into an amp and he’s singing and playing a tango version of Frank Sinatra’s, “I Did It My Way” while his guitar gently weeps. These are the little, surreal moments that travel is made of.

I left Cafayete this afternoon, and I was sad to go even though the place may, in all likelihood, have a curse on it.

Here’s why. I had the single worst travel day on the trip so far while here. It was one of those days where anything you try to do, no matter how inconsequential or minor, let alone the big things (and there were several), just wouldn’t… go. No matter how much coercion, praying, force of will or how many deep breaths or secret promises for paying it forward. And the big things were big. Like being on my last 50 pesos (about US$12.50), but still owing my hostel for two days of room and a tour and still having two full days in town ahead of me before I caught my pre-purchased bus ticket to Tucuman – and my card wouldn’t work in either of the two cash machines in town. And no way to contact my bank because there was no Skype at the internet cafes and the hostel wifi was busted. So stuff like that. It was Catch-22 after Catch-22. Each time I tried to solve a problem, the solution to that problem was actually just another problem that needed to be solved. And it all had to be done in Spanish, which I don’t speak.

It was the single most frustrating day I’ve had on this trip so far and I have to admit, I got to that point – you know, where you start to feel that little kid frustration, so powerless and overwhelmed. Well, I had a moment in the hostel kitchen when I broke down and shed a couple of hot tears while my voice, quavering, told my hostel-mate Laura from Buenos Aires, what was going on. She was great and told me that she’d help me sort out all the issues tomorrow.

As it turned out, Bertrand, another person from my hostel helped me solve my biggest challenge. He spent 20 minutes on the phone with the agency in Jujuy who booked my air travel to Mendoza and sorted the issue out for me by actually going to Jujuy and the agency to take care of it for me. Something I love about travel is that people can really step up and help one another. It’s great to be reminded that we can’t survive alone, that we depend on each other to make it through life’s difficulties, and that we do step up and help one another.

As far as cash? The wifi in the hostel got fixed, I Skyped my bank, and all issues are now resolved. I didn’t have to devise an elaborate plan to hop a bus with my last 50 pesos to some other town in the middle of the night, get money from another town’s ATM, and hop back to Cafayete to pay people before they noticed I was gone. Whew. That would have been an inconvenient drag.

Besides the whole curse thing, Cafayete is wonderful. As one of the top two wine producing regions in Argentina, it carries a beautiful mood about it. The town square is picturesque and charming. The people mellow. The countryside is stunning with tall desert mountains in beautiful deep clay and green colors. The fields of grapevines curling around their posts and strings, clusters of ripe fruit hanging in the hot sun.

In Cafayete, I love that a very hearty pour of any restaurant’s or café’s house Malbec is $1.10 USD… and it’s good. I love that my hostel felt so comfortable, clean, and homey, with actual attention to décor, a great center patio where we all could gather and have a glass of wine or a cup of mate tea and talk about our days, and a well maintained kitchen for cooking.

I loved the areas around Cafayete for their incredible, heart expanding beauty and proud history and heritage. I loved the people I met at my hostel, all of whom were entertaining, funny, sweet, helpful, wry, interesting, or a combination of all those traits.

I loved the House of Empanadas, who served me the best empanadas I’ve had either in Brazil or Argentina.

Details, you ask? Happy to.

One day, I took a tour in the afternoon to visit the major landmarks of the Quebrada de Cafayete, the region I passed through on the bus trip from Salta to Cafayete but was pretty much too sick to actually appreciate. So let me preface this next part with a disclaimer. If you’re tired of hearing about how unbelievably beautiful the mountains are in Northern Argentina, stop reading now. OK, you’re still reading. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

It seems like, since I arrived in Argentina, the scope and scale of these mountains, their intensity in every way, have grown. The colors, the scale, the sheer force of them. First there was the Seven Colors Mountains in Humahuaca/Purmamarca. Then there was the next level, the Quebrada del Torro, with its height and its gauchos and its lonely beauty. And now Quebrada de Cafayete, with its tremendous scale, its rock formations so unique and unusual that they didn’t seem at all real, but maybe something out of an epic hero’s story or something on the far side of Mars. Rubies, rusts, oranges, pinks, clays, ochres… and also blues, violets, greens, and yellows. With their immensity so intense that the eyes just can’t see them, but flatten them out like a paint by numbers to just try and absorb them.

I saw these with Neil, who had just arrived at my hostel that day. Neil is a 31-year old freelance carpenter from Dublin, but living in Melbourne. A month ago, he was on a three day party streak in Melbourne and, while intoxicated during said three day streak:

· Decided that he had to travel to South America and figure out if he wanted to move there

· Logged onto a website, priced tickets and bought his one way plane ticket to Buenos Aires

· Packed and caught a taxi to the airport

· Rung up his Mum from the airport and told her he was leaving in an hour for South America and wasn’t sure when he was coming back

· Boarded the plane and immediately asked the flight attendant for a beer because he had “flight anxiety.” Sadly, he was turned down, the attendant saying that she couldn’t serve him until they took off. They took off, and he was served.

So Neil and I happened to be the only two people on this tour. There’s nothing like getting to know a crazy Dubliner over some of the most beautiful natural scenery in the world.

We stopped at several key formations and vista points to appreciate the rock formations the likes of which rival or surpass Monument Valley, Utah and the scale of which makes Monument Valley look like building blocks from a child’s toy box. We saw the sweeping playas and peaks, the mountains stretching back millions of years and looking ahead for millions more. The naturally-formed amphitheater, which was once a huge cave in the rock then was opened up by eons of rain and wind erosion. In this amphitheater, Cafayete has an annual music festival to take advantage of the incredible acoustics this naturally-formed amphitheater provides. I wish I could explain the scale of this formation. My pictures, for the most part, don’t capture it. Except for one. In this picture, you see the layers of compressed minerals and rock in beautiful arching and swaying patterns. And then, at the lower right center of the picture, you see a tiny speck. That’s Neil. That’s the scale we’re talking about.

We also visited the Devil’s Throat, another incredible formation equally massive and equally as impressive and awe-inspiring as the amphitheater. Here, I kicked in my rock climbing skills and scaled some short and easy faces to crawl inside the Devil’s Throat. The colors, the patterns, the scale. I felt dumbstruck.

These places throw me into simultaneous states of awe and confusion. As I marvel at them and am rendered speechless by their ancientness and immensity, I also think of how we humans have this odd tendency to think the world revolves around us. When in reality, the world is more ancient and more powerful than we could ever comprehend. It will live on millions of years past any memory of our species and will continue to be part of the grand scheme as it came into being at the beginning of time. And even how ideas like time, when used with these places, are simply weak constructs that humans have created to try and classify and understand and place and compare ourselves next to them.

That’s what these places, this excruciating beauty and immensity, are doing with me. I’m properly put in my place and get a tiny glimpse into the immensity and wide open infiniteness of space and time and mass and energy and spirit and physics and math and art, which are flimsy expressions of something nameless, unspeakable, limitless. Something unclassifiable and indescribable. Something infinitely beyond anything we can ever grasp. And that’s right and perfect.

But I digress.

While in Cafayete, I also visited the ruins of Quilmes. I took this tour, about an hour outside Cafayete, with Guillaume from Nice, who had also arrived the same day as Neil. His dry French sense of humor and vow each day that he was going to quit smoking today (“no really, today for sure, I just want to finish this pack…”) prompted me poke him in the ribs with a wry smile. Dating about 1000 AD, Quilmes was a complex indigenous urban settlement that occupied about 30 hectares and was home to about 5000 inhabitants. These people survived contact with the Inca, which occurred from about 1480 on, but sadly, they couldn’t withstand the onslaught of the Spaniards who in 1667 deported the last 2000 inhabitants to Buenos Aires. The site itself is impressive. Though no building still stands, a good percentage of the foundations of the site have been excavated. The foundations start at the base of a large hill and crawl up the hill in steps. I hiked up the treacherous hill to see the community layed out before me, making geometric patterns in the hillside.

When I arrived on the site, I was given a brochure in “Spanglish” explaining the story behind Quilmes. But fundamentally, what the brochure really was was an angry tirade against the invaders who broke apart the Quilmes community, which was rich with culture, heritage, history, and indigenous identity. It spoke of never allowing this type of invasion to happen again and called out to readers to vehemently support the preservation of indigenous people and Pachamama (translation: Mother Earth). It also called for things like restitution and reclamation of the tribal lands. In short, Quilmes is a symbol of all the genocide and destruction that non-native people have brought to Argentina and how change must occur to preserve these indigenous cultures.

I’m often struck by how the history of colonialism the world over is so bloody and horrible. And how it’s still occurring today under the auspices of “spreading democracy and promoting a free-market economy.” Sigh.

I also mountain biked while in Cafayete. I wanted to head up to the path that would take me to the falls at the Rio Colorado. I came across a rattlesnake on my way. Yes, another snake. I didn’t see it, but I definitely heard it. I was walking my bike past a cluster of low rocks and I heard a rattle. As I got closer, it sped up, and as I passed by and went on my way, it slowed and stopped. And the funny thing was, I didn’t even realize what it was until later. Oops. I should know better being from Oregon and California. This is snake story #3, just for the record.

Also, on my mountain bike ride, I had the chance to ride past several beautiful fields of grapevines and wineries (and did some tastings, of course). It was quite picturesque, with the green vines and dusty earth set against the tall blue-green mountains.

When all is said and done, despite the travel challenges I faced, I come away from Cafayete loving its beauty and uniqueness.

I guess, then, that Cafayete isn’t cursed at all. It’s blessed.

I’m in the Tucuman bus station right now. I have a layover here for about four hours until I hop the night bus to Cordoba. It’s Friday night and the place is hopping. There’s a live musician plugged into an amp and he’s singing and playing a tango version of Frank Sinatra’s, “I Did It My Way” while his guitar gently weeps. These are the little, surreal moments that travel is made of.

I left Cafayete this afternoon, and I was sad to go even though the place may, in all likelihood, have a curse on it.

Here’s why. I had the single worst travel day on the trip so far while here. It was one of those days where anything you try to do, no matter how inconsequential or minor, let alone the big things (and there were several), just wouldn’t… go. No matter how much coercion, praying, force of will or how many deep breaths or secret promises for paying it forward. And the big things were big. Like being on my last 50 pesos (about US$12.50), but still owing my hostel for two days of room and a tour and still having two full days in town ahead of me before I caught my pre-purchased bus ticket to Tucuman – and my card wouldn’t work in either of the two cash machines in town. And no way to contact my bank because there was no Skype at the internet cafes and the hostel wifi was busted. So stuff like that. It was Catch-22 after Catch-22. Each time I tried to solve a problem, the solution to that problem was actually just another problem that needed to be solved. And it all had to be done in Spanish, which I don’t speak.

It was the single most frustrating day I’ve had on this trip so far and I have to admit, I got to that point – you know, where you start to feel that little kid frustration, so powerless and overwhelmed. Well, I had a moment in the hostel kitchen when I broke down and shed a couple of hot tears while my voice, quavering, told my hostel-mate Laura from Buenos Aires, what was going on. She was great and told me that she’d help me sort out all the issues tomorrow.

As it turned out, Bertrand, another person from my hostel helped me solve my biggest challenge. He spent 20 minutes on the phone with the agency in Jujuy who booked my air travel to Mendoza and sorted the issue out for me by actually going to Jujuy and the agency to take care of it for me. Something I love about travel is that people can really step up and help one another. It’s great to be reminded that we can’t survive alone, that we depend on each other to make it through life’s difficulties, and that we do step up and help one another.

As far as cash? The wifi in the hostel got fixed, I Skyped my bank, and all issues are now resolved. I didn’t have to devise an elaborate plan to hop a bus with my last 50 pesos to some other town in the middle of the night, get money from another town’s ATM, and hop back to Cafayete to pay people before they noticed I was gone. Whew. That would have been an inconvenient drag.

Besides the whole curse thing, Cafayete is wonderful. As one of the top two wine producing regions in Argentina, it carries a beautiful mood about it. The town square is picturesque and charming. The people mellow. The countryside is stunning with tall desert mountains in beautiful deep clay and green colors. The fields of grapevines curling around their posts and strings, clusters of ripe fruit hanging in the hot sun.

In Cafayete, I love that a very hearty pour of any restaurant’s or café’s house Malbec is $1.10 USD… and it’s good. I love that my hostel felt so comfortable, clean, and homey, with actual attention to décor, a great center patio where we all could gather and have a glass of wine or a cup of mate tea and talk about our days, and a well maintained kitchen for cooking.

I loved the areas around Cafayete for their incredible, heart expanding beauty and proud history and heritage. I loved the people I met at my hostel, all of whom were entertaining, funny, sweet, helpful, wry, interesting, or a combination of all those traits.

I loved the House of Empanadas, who served me the best empanadas I’ve had either in Brazil or Argentina.

Details, you ask? Happy to.

One day, I took a tour in the afternoon to visit the major landmarks of the Quebrada de Cafayete, the region I passed through on the bus trip from Salta to Cafayete but was pretty much too sick to actually appreciate. So let me preface this next part with a disclaimer. If you’re tired of hearing about how unbelievably beautiful the mountains are in Northern Argentina, stop reading now. OK, you’re still reading. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

It seems like, since I arrived in Argentina, the scope and scale of these mountains, their intensity in every way, have grown. The colors, the scale, the sheer force of them. First there was the Seven Colors Mountains in Humahuaca/Purmamarca. Then there was the next level, the Quebrada del Torro, with its height and its gauchos and its lonely beauty. And now Quebrada de Cafayete, with its tremendous scale, its rock formations so unique and unusual that they didn’t seem at all real, but maybe something out of an epic hero’s story or something on the far side of Mars. Rubies, rusts, oranges, pinks, clays, ochres… and also blues, violets, greens, and yellows. With their immensity so intense that the eyes just can’t see them, but flatten them out like a paint by numbers to just try and absorb them.

I saw these with Neil, who had just arrived at my hostel that day. Neil is a 31-year old freelance carpenter from Dublin, but living in Melbourne. A month ago, he was on a three day party streak in Melbourne and, while intoxicated during said three day streak:

· Decided that he had to travel to South America and figure out if he wanted to move there

· Logged onto a website, priced tickets and bought his one way plane ticket to Buenos Aires

· Packed and caught a taxi to the airport

· Rung up his Mum from the airport and told her he was leaving in an hour for South America and wasn’t sure when he was coming back

· Boarded the plane and immediately asked the flight attendant for a beer because he had “flight anxiety.” Sadly, he was turned down, the attendant saying that she couldn’t serve him until they took off. They took off, and he was served.

So Neil and I happened to be the only two people on this tour. There’s nothing like getting to know a crazy Dubliner over some of the most beautiful natural scenery in the world.

We stopped at several key formations and vista points to appreciate the rock formations the likes of which rival or surpass Monument Valley, Utah and the scale of which makes Monument Valley look like building blocks from a child’s toy box. We saw the sweeping playas and peaks, the mountains stretching back millions of years and looking ahead for millions more. The naturally-formed amphitheater, which was once a huge cave in the rock then was opened up by eons of rain and wind erosion. In this amphitheater, Cafayete has an annual music festival to take advantage of the incredible acoustics this naturally-formed amphitheater provides. I wish I could explain the scale of this formation. My pictures, for the most part, don’t capture it. Except for one. In this picture, you see the layers of compressed minerals and rock in beautiful arching and swaying patterns. And then, at the lower right center of the picture, you see a tiny speck. That’s Neil. That’s the scale we’re talking about.

We also visited the Devil’s Throat, another incredible formation equally massive and equally as impressive and awe-inspiring as the amphitheater. Here, I kicked in my rock climbing skills and scaled some short and easy faces to crawl inside the Devil’s Throat. The colors, the patterns, the scale. I felt dumbstruck.

These places throw me into simultaneous states of awe and confusion. As I marvel at them and am rendered speechless by their ancientness and immensity, I also think of how we humans have this odd tendency to think the world revolves around us. When in reality, the world is more ancient and more powerful than we could ever comprehend. It will live on millions of years past any memory of our species and will continue to be part of the grand scheme as it came into being at the beginning of time. And even how ideas like time, when used with these places, are simply weak constructs that humans have created to try and classify and understand and place and compare ourselves next to them.

That’s what these places, this excruciating beauty and immensity, are doing with me. I’m properly put in my place and get a tiny glimpse into the immensity and wide open infiniteness of space and time and mass and energy and spirit and physics and math and art, which are flimsy expressions of something nameless, unspeakable, limitless. Something unclassifiable and indescribable. Something infinitely beyond anything we can ever grasp. And that’s right and perfect.

But I digress.

While in Cafayete, I also visited the ruins of Quilmes. I took this tour, about an hour outside Cafayete, with Guillaume from Nice, who had also arrived the same day as Neil. His dry French sense of humor and vow each day that he was going to quit smoking today (“no really, today for sure, I just want to finish this pack…”) prompted me poke him in the ribs with a wry smile. Dating about 1000 AD, Quilmes was a complex indigenous urban settlement that occupied about 30 hectares and was home to about 5000 inhabitants. These people survived contact with the Inca, which occurred from about 1480 on, but sadly, they couldn’t withstand the onslaught of the Spaniards who in 1667 deported the last 2000 inhabitants to Buenos Aires. The site itself is impressive. Though no building still stands, a good percentage of the foundations of the site have been excavated. The foundations start at the base of a large hill and crawl up the hill in steps. I hiked up the treacherous hill to see the community layed out before me, making geometric patterns in the hillside.

When I arrived on the site, I was given a brochure in “Spanglish” explaining the story behind Quilmes. But fundamentally, what the brochure really was was an angry tirade against the invaders who broke apart the Quilmes community, which was rich with culture, heritage, history, and indigenous identity. It spoke of never allowing this type of invasion to happen again and called out to readers to vehemently support the preservation of indigenous people and Pachamama (translation: Mother Earth). It also called for things like restitution and reclamation of the tribal lands. In short, Quilmes is a symbol of all the genocide and destruction that non-native people have brought to Argentina and how change must occur to preserve these indigenous cultures.

I’m often struck by how the history of colonialism the world over is so bloody and horrible. And how it’s still occurring today under the auspices of “spreading democracy and promoting a free-market economy.” Sigh.

I also mountain biked while in Cafayete. I wanted to head up to the path that would take me to the falls at the Rio Colorado. I came across a rattlesnake on my way. Yes, another snake. I didn’t see it, but I definitely heard it. I was walking my bike past a cluster of low rocks and I heard a rattle. As I got closer, it sped up, and as I passed by and went on my way, it slowed and stopped. And the funny thing was, I didn’t even realize what it was until later. Oops. I should know better being from Oregon and California. This is snake story #3, just for the record.

Also, on my mountain bike ride, I had the chance to ride past several beautiful fields of grapevines and wineries (and did some tastings, of course). It was quite picturesque, with the green vines and dusty earth set against the tall blue-green mountains.

When all is said and done, despite the travel challenges I faced, I come away from Cafayete loving its beauty and uniqueness.

I guess, then, that Cafayete isn’t cursed at all. It’s blessed.

Arrival in Cafayete and Wine

I’ve left the Salta area and am making my way down the country. As of this morning, I’ve pretty much changed the rest of my itinerary in Argentina. The thing about the Lonely Planet guide books are that they say something nice about everyplace. In other words, not every place is as nice as they say. I had a conversation with some travelers and Argentineans last night and this morning and they gave me some pretty pointed reviews about a couple of the places I was planning on spending three to four days at. Now, they’ll only be pit stops on my way elsewhere. This is all good stuff. It means that I’m going to lengthen my stay here in Cafayete (which is completely lovely) and lengthen my stay in Mendoza, which, the more I hear about, the more excited I become to go there. To think that it wasn’t on my itinerary at all when I initially planned this trip! I’m glad that I went ahead and dropped the relatively small amount of money to fly down there. It helps that the exchange rate right now four pesos to one USD.

My trip from Salta to Cafayete was mixed. It was my third straight day of being on a listing, tilting vehicle as it careened around multitudes of tight corners. My stomach started to lurch and my head was pounding so it was a little difficult to enjoy the absolutely unbelievable territory of the Quebrada de Cafayete, a massive gorge of towering and stunning proportions and incredible rock formations and colors. My cranky self was saying, “Yeah, more stunning mountains, uh-huh.” And the non-cranky part of me was saying, “Wow, incredible, absolutely and totally incredible!”

The way I’ve decided to resolve this is to take a trip back into the gorge in the afternoon to a few of the key landmarks and watch the sunset set the mountain’s colors on fire. I think it will likely be utterly spectacular.

My first day in Cafayete, I settled into my new hostel, a quiet, clean and roomy place just off the main square.

Then off to taste a few wines.

I visited the two most recommended wineries in the area, Bodega Nanni and Bodega El Transito. Argentina is specifically known for malbec, but I also tasted a cab, a tanat, and a torrontes. The interesting thing about this wine region is that it’s desert so that has a very intense effect on the grapes. The reds are all hot, meaning they have a high concentration of sugars that make the wine very alcoholic tasting. Most of the wines are in the 14% range. And most of the wines that they drink here, no matter a white or red, it’s meant to drink young, to drink now. Aging apparently won’t do any favor for these varietals.

The interesting this is that this also makes these wines perfect for what they eat a lot of here, and that’s red meat – beef, llama, goat, and other strong and gamey flesh. So it’s this perfect partnership. However, I’m so far not finding a lot of subtlety or dimension to the wines, which is what I’m really used to, and like in my favorite California, French, Australian and New Zealand wines. So I’m adjusting my expectations and thinking instead of how to appreciate this wine exactly for what it is and what it does. This has helped me begin to appreciate the straightforward characteristics of the wines made here.

Salta, Day Three: On the Road to Cachi

Today’s trip took me into the Valle Calchaquies, through the Parque Nacional Los Cardones, to the town of Cachi. We set out early again and within the hour we were in the Cloud Forest. The mountains were covered in tall, tall trees with large green, lush canopies. These trees (the name of which I didn’t write down – sad face) have massive root systems that are actually fed from the top down. The clouds gather around the treetops, and the treetops actually gather the moisture from the clouds then carry it down to the roots of the tree vs. the roots gathering the sustenance and feeding the treetops. The cool, moist morning air, the deep green trees, the clouds shrouding the mountains in spots, then clearing or moving on – it was still and mystical, like the dawn of time.

It was good to be in a moist climate after many days in the desert. I sat for a few minutes within the woods and just breathed the damp air, letting it slate what felt like a lingering dryness in my body. It was good.

As we moved on, our guide pointed out large tufts of what looked like cotton in the treetops. In reality, these were spiders’ nests. (((shivvver)))

We entered Parque Nacional Los Cardones and sailed through the mountains, coming upon the Cachi mountain peaks, their nine heads capped in white snow. We stopped again at a long stretch of straight road, originally built so that there is less than a centimeter of deviation from a straight line. And here on either side of the one highway were fields of enormous saguaro cacti beyond what my eye could see. They stood, like sentries guarding the desert, or spirits with sunkissed blond halos around their heads, unmoving waiting for something or someone to whisper some secret that would finally, ultimately free them. They’ve been waiting a long time. The average age of cacti in this field was 350. These sentinels grow very slowly – at a rate of 5mm/year until they reach 50, then more quickly after their childhood as at that time, they reach a kind of critical mass, a size that enables them to absorb more nutrients, faster.

We reached Payogasta and stopped to have a lunch at a place that could’ve easily been in Sonoma – an adobe building with rustic beams protruding from the roof, a lovely patio with rough wood tables and chairs, gourmet twists on traditional Argentinean dishes, and wine. I had a Malbec (which is what this region is famous for) with some great tobacco, earth funk, and tart blackberry tastes/smells. While it wasn’t the best match with my dish, which would’ve been better with a white, I imagined a hearty winter meat dish and this wine, a perfect pair.

Next was the town of Cachi, a quaint and postcard-picturesque colonial burg, where I sat in the town square, drinking in the dappled sunlight and reading my book, watching people stroll by, or giggling as children and puppies played games of tag. Lovely.

After Cachi, we headed back to Salta via another beautiful early evening light drive.

I had a relaxed evening, for the most part, catching up on news and reading my book.

Tomorrow, I would leave Salta for Cafayete – the heart of the Northwest Andres region wine country.

Salta, Day 2: Salta is Gorges

I took a guided tour of an area outside of Salta – taking me on the route of the Tren de las Nubes (Train to the Clouds). Since I didn't take the train, I won’t describe it here, but if you want to know more about the miraculous building of this line, which took 22 years and a mastermind of engineering, you can see the Wikipedia entry here.

This route goes through stunning Quebrada del Torro (Bull Gorge) over one of the tallest peaks in Argentina and drops the traveler off in an isolated town called San Antonia de las Cobres. The steep mountains were made up of unstable rock so each rainy season roads are regularly buried, villages cut off from each other, and people traveling or working on the road are killed. The journey took us higher and higher, through rugged, rocky country and into mountains layered with striking colors – much like Purmamarca except on an significantly more grandiose scale – so that these colors and layers and heights went on for miles and miles and miles and miles, each mountain different than the last, each new view unique and beautiful, all the while colors and shades shifting and changing – greens, ambers, violets, mauves.

As we climbed higher, the guide advised us to put cocoa leaves in our cheeks to help stave off altitude sickness. Cocoa leaves are a mild stimulant with the idea being that they would dilate our blood vessels so blood could flow and our systems could get as much oxygen as possible. Unfortunately, the cocoa leaves didn’t seem to do much for me. As we hit climbed higher, I could feel my body become fatigued and dull around the edges. When we reached the peak of our trip, we all disembarked. Simply climbing out of the van and standing caused my heart to pound and my head to feel light and fuzzy. I swayed a couple of times, coming close to passing out.

After this peak, we emerged onto the puna, a massive open high desert plain and approached San Antonia de los Cobres, the second highest city in Argentina. Isolated and with the former primary industry of mining all dried up, S.A. de los Cobres now relies only on tourism to sustain it. And with only a trickle of tourists arriving each day due to its isolated location, it’s not hard to imagine that people here are poor and life is more about subsistence rather than luxury. What I find interesting about this is that people don’t move from this town to try and find better conditions elsewhere. From what I’m gathering from Argentineans that I meet is that 99% of Argentineans are born, live, and die in one town. People don’t move to find or create new identities or seek their adventures or fortunes in other places. What that means in these small isolated villages is that peoples’ heritage and racial purity stays intact. In S.A. de las Cobres, people were most definitely indigenous with no noticeable European influences. The people were beautiful in their unique way – dark sunstained skin, black hair and dark, wide set eyes, high wide cheekbones, full lips, and compact bodies. The children I saw had faces smudged with dirt, runny noses, and beautiful smiles. You can imagine that in such isolation, health and dental care are limited, and that showed. I don’t know if this quality of life seems good or bad to these people, maybe it’s neither. Maybe it’s just how life is and good or bad aren’t really part of the perspective.

While we were there, the Tren de las Nubes stopped in town, greeted by a makeshift market that the town sellers had set up. The train burped out a hundred soft white flabby tourists, the lifeblood of this town. Merchants sold the hungry, curious mob tortillas and grilled sausages, carved rocks and woven handicrafts, and posed for pictures with baby llamas for money. There was something here that made me feel uncomfortable. Like these people were circus freaks. I don’t know. Maybe the feeling was that Western privilege guilt? Something about it just wasn’t sitting right for me. I hung back and observed the show wondering about the impact of this type of tourism was and how it might affect these people’s identity.

After the melee, our group headed back toward Salta, catching the early evening sunlight on the layers and colors of the mountains, making everything seem more dramatic and breathtaking. On the way back, our guide pointed out a mammoth mountain, very steep. In it was carved a zig zag pattern. Apparently, these zig zags, which can be found here and there throughout the Gorge, and narrow paths that lead up and over the mountain, enabling people from one village to take burros with supplies to trade to another village. It amazed me. It looked like you had to be a mountain goat in order to scale these zig zags to the top. At another point, I pointed out a small hole drilled into the mountain. These holes are where villages collect water. Water sifts through the mountain and they build a series of connected pipes to guide the water to a spot where they can collect it. Amazing.

I arrived back at my lovely hostel at 7pm – a 12-hour day, had a glass of wine and some leftovers and crashed, preparing myself to do another 12-hour day tomorrow on another tour.

Salta, Day One: The Living and The Dead

I spent my first day in Salta relaxing. I slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, and wandered slowly down to the main square of the city. Salta is very charming in so many ways. The mood of the place is relaxed and people seem to be taking their time. The central square is shady and grassy with an impressive statue of a hero on horseback (don’t know who?) and muses surrounding him anchoring it. Around the square are charming cafes with outdoor seating, lovely little candy and dress shops, upscale hotels, museums and the occasional newsstand. Just past the immediate center square is a busy shopping area with clothing and housewares stores, fabric shops, bakeries, and ice cream shops. When I arrived, the school lunch break had just started and the shopping area was crowded with teens in their various school uniforms – looking awkward, giggling, rough-housing, and just being hilarious, hormone-infested creatures. It was fun to watch and made me grateful that I never have to relive my teenage years again.

After a while, I found a good place to sit and have lunch and see the world here go by.

[Aside]

Just a little something worth mentioning… even though people and websites say that the water in Northern Argentina is safe to drink from the tap, don’t believe them. I can personally attest to the fact that this is not so.

[/Aside]

Anyway, after lunch, I wandered over to the Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Mantana (MAAM), the archeological museum in Salta, which is quite famous. The reason why that is is becuase this museum owns a very significant find. An Inca find called the Children of Llullaillaco. This find was dug from the highest peak in Argentina, the Llullaillaco Volcano, coming in at 6739 meters. Artifacts on the summit compose the highest evidence of humans worldwide before the late nineteenth century. Here, archeologist dug in the snow and thin air to uncover artifacts from what they believe to be a sacrificial burial ground. Pottery, sacred items, dolls representing gods, and so on were part of this find. But the most important part of the find were the children. Three children were uncovered here and these mummies are believed to be the best preserved mummies in existence today. (Following portions borrowed from Wikipedia) “The Maiden” was found wearing a beautiful headdress, which meant she was probably a Sun Virgin, meaning she was chosen as a toddler to live with other girls and women who would become royal wives, priestesses, and sacrifices. She also wore a brown dress, and was buried with several statues. Her hair was braided elaborately She and the other children are believed to have been drugged with chicha, a maize beer, along with coca leaves, before being abandoned on the mountain. The maiden was 15 at the time of her death. She sits with her legs crossed and her head resting on her chest. She still has traces of cocoa leaves on her lips. “The Lightening Girl” was six years old. She also sat crossed legged, her hands resting on her lap and her head facing upwards and toward the southwest. She is called Lightening Girl because during her forever sleep in the mountain, she was hit by lightening and part ofher body as blackened from the electrical burn. The little boy was nearly seven years old. His knees were tucked under his chin and he has a ceremonial slingshot wrapped around his head. Some of the boy's clothes contained vomit mixed with blood, suggesting that he may have suffered from a pulmonary edema. It is believed that he died from suffocation. He was the only one of the mummies to be tied up, and a piece of cloth had been pulled around him tightly enough to crack his ribs and dislocate his pelvis.

All children are thought to be members of the elite due to their body manipulations, clothing and decoration. Because of the various conditions – height, cold and so on – these figures are all perfectly preserved. Only Lightening Girl was on display and I could see her up very close. Her hair was still styled. Her teeth were white and even. Her little child mouth was slightly open as if she was sleeping peacefully. Her eyebrows had a soft expression. She looked like she could come alive at any moment, simply waking up from a long doze. As I stared, I started to get an eerie uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. She looked so whole, so perfect, that I really could imagine that she would simply open her eyes and look right at me, like in some kind of movie where the dead children, unjustly killed, came to life to haunt and take revenge on those who exploited them.

(((shivvver)))

I finished my tour of the museum and rejoined the living outside in the warm sun.

The rest of my afternoon, I wandered about, taking a look at the large catedral (cathedral) painted pink with white trim, (!) as well as the Iglesia de San Francisco (St. Francis Church) painted magenta and yellow. They don’t have issues with color here.

Purmamarca, Jujuy, Argentina: Another Amazing Day

Yesterday, I tried to get a tour through Quebrada de Humehuaca, a region known for its natural beauty and a ways outside of Jujuy, but sadly, there were none that had an English-speaking guide and for the big money they wanted, I just had to take a pass. So my plan today was to just hang out and chill in Jujuy.

But when I woke up, I thought, “I can’t NOT go to Humahuaca because there’s no tour in English… that’s loco.” So I had breakfast – yes, and all-bread breakfast, all this bread is killing me, I’ll never be able to eat healthy on this trip – and headed to the bus terminal to catch an autobus to Purmamarca, about 1 ½ hours outside Jujuy.

I arrived at a small village, just a few dirt roads with adobe houses, a few restaurants and shops, and a small but lovely central square around which there was a local crafts market. Now I know that I’m in Northern Argentina, but I keep thinking I’m in Bolivia. Everyone looks Bolivian, the high desert feels Bolivian, and the handicrafts seem Bolivian.

The sweet solitariness of this place immediately spoke to me. I was far away from anything and surrounded by silent desert beauty. Purmamarca is known specifically for a natural formation that is utterly stunning, Cerro de los Siete Colores. I took my time strolling around the town and finally came to a road that looked like it led to the nearest hill. I saw a path and climbed to the top where I found other people sitting and quietly chatting, drinking maté tea and looking at the entire panorama laid out before us. The morning sunshine had this quality that I love, this certain brightness, newness. It was a perfect time to be drinking in this whole landscape. I sat for over an hour there, shifting my position like the hands of a clock every 20 minutes or so so that I could really absorb each detail of the formations surrounding me: the colors, the shades, the shapes. There was so much to see and I wanted to sink in to it as deeply into it as I could.

The sky a vibrant, intense blue and perfectly clear. In the deeper mountains: emerald, jade, adobe, moss, willow, deep grey, and grey-green. Offset by the deeper mountains, mountains in the foreground: adobe, purple brown, snow-pink, deep pink, burgundy, mauve, clay, rust, ochre, orange, peach, yellow-green. And closer in, the trees and their blooms of bright yellow and coral.

As I looked, I saw a small trail leading into the mountains. No one seemed to be taking it, and as a person who seems to be drawn to the road less traveled, I came down from my perch, sought it out and started walking.

I climbed and passed through a gateway of sorts, a “V” between two hills that was a passageway from town into mountains. The gravity of these formations became clear and present. I stood at the crux just drinking in the unbelievable view. Impressive mountains, hulking but also with graceful curves, presented themselves to me, or more accurately, I presented myself to them. No one was around. I set off. Without at map, in flip flops, and with only one bottle of water, I was cautious at first. But eventually as I walked, I saw two other people taking the trail ahead of me so I knew I could follow them and feel safe.

Broken rocks and intermittent desert scrub covered most of the ground save for the hiking path. Previous hikers had made rock mounds, altars or rough sculptures. I did a Goldsworthy meditation, carefully seeking out just the right rocks to build a round, column altar. I played with working quickly, and with working slowly, each of those processes yielding different experiences of building. After about an hour, it felt finished so I moved on. This hike had turned into a meditation, so I walked slowly through the large hill structures, taking my time to notice detail and see how things shifted as my own perspective changed. I heard the rocks crunching under my feet, felt the sun beating down on my shoulders and face and the wind cooling my skin.

I rounded another corner and a huge hill in shades of orange appeared. Not only were the colors amazing, but the erosion of the rock made fantastical stalagmite-like formations – as if the stalagmites all clustered together for protection against the elements.

On the last part of this hike, I was directly up against one of the large hills. It was made of millions of tiny shards of sharp rock, like pieces of broken glass, fused together by course desert earth.

I passed through another crux, like the one I entered to embark on this hike, and emerged again close to town. But before I descended, I stood still at this crux. Two hills rose on either side of me to create narrow passageway that acted as a wind tunnel. I stood there, feeling the fierce wind pushing me. It was so strong I could lean into it without falling. The sound was thunderous.

I made my way back into town, then to a hole-in-the-wall shop to get a drink and a late, late lunch, and to the little central square to read my book. At 4:20, I caught my bus back to Jujuy. It was a good day.

Tomorrow, I leave for Salta.