Football, Hills and Vino

I´m now in Sucre, Bolivia, having spent about a week each in Córdoba and Mendoza before travelling North to the border through Salta and Jujuy. Needing to arrive here in time to begin some work out in the sticks (before needing to head off again for a different job in Peru) inspired something of a rush through some genuinely beautiful parts of the world; and my so far mixed fortune in Bolivia has had me slightly ruing that haste. Details will follow, but having struggled to keep up with the blog I´ll content myself for now with summarising the highlights of my journey up to N Argentina:

Football in Rosario (18-20 Mar)

The match of my penultimate day in Rosario lived well up to expectations. Raucous chanting continued, impressively, from first to final whistle; with terrace-long banners and firecrackers providing the entertainment before and after the game. The football didn´t quite live up to the crowd´s passion: Lionel Messi´s former team could only manage a 1-0 victory over recently promoted Atletica Rafaela, although had Newell´s two strikers not squandered countless one-on-ones, the scoreline would have been more impressive. However, the atmosphere and such a comically inept forward display were enough to persuade to adopt a new team, and I am now a leper for life. After trawling the unofficial street vendors on my final afternoon, I eventually found an affordable pair of team shorts with NOB embroidered on them (it seemed funny at the time), and can now proudly wear my new allegiance on my, err, thigh. Job done.

I then left Rosario literally under a cloud, with a heavy thunderstorm making my departure more-than-flatteringly dramatic. I found saying goodbye to the hostel crew more emotional than expected (have missed them, and particularly being told I´m beautiful by Brayan on a near-daily basis), and the weather served to further complicate leaving Rosario. The sheer volume of water meant that I arrived at the train station with about two inches of water for company in the floor of my cab. I was confused when the train guard said to expect departure at about 8am rather than the 3am journey I´d booked, but a glance at the now-submerged track revealed why. After a month of stifling heat and sunshine, the apocalyptic weather prompted me to look up the Spanish for ´bloody typical´ (Google says ´sangrienta típica´, if anyone´s interested). Having cheerfully contemplated the prospect of having to sleep on train platforms before I left home, I duly set to it, although I hadn´t before envisioned actually having a train to wait for.

Architecture and Hills in Córdoba (20-25 Mar)

Staying a block from the jaw-droppingly beautiful Los Capuchinos church, as well as the nightly sound and light shows at the Buen Pastor fountains, was a real treat. I did however, spend a good deal of time in the city of Córdoba trying to get out of it, heading out for walks in the beautiful countryside. I visited pretty Alta Gracia, where I enjoyed the irony of being priced out of the Che Guevara museum; instead visiting the highly-informative Jesuit museum before strolling up to the impressively adorned Lady-of-Lourdes sanctuary. Convents or religious monuments seemed to occupy the choicest spots in many of these small towns, and visiting one (after a trip to yet another waterfall) in Tanti allowed me my first glimpse of a condor. The nun I was chatting to said it was only a small one, but the huge wings looked impressive enough to me.

My trip the next day to see yet more at the Quebrada del Condoritos (an 800m deep crack in the sierras where the brutes give birth to their young) proved to be a real treat. A glorious undulating walk brought us to the top of the gorge, where we could see pairs and more of the magnificent things spiralling their way up and out into the sierras. We´d started too late in the day to have time to climb down and see them up close, but being too far away to make out their comically ugly heads may well have been for the better. I could spout clichés about the thrill of seeing them in flight, but will content myself to say that after seeing many more whilst working my way up the Andes; the sight of yet another big black shadow rolling over the ground, and the glance up to see the massive black-and-white wings still gives me a buzz.

As if I´d needed any more convincing that couchsufing was the way to travel, it had come in the form of an invitation from a beautiful girl in Córdoba containing the phrase “I live with my three sisters”. Staying with the family allowed me a number of opportunities to sit in on Spanish conversations, although a good deal of them ´soared majestically´ over my head. They were a lovely bunch, and a resultant boyish crush (given me, probably just the result of being fed for four days) made for some difficult goodbyes from Córdoba too.

Wine and Mountains in Mendoza (26 - 31 Mar)

While the view on bus journeys in the East of Argentina had been fairly unexciting (the flat pampas merely scratching its navel and staring back), the rolling hills near Córdoba had been much more friendly. The Andes though, glimpsed from within Mendoza, gave a definite saucy wink. Whilst conscious that a long day´s solo walk is not a good way to go about forgetting a girl, the chance to actually indulge in a love proved irresistible (to be ever-so-slightly melodramatic). I therefore took on the 10km wind from Las Cuevas up to the Libertadores pass on the border with Chile. Beginning the 1km high climb in stunning scenery, with initially just mountain hares and eagles for company, I arrived at the top to come face to face with Jesus Christ. The statue of Christ the Redeemer has been there since 1904, overseeing the peace at the historically fractious border (apparently without complete success – he must have nodded off). After commiserating him on his, by now, no doubt aching arms, I agreed he´d picked a fantastic spot but suggested he could have picked a better angle to overlook. The views all around were splendid: although the High Andes are desert, with not even patchy vegetation, the snow-capped peaks and multicoloured mountains are still breathtaking (and at 4,000m, literally so).

Though conscious of the altitude, the temptation to run down the descents proved overwhelming. Letting the legs play out, with the slope falling away behind and the valley rushing up to meet me, led to moments of sheer, exhilarating glee. Having had plenty of fun whilst remaining gratifyingly headache free, I called it a day about 3/4 of the way down, thumbing a ride from one of the tourist buses (cheats) to the Aconcagua viewpoint. Framed by a perfect U-shaped valley (formed by glaciation, a fact sadly pointed out by a helpful plaque rather than my nascent Geography GCSE), the view of the South face of the snow-capped, jagged beast of a mountain was pretty spectacular. His neighbours are pretty dramatic-looking too. I´ve now said this of a couple of places since, but the High Andean scenery is like nothing I´ve ever seen before. It´s algo más, and left this wee gringo, far from home, giggling to himself in sheer, awestruck wonder.

The other must-do in Mendoza is wine. A bike tour round the bodegas in Maipú is a well-established favourite on the gringo trail, and I was fortunate to be able to go for one in the company of former university friend and fellow Physics-sufferer, Phil “me up” Howes (Phil´s travels down from Venezuala are entertainingly documented here). Pedalling along past the vines, with the mountains in the background, made for a cracking day out. As too did taking in a glass or few of wine. I´ve never before tried a number of different grapes against each other, and being able to start building up some cross references for the palate made for a genuinely educational afternoon. It made for a good deal of fun too, and we wobbled back to the bike hire place to take in yet more, and this time free of charge. My first real experience thus far of the full-on backpacker scene continued with our crashing the all-you-can-eat asado at the hostel of a fellow ´cyclist´ we´d met along the way. That proved to be an excellent idea, although my partaking in the free tequila ´happy hour´ (lean back over the bar and open wide) was definitely not. My idiocy in returning for another shot (I´m a sucker for free booze) meant leaving Mendoza for Salta the next morning was another painful departure.