A Walk in the Clouds

  
We decided to tie up our trip to South America, by re-visiting Peru and what is possibly the continent’s most iconic sight, Machu Picchu.

Classic view of Machu Picchu

Our first stop was Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city, in the south of the country and considerably prettier than Lima.  It’s colonial centre is made up of cobbled streets, the odd convent and beautiful courtyarded buildings constructed out of the local white volcanic rock, sillar.  A few days were spent wandering the streets, soaking up the daytime heat, even at 2,000m considerably warmer than Santiago, and once again enjoying the fantastic Peruvian food, something we will miss on our return to England.  

St.John and Clare in one of the streets of the Convent Santa Catalina, Arequipa
  

Plaza de Armas and the cathedral in Arequipa, with a backdrop of volcanos

Local lady in traditional dress weaving an alpaca fibre wall-hanging on a traditional loom

We caught an overnight bus to Cuzco, which, sitting at 3,400m, made us acutely happy that we had already had some time to acclimatise in Arequipa.  

Cuzco has enough history and remnants of the past to warrant a several day visit of its own, after all the Spanish, in true Conquistador fashion, basically built  their own town directly on top of the Incan one that was already there. This can be seen everywhere with huge Incan building blocks slotted together like a child’s jigsaw, forming the base of many buildings.  

The Plaza de Armas and cathedral in Cuzco

A visit to the cathedral is worth it, if only to view the a painting of The Last Supper with a guinea pig as the central dish, certainly a novel idea for most. Inspired by the painting we headed out to find some roast guine pig (locally known as Cuy) of our own.  We had actually tried it on our previous visit to Lima at the world renowned Astrid y Gaston restaurant but there it had gone by the name of Cuy Pekinese and had been beautifully prepared as little slithers of crispy belly, a bit like pork belly, and served with hoisin sauce and purple maize pancakes.  The one we had in Cuzco was a totally different proposition, an entire guinea pig, complete with head, teeth, eyes, ears and all, served splayed out (spatchcocked? butterflied?), with a serving of local golden roast potatoes.  While it my not have been quite as good as the gastronomic turn that we sampled at therestaurant  in Lima, it tasted somewhat like rabbit and was certainly edible.  I am not convinced however that the English market is quite ready to start eating what is perceived as a pet and certainly not with its head still on and teeth bared!

Guinea Pigs Before

And After! Well maybe not exactly the same ones but you get the idea…

Of course Machu Picchu is the main reason tourists flock to Cuzco and at times it did seem like there were more of these than locals wandering the streets, something that was almost definitely the case in Aguas Calientes the town by the ruins themselves.  There are two ways to get to Machu Picchu, the three day hike or the train. We chose the latter, being short on time, constrained on budget and quite frankly unwilling to join the snaking line of several hundred other people hiking up the trail infront of you and I am really, really not good at the camping in the cold thing!

The four hour ride takes you through the ever narrowing Sacred Valley to Aguas Calientes from where you can catch a bus up to the entrance to the ruins themselves.  While we had certainly seen more “complete” ruins in places like Chitchen Itza, what really takes your breath away about Machu Picchu is the setting.  It really is as unique and spectacular as it looks in all the photos, perched precariously a top its moutain peak, surrounded on all sides by a ring of higher moutains lost amongst the clouds. No wonder the Spanish never found it and it stayed hidden from the wider world for so long, after all who would be crazy enough to build a city in such a difficult to access location?!

Clare with Classic view of Machu Picchu in the background

St.John in front of Central temple ruins at Machu Picchu. Note the jigsaw like building blocks

Alter with a view

Clare inside ruined building with view of Waynu Picchu

Finishing our South American Odessy with Machu Picchu felt like the perfect way to complete our journey around the continent which we had criss crossed by air, land and the odd boat journey…

St.John and Clare at Machu Picchu

Ciao Chile

Well our time in Chile and Santiago is coming to an end.  We have now been in Santiago for almost a month, staying in our little apartment in the Barrio Bellavista with a spectacular view of the snow capped Andes across the city.

Views across downtown Santiago and to the Andes beyond from our flat
back…

We have of course been out and about exploring a little, but the main point of us being here was to take a bit of time out from travelling and get to grips with what we are going to do when we finally stop this wonderful, crazy adventure and return to England.  Wait, what was that, return to England?! Nooooo, let’s go to Asia… Well we did briefly dally with that thought when we found out it is cheaper to fly to Bangkok via Madrid with return ticket to the UK after, than it is to fly to Mexico and on to the UK!  Yes I know insane right, but we are being sensible, for the time being (and before we have experianced our first English winter in 3 years), and have decided to tie up our adventures on this side of the world with a trip back to where it all began, almost 18 months ago and of course the chance to get in a bit more diving, Mexican food and see old friends.  Oh and we couldn’t return without a tan which is sadly lacking at the moment!  

So our plan over the next 6 weeks or so is to head to Peru and Macchu Picchu which we really couldn’t miss, I mean it is iconic and we are (relatively speaking) so near.  Having said that it would have taken us a minimum of at least 2 days of solid bus travel to get there so we are splashing out and flying.  We then head back to the Yucatan for fun, fishing, diving and sun before (reluctantly) returning to sunny England…

Our time in Chile has been brilliant and eventful, though to be fair we were totally unaware of the huge earthquake and tsunami warnings as we were up an isolated mountain, we were down south when the massive fire tragicaly burnt down a large part of Valpariso and we even managed to miss the student riots that were in Santiago at the same time as us and we are in the middle of the uni district so don’t know how we managed that!. Apart from general dramatic happenings around the country, I almost had to have root canal and I can report that the denists out here are great and cheaper than the UK even on the NHS.  We have loved being here in Santiago, wandering the streets and cafe hopping in Lastarria, shopping in La Vega market for amazing avocados and fabulous fruits of all sorts and being kept up at night by the drums that always seem to start up around 11:30pm, seriously someone needs to tell the Chileans that carnival is over!

We still haven’t worked out what this wired, alien looking fruit is…

Chile has been a huge suprise, such variety hidden away in a long thin strip of land behind the Andes.  From the breathtaking mountainous fjords of Northern Patagonia to the scattered wine regions and the clear blue skies and spectacular nightime stars of the desert like Elqui Valley.  It is a country that needs more than a couple of weeks to truely appreciate it’s magnitude and even after nearly two months there is so much we still haven’t seen.  It is time to move on but I would like to think that we will be

Out and about in Santiago

Us on on top of Cerro Santa Lucia, a mini extinct volcano in the centre of the city, between Lastarria and Belle Artes

Barrio Londres/Paris

View from the top of Cerro Santa Lucia

On the steps and by the fountain at the bottom of Cerro Santa Lucia

The Valley of the Stars (and Pisco!)

We left Casablanca heading North up the coast, skirting Santiago and Valpariso on our way to the Elqui Valley.  The road ran along a rugged and barren coast, whipped by Pacific waves, making us long for the calm blue of the Caribbean again.  Finally, we reached the coastal city of La Serana and turned off, heading back towards the Andes which had been a smudge on the eastern horizon on almost our entire journey, a constant reminder just how narrow most of Chile is. 
We stopped first for a couple of nights in the small, arid town of La Vicuna and after a night on the pisco, spent the next few days catching our breath, meandering round the little artisan market in the main square and in paricular enjoying the heat of the day after what seemed like so long in the cold as autumn came further south.  

Finally sun and heat again! By the pool at our little apartment in Elqui Pisco

The Elqui Valley itself is almost barren but for a small area that runs along the meltwater river from the eternal snows and glaciers in the high Andes.  The sides rise up high and steep, with a ribbon of green running along the bottom.  This is enough to keep the valley fertile though and everywhere you look there are vines.  There are one or two vineyards for wine production but the mainstay of the area is Pisco.  This potent and popular drink is distilled from the grapes and it is claimed by both Peru and Chile as their invention and national drink.  The on-going dispute can become heated and is the reason that our destination had its name changed to Pisco Elqui, to stop the Peruvians claiming it as a demarkation of origin for their pisco!  

On the road to Elqui Pisco, a view back down the valley.

Pisco Elqui is a quite little town, supposedly at the centre of a magnetic vortex that connects it with Lhasa in Tibet and as a result has collected its fair share of Buddhist monks, hippies and people looking for alternative lifestyles.  It is also supposedly home to numerous UFO sightings, perhaps something to do with the abundance of Pisco or the free love life-style…
Whatever your thoughts on all that, it is a peaceful place, perfect for a bit of R&R, inspiration and tranquility.  We had found ourselves a little self-catered place on the edge of town and the peace soon over came us, enabling us forget the outside world for a few days and our impending stay in Santiago where we would be deciding on our future.  

From our balcony we could look out down the valley at the purest blue sky we had ever seen, not even a hint of a whisp of cloud marred it on any day or night.  Every evening we happily watched the sun dipping towards the mountains, staining the dusty, yellow-gray shale mountains pink, before giving way to darkness as the stars rose in a swathe across the clear night skies and finally the moon rose, bleaching the moutains a bright white.  This is the other reason people venture to Elqui Misti, the night skies.  The surrounding area is home to several large observatories, placed here due to almost complete lack of light pollution and some of the clearest skies on earth.  The valley gets almost 300 days of completely clear skies, with only about 4cm of rain a year.  One of the not so obvious benefits of this is that the humidity level is only around 5% so the air is incredibly clear, perfect for star gazing and hence the startlingly blue daytime skies.  

The view from our balcony in Pisco Elqui

Barren mountains, vineyards and the bluest of blue skies with not a cloud to be seen…

We manged this time to book ourselves in to a small observatory and we can both say without a shadow of a doubt it was one of the most edifying experiances of the whole trip.  We had a brillant English speaking guide who showed us the hurricane belts and moons of Jupiter, the bright, copper penny of Mars, as well as fabulous jewel boxes of nebulas on Orions sword, globular star clusters and many more things that made us want to go out and buy our own telescope there and then.

Of course being in the Pisco area we had to visit at least one Pisco distilery, and so we chose a local, artisanal one.  The tour was in Spanish but having by this stage been on numerous wine tours we could get the gist of what was going one.  While I don’t think I will be rushing out to buy Pisco anytime soon, it was smoother than expected and it definitely works well in cocktails and is no where near as evil as cachaca!

The old copper stills at the distillery

Pisco in the barrels

We would have liked to have stayed on a few more days in Elqui and it was certainly somewhere we would consider returning but it was finaly time for us to hit Santiago.

More wine sir?

Arriving in Talca at about 7am, after an overnight bus ride we had several hours to kick our heels before we could collect the rental car for the next couple of weeks.  Finding a taxi we asked him to take us to a cafe or somewhere we could sit with a coffee at the very least.  He looked slightly non-plused, it was after just before dawn and no one really seems to get going here till at least 9:30/10am but eventually he suggested a gas station 24 hour cafe.  We sat there for several hours watching an increasing stream of mainly men coming in for coffee and breakfast, in fact it was so busy we started to wonder if there was actually anywhere else in town open for breakfast!  That or this was just the “in” place to be and be seen!
Finally we were able to pick up are car and start on our tour of the wine regions.  Having by this stage been to quite a few vineyards in Argentina we didn’t feel the need to do a tour of everyone we visited here in Chile, instead we did some simple tastings, some tours and a few lunches.  
I am not going to go into immense detail as to be honest at this stage it is all a bit of a blur and no, that is not through over-indulging which we actually didn’t, but simply because we have at this stage seen so many we can’t even countenace the idea of visiting another, at least for a while!!

The first wine region we stopped in was the Maule Valley, known for it’s carmenere and cab franc.  We visited Viña Balduzzi for a tasting which was very imformative and delicious wine and Viña Coral Victoria for lunch in its lovely restaurant.  On the way north we stopped at Miguel Torres for lunch but the prices blew us away so we settled for a tasting.   

The Colchagua Valley and the town of Santa Cruz was the next region we hit. Known for Carmenere, Cab Sav, Merlot, Syrah, Viognier, Sav Blanc, Pinot Noir , it has some of the biggest and best known wineries in Chile.  We did a couple of tours of some of the higher end ones.  Our first tour was at Montes a big but beautiful vineyard, very modern and high tech designed on the principles of feng shui with gregorian chants played to the wine in barrels, something about the resonance helping the wine’s taste grow!?

Wine in the Barrel at Montes being “relaxed” by Gregorian chants

Next on the list was Lapostolle, highly recommended as one of the best in the country.  the facility was designed to let the wine develop as naturally as possible and was designed on levels dug into the hill side with each stage of the process gravity fed, ultra high end and design orientated.  

The modernist wine tasting room on the bottom level of Lapostolle
 

Finishing off the day we had a late lunch at the beautiful Viña Viu Manent, a stunning setting with an excellent viogner and final tasting at Laura Hartwig. Four vineyards in one day is pushing it but we survived.

Lunch under the vines at Viña Viu Manent

An older slower pace of life at Viña Viu Manent

The Casablanca Valley was our last wine region and to be honest by this stage we were wined out!  Known for it’s colder climate it produces more whites like Viognier, Sav Blanc, Pinot Noir, Chardonney, Syrah, Reisling, Gewertstraminer.  We started this last day of our wine tour with the boutique vineyard of Bodegas Re and were blown away, out of the 20 vineyards we have visited here in South America it was by far our favourite.  Using various innovative processes it produced some outstanding wines, including a fantastic rose, completely unlike any others we had tried here in Chile or Argentina.  Lunch was at Casa del Bosque, which has won numerous awards for its Pinot Noir but irritatingly we were unable to try! We finished up at the huge vineyard of Indomita, interesting if only to see a vineyard on such a large scale.

Indomita, a huge winery, the buildings of which wouldn’t look out of place in the Californian hills

On the Gaucho Trail

Returning to the mainland we headed to Puerto Varas, the outdoor “activity” centre for the Chilean Lake District of Northern Patagonia.  From here we were headed to Cochamò Valley, an isolated valley a little further south.  Only accessible by boat until 1986, it is still an unspoilt beauty and this is before you even head up the old Ox road towards the Argentine boarder.  We had arranged, with Cochamò Adventures, to do a 3 night/4day horse riding trip in the area.  Picked up at 8am, driving out of Puerto Varas alongside the vast Lago Llanquihue (the 4th largest lake in S.America) we caught sight of the Mount Fuji-esqu, Volcan Osorno, cone shaped and snow-capped in the rising morning mist, a truely beautiful sight.  We drove on down to the valley, the tarmac turning to dirt as we rounded the head of the magnificent Reloncavi fjord, glass smooth and the perfect, sheltered location for the scattered fish farms.  Here is the source of the giant salmon and trout that haunt the local rivers in abundance, lucky escapees that have bred freely with no natural prey.  

Volcan Osorno rising Mount Fuji-esqu out of the morning mists of Lago LLanquihue

Reloncavi Fjord

Arriving at the Riverside Lodge we left our bags taking just the essentials, that were strapped to our horses and off we set following our gaucho guide, along the old ox-road to our destination.  
The old ox-road, now most often known as the Gaucho Trail, has been used to cross into Argentina for at least 400 years by people as diverse as missionaries and (rumour has it) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, along with gauchos driving cattle between the two countries. The part of the trail we were travelling was mostly shaded in thick Valdivian temperate rainforest and traced the route of the roaring Cochamò River.

Riding up the old Ox-road

St.John and Cochillo (our gaucho guide), note his very cool goat-skin chaps, having a lunch break

We finally arrived at the Mountain Lodge in the late afternoon and were greeted by Tatiana, who was to look after us for the next few days, and afternoon tea.  The lodge was a simple wooden one-storey chalet type building and with the isolation of the valley, no electricity or any other mod-cons.  Heat was produced by a heavy old cast iron range (brought up by horse back, like everything else and the only possible form of transport in this forgotten area), it also cooked the food and heated water for showers.  At night, light was provided by candles and the only link to the outside world was by radio.  The peace wa absolute, no noises of the modern world could be heard, it seemed like another era and as can be imagined once the stars come up as there was absolutely no light pollution at all, the Milky Way staining a bright white river across the sky, we had never seen anything like it… It was bliss, complete peace and isolation from all distractions of the outside world.

Keeping warm on with the cast-iron range in the refuge

Tatiana’s wooden shingle house in the hidden meadow in the shadow of La Junta (the name the granite peak that dominates this part of the Cochamò Valley, meaning the meeting of roads)

Cochamò was special and I would go as far to say it as the most special of all the places we have been lucky enough to visit during our travels.  It is almost impossible to describe the impact this scenery and place has.  The best I can come up with is probably the most simple “awesomely breathtaking” as in awe-inspiring and of a wild beauty that quite literaly takes your breath away… We had never been anywhere like this. The hidden meadow in which the little wooden lodge nestles in splendid isolation is surrounded by thrusting, raw granite peaks, the higher ones drapped in lace shawls of the first snows.  The rushing crash of the Cochamò River is the eternal soundtrack, with top notes of pipping birdsong, unadulterated by any modern sound.  Ancient, temperate valdivian rainforest cloaks the lower slopes of the entire valley in glorious, lush, velvet green.  As I watched out the window of the lodge, snug by the heavy woodburning range, the soaring grey granite peak of La Junta changes, Cezanne-esque with the light of the afternoon.  Broad, block-like brushstrokes of shifting greys, blues, purples and a thousand gradations in between as the sun moves lower across the sky, catching the streaks of snow-melt waterfalls that spiderweb the surface.

La Junta in the morning light

All this may sadly become a thing of the past as the Chilean government is currently considering 2 projects which may irreparably change this entire area for good.  One is the daming of the Rio Puelo in the next door valley near Lago Videl, which is also at the head of the Cochamò River and the other is to develope a road following the old ox-road to the Argentine border.  Both of these projects would mean the complete disappearance of an older, slower way of life that exists here in these mountains and valleys.  There many not be hundreds of people living up here but those who do preserve this way of life and do not want to move down to the cities.    It would be a tragedy for Chile to let this place of beauty and the old ways of life dissapear forever..

We bid a sad good bye and headed back to Puerto Varas, Cochamò was somewhere we would never forget and always hope to go back to, whilest praying that the propsed road and damn never happen.  St.John had managed to get in some good fishing once back at the River Lodge and caught a big salmon and we had stayed on an extra night, relishing the peace and countryside before we headed back to “civilisation” and another step closer to Santiago.

The Cochamò River and looking up the Valley

St.John off fishing…

Chile Chiloe

Leaving Argentina we headed over the Chilean border and straight for the little known island of Chiloe.  Chiloe lies forgotten just off the coast of Northern Patagonian Chile.  It is an island of sea-mists and legends and was the last foothold of the Spanish Empire in South America.  For anyone who has been caught in a blanket of smothering sea-mist before, you know the feeling of complete isolation and silence, of touching the edges of another world…  This is Chiloe, seemingly more seperate from the mainland than a slither of water should warrent.  An independant identity, far removed from any other we had previously encountered in Latin America.  This is an island where witches are still very much in the collective conscience and legends are part of the everyday.

Known for its UNESCO wooden churches and its Palafito houses, wooden houses on stilts (you can stay in one in the capital, Castro), it is more similar to the wilds of Northern Europe, as I imagine the Shetland Islands perhaps, than Latin America.  Apple orchards abound beside single lane roads lined with blackberry bushes and wild fuchsia, along which you might encounter yet another herd of sheep or a man and his oxen drawn wagon.

A traditional Chiloean wooden church

The main church in Castro (the main town on the island) – decoration inspired by Sponge Bob Square Pants?

This rural way of life is reflected in the artisanal crafts of the island, handknitted jumers and woven blankets, knobbly and thick in natural colours, knitted by the fires during the long winters and jams made of rosehips and blackberries  
Fishing is the mainstay of life on this island, with an abundance of seafood from oysters eaten at roadside shacks (though possibly next time we’ll take our own wine as I am not convinced oysters and nescafe are really a good match!), to king crab, chilean abalone, salmon and conger eel on every menu, sparkling fresh and a welcome change to the meat heavy diet of Argentina.  

Shucking oysters in a quayside shack

A days haul of seaweed (used for agar-agar in the food and cosmetic industries)

Green Valdivian temperate rainforest lines the west coast, damp and mystical, like Murkwood, with twisting trees and hanging mosses, hummingbirds zipping between branches and no other sound to be heard.  Even the roar of the sea is dampened by the low-hanging mists.  When the sun comes out though it is quite simply dazzling, reflecting off the water of the many rivers and lakes that riddle this island.  

St.John in Murkwood?

If you are lucky you will be here at the right time to visit the penguin colonies, sadly for us the last 5 left a few days before we arrived.  All year round sealions and dolphins can be seen in the surrounding waters and at certain times blue whales and other whales drop in to make the sheltered waters of the east of the island their nursery.  While we saw the odd sealion, typically I missed the dolphins, which yes St.John did see – again!!

St.John hanging out at the ruins of a Spanish Fort

Clare with a hummingbird she rescued after it knocked itself out on the french windows

Argentina – Part 2

Of course no visit to Argentina is complete without a stay in an estancia.  We drove down to Estancia Los Viabros about 3 hours south near the town of Dolores, an elegant 19th century working estancia with both beef cattle and horses (of course), set amongst thousands of acres of flat pampas and owned by a charming family of girls of St.John and my ages.  We spent the days riding and relaxing and even managed to catch part of carnival in a local town, it might not have been Rio but it was still fun and thank goodness, there was no cachaca!
No stay at an estancia would be complete without an obligatory asado, this time lamb (freshly slaughtered that morning), which St.John declared the best thing he had eaten on the entire trip!

Lamb on the asado down on the estancia

We waved goodbye to my mother and aunt back in Buenos Aires and ourselves headed west to Mendoza.  The entire area used to be desert, and the only thing stopping it from returning to this state is the irragation network oringinaly created by the local people in pre-Colombian times to re-direct melt water from the Andes towering in the background.  Pretty impressive considering that this is now the bustling hub of 5th largest wine producing country in the world, most famous for its affordable Malbecs, though of course there is much more to it than just that one…  
Unlike Cafayate where it is easy to just drop into the winerys, here it is advisable to take a tour, leaving them to arrange lunch, transport and entry into the winerys themselves (many of which require advanced booking).
We chose to do two tours, the first day in the Lujan de Cuyo area and the second day in the Valle de Uco.  Here again was a range of winerys from boutique to huge (though perhaps not by world standards), some ultra-modern in their techniques others more tradtional, often reflected in their arichtecture.  The Valle de Uco is a relative new comer to wine-growing, and currently the place to have your vineyard, as a result the land prices have rockets to an astounding $180,000 per hectare!  So no vineyard buying for us then, damn!  This only reflects though quite how big a business the winetrade is…

More wine! Some in James Bond style underground lairs, I mean cellars

Of course we couldn’t visit the area and not pop up the road to the Chilean boarder and Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas as well as the highest outside the Himalayas.  It can take up to two weeks to climb and that had never been on the agenda (as soon as someone says ice-picks, I am out of there!), instead we drove up to the National Park and viewing area and were lucky enough to get there with a break in the clouds, allowing us to see the peak while condors flew overhead…

Natural Salt Bridge with the ruins of old English hot baths, just down the road from Aconcagua

Argentina is a Big country so yet another overnight bus ride was needed to get down south to Bariloche, in Northern Patagonia, also known as the Lake District.   We weren’t blown away by Bariloche (and its hundreds of chocolate shops are nothing to write home about!) but the drive through the Siete Lagos (7 Lakes) to San Martin de los Andes made up for it, winding through the mountains, around lakes of emerald green and turquoise.  San Martin is a swiss chocolate box of a town, bizzare to come across in the middle of Argentina, with its alpine buildings and high prices.  We were only passing though on our way to Junin de los Andes.  Our first impressions, under a glowering sky with a wind whipping up dust storms were of a dust-bowl of a one horse town, but when we woke the next morning to clear blue skies the whole place was transformed, a stunning, trout-filled river running though a wide open landscape.  St.John could fish to his hearts content and as it was perhaps more a true gaucho town than any other we had been too we of course managed to find an excellent parilla.  We reluctantly returned to Bariloche via Lago Trufal, a breath-taking drive through countryside reminisent of Lord of the Rings, with deep lakes and lonely castle like spires of rock.

St.John fishing again, at last

Gaucho in the river outside Junin

Lago Trufal

Road Trip through the Lake District, or is it Lord of the Rings?

A final goodbye to Argentina – Casa Rosada

Argentina – Part 1

Next stop, Argentina, entering overland at the Iguassu Falls, truely spectacular and where St.John finally came to understand my disapointment in every other waterfall we had seen so far.

Just WOW, not to be missed Iguassu Falls

Yet more buses took us across tha northern part of the country, via steamy ruins of Jesuit Missions, long hidden in the jungle, to Salta.

In the ruined gateway of the Mission at San Ignacio Mini

Travelling in style on Argentine buses, yes that is free champagne, and yes it was actually very good! Oh and Bingo!
>

We were due to meet my mother and aunt here but first we had time for a little road trip north towards the Bolivian boarder, to Purmamarca with its “Hill of Seven Colours” and the Salinas Grandes, Argentina’s version of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats, an endless expanse of white, water covered flats reflecting the cloudless sky.

The Hill of Seven Colours

Where sky and flats meet….

Meeting my mother and aunt back in Salta we extended our road trip south to the wine region of Cafayate.  Not as well known as Medoza and considerably smaller, it is also one of the highest wine growing regions in the world and known for its Torrontes white wine, a disinctly Argentine wine with an aroma reminisent of elderflowers and an acidic, green taste.  The town itself is tiny and the bodegas vary from boutique family run, tradional places to larger, shiny new internationaly owned ones.

Trying out the wines of Cafayate

From Salta we flew to Buenos Aires, a perk of having a visiting parent!  Argentina was the only place I had been in Latin America before we started this trip and returning to Buenos Aires did not disappoint!  I love this city more than any other we have been to out here.  Buzy and beautiful, the cafes, restaurants and bars overflow into the street.  In Palermo, where we stayed, there was no shortage of little boutique shops on lining the cobbled streets owned by local designer/makers full of bags, shoes, fashion and home decor that cried out to be bought, truely heaven in a continent of malls.  There is a chic flair to the city and the Portenos themselves, a slightly arrogant self-assurance, indeed the “Paris of South America” is an apt moniker.  The siesta is sacrosanct, a practise that seems less common in other parts of the continent and in BsAs you shouldn’t even contemplate going out to dinner till at least 10pm, something that is very apparent at 3:30am with the bars and squares still overflowing and the clubs open till 7am…

I haven’t even mentioned the food yet.  Everyone knows that Argentina is famous for its beef, in every cut imaginable but mainly in huge, mouthwatering slabs, grilled to perfection and not a vegtable in sight.  They are without doubt the masters of the asado (BBQ) and parilla (grill) and they also do excellent lamb and pork, you will wanto to consume as much as possible and forget about the greenery till you leave.  Of course to help you digest it all you will need a nice glass of Malbec…

A sample of Argentine Parilla – Tire de asado (or short ribs), chorizo and steak

We did of course manage to do more than simply eat and window shop in BsAs. A trip to Recoleta Cemetry was fascinating if a little chilling when you could actualy see the coffins in their tombs.   This was remedied by (eye-wateringly expensive) cocktails at the Alvear Palace Hotel, just next door.
One day was spent on a private island in the Tigre Delta, courtesy of my brother, who had joined us, with his girlfriend, for a few days break from work further south.  A little oasis of thickly wooded islands scattered among snaking waterways, it made for an easy, peaceful day trip to escape the hustle and bustle of Buenos Aires.  

Tombs in Recoleta Cemetery

Another day and a night entailed a quick trip across the Rio Plata to Uruguay and the quaint town of Colonia Sacramenta with its unevenly cobbled streets, colourful houses and cars still suck in the 1950s…
Old cars and more wine in the streets of Colonia Sacramenta

Brazil Re-visited

We left Colombia soon after the New Year to return to our starting point in South America, Brazil, specifically the Marau Peninsular for St.John’s brother, Ali’s, wedding.  It was an epic 3 day journey of bus, plane, taxi, ferry, bus, ferry, golf buggy, in fact taking us longer than anyone crossing the Atlantic, just proving once and for all that continental travel in South America is neither easy nor quick!  It was peak-season this time round when we arrived in Barra Grande and the bars and beaches were overflowing with people, a complete contrast to the empty, peaceful beaches of our previous sojourn on the Peninsular.  

Post Wedding we continuesd down the coast to Rio and Paraty.  Rio was crazy, vibrant and hedonistic, just as you would imagine.  Paraty a blissful, albeit to brief retreat into forgotten colononialism, emerald seas and jungle clad islands.

Clare with a bustling Ipanema and Dos Irmãos in the background

Looking back at Paraty

St.John sailing the islands around Paraty

Santiago At Last

Well we made it to Santiago at last, after about 16 months of travelling, including our little return trip to England.  It is a huge relief to know that we will be stationary and in a flat of our own for a month, able to un-pack and get some sort of routine back in our lives including being able to make our own food.  
Our flat is in the Bellavista area of Central Santiago with a view across the city to the Andes, which as we are now in Autumn on this side of the world, are occasionaly sprinkled with snow.  The area itself if bursting with cafes, bars and restaurants of all varities and the big food market of La Vega is only a short walk away, all in all a perfect base for us to get down to the business of working out what comes next…

I am well aware that there is a HUGE gap in our blog, for which we apologise.  Over the next few weeks we intend to do a general catch up of highlights. Before we leave Santiago it is our aim to be fully caught up and able to inform you of the next stage of our adventure…