Martijn's Blog

At breakfast in the hostel we ran into a Finnish couple we'd seen in the B&B in Mendoza also at the breakfast table. I told them about the old Dutch custom that when you meet each other 3 times in different places you have to buy a round of drinks. (they would have to buy us drink in this case since I am the Dutchman). They thought this was a good plan so we exchanged email addresses so we could meet up in Buenos Aires to help faith along a little.

After breakfast we went back to Santiago again and managed to find the airport in time for our flight back. And so our trip ended.

First we checked out the centre of Santiago and found the city full of business men and women in suits. When we arrived the day before we'd already noticed that Chile seemed much more modern than Argentina. After sitting on a bench for about 45 minutes, watching the people go by, I remarked that I hadn't seen one attractive person at all. Sam had noticed the same.


old and modern in Santiago

We didn't really like Santiago so we went to the bus station and took a bus to the coastal city of Valparaiso. When we arrived there I wanted to see the ocean. When we walked over to the 'boulevard' we saw that Valparaiso is really a harbour town: we couldn't even get close to the water because of a high fence.

After having introduced Sam to raw herring for lunch at the german restaurant called Hamburg we decided that we also didn't want to stay here. So we took the shirt bus ride to neighbouring Viña del Mar.
Viña is much nicer than Valparaiso, it actually has a beach! There seemed to be many students too.

From this and my previous postings I guess it's pretty clear I am disappointed with Chile: the service is bad, people are much less friendly than in Argentina, it is much more expensive (they wanted us$65 for a lonely planet guide which had the original us$21 price on the back), we had trouble understanding the spanish and it is kind of boring after having been in Buenos Aires.

We both agreed that it we'd travelled enough and we wanted to go back to Buenos aires as soon as we could. We booked a plane ticket online for the next day with Air France(the round trip was cheaper then the one way)

We decided to visit Chile because we were very close and also because Sam needed to extend her Argentinian visa. We were very unprepared for this visit and didn't even have a travel guide for Chile. We tried to find one in Mendoza but none of the 6 book stores we found had any information about their neighbour country.

So we just took a bus over the Andes and hoped for the best. This time we took a small Mercedes van instead of a large coach and that was a good choice. The roads were very narrow and there were many trucks that needed to be overtaken. Our driver enjoyed a bit of risk: overtaking where you couldn't see more than 10 meters ahead, pickjing fights with other drivers and racing over the snow covered roads.



When we arrived in Santiago it was about 21:30 and we still had no idea where to go for accomodation. Normally no problem, right ? We quickly wrote down some names and addresses of hotels/hostels that we found on the web in an internet cafe.

The first name on our list turned out to be right across the road from the internet cafe. A stroke of luck, not. The receptionist told us there was no room free and we'd have trouble to find anything free in Santiago because there was a big conference on.

We decided to take the subway to the next name on the list which was a hostel. Better chances we reckoned, because conference goers are not likely to stay in a hostel.
While walking to the hostel I saw another sigh for hotel so it seemed only logical to check whether they had room for us. In the hotel we were greeted by a toothless Chilean who assured us we could stay there until midday for a mere 8000 pesos ($14 ), which is really cheap for Chile (at least 2x as expensive as Buenos Aires). We were a bit worried by the host so we asked to see the room. A lady told us to look into any room because "they are all the same". When I looked inside the first thing I noticed was the jacuzzi next to the bed. I remember thinking: hey cool a jacuzzi, before realising these rooms were normally charged by the hour.

We kind of hurried out and found our original choice a couple of blocks further. The room they had was not much but we immediately accepted.

We changed hotels to a nice B&B and the lady there advised us the check out the bodega of Carlos Pulenta.



A relatively new vinyard by an experienced wine maker. Pulenta once owned the famous Trapiche vinyard. After that he led the Salentein bodegas for 6 years. This bodega is owned by a dutchman at the moment (and who said the dutch can only make yellow wine with foam?).

Now Pulenta started a new vinyard under his own name and it is geared to visitors: the complex is very beuatiful and the restaurant is excellent. Also the wines we got to taste here were really nice.

Today we went to visit the bodega "La Rural". They produce the famous Rutini wines some of which are also exported to Europe.
La Rural also has a wine museum where you can have a tour through the winery and the whole wine making process is explained. The most important part of a visit to a vinyard is of course the tasting. Unfortunately the wines we got to taste were of a low quality.

We made up for that by going for lunch -with some Germans & Swiss we ran into- and having some excellent wine with the food.
In general wine is very cheap in Argentina. Even in a restaurant you can get a good bottle of wine for about 20 pesos ($7).


a small part of the inventory riping in oak

Another long bus trip, 18 hours this time and -i was sitting behind a young guy this time. He obviously didn't think too much of personal hygiene so another interrupted night.

Mendoza is known for it's wine. Apparently it's the 4th largest wine producing region in the world. The area doesn't really have enough rainfall for anything to really grow but through a ingenious irrigation system the grapes grow well. Actually also all trees and plants in the city of Mendoza grow through irrigation. For this purpose there are little canals throughout the whole city.

When arrived in Mendoza in the morning both Sam and I didn't feel like sightseeing so we just stayed in the hotel and hung around the pool enjoying the sun for a day.

From Tucuman we drove quite a large distance back to Salta but all on paved roads so it went quite swiftly.


something else than kangaroos

# posted by Unknown @ 22:23 0 comments

On the way from Cafayate to Tucuman we came across the ruins of Quilmes. These are the ruins of settlements of the Diaguita indians. These indians allegedly withstood the empire building of the Inca's and the spaniards. The ruins themselves were not that exciting.

We went for lunch in Tafi del Valle, where I had a discussion about Argrentinian politics with the owner of the restaurant. Very interesting. The Argentinian government sold many state-owned companies like Aerolineas Argentinas or Entel to foreign companies (mainly Spanish) for next to nothing. I wouldn't want to acuse anybody of taking money under the table, but the Argentinians are now paying for these gifts from the 90's.

Tucuman is a fairly large city (500.000) and quite business-like compared to Salta. It has a nice and bog main square but I find that it misses the charm of Salta.

The drive from Cachi to Cafayate was very interesting again.
Like the day before the scenery was breathtaking.


Part of the drive went through a nacional park that contained nothing but big cacti. The cacti are protected now and I can see why. All furniture and souvenirs we saw were made of cactus wood.

finally made a friend


luckily he has a large family

Cafayate is a pretty little town that is filled with tourists from Tucuman in the summer. We almost felt like we were in the civilised world again.

another picture of the Rio Grande :-)

The drive from San Antonio to Cachi was definitely one of the most beautiful drives I have ever made. The road takes you over the Abra del Acay pass in the Andes which reaches an altitude of 4895 meters.



Especially the way down was a spectacular drive with a landscape that changed behind every hairpin. Rocks and earth of many different colours. A shame that pictures never really cover landscapes very well.

I think we came across one other car that day.

We drove the 250km ? from Humahuaca to San Antonio de Los Cobres over the unpaved roads which were mainly flat but we could not really drive faster than 80 km an hour.

We stopped in tres cruces for lunch. I think it was the cheapest meal we have had: 9 pesos ($3) for soup, milanesa (kind of schnitzel) with salad and jelly for 2 people.

The scenery was kind of boring except for the "Salinas Grandes" (the big salt deserts)

slightly overexposed.....

San Antonio is a little mining town at 3770 meters so nothing really grows there. The air is so dry that your nose feels like it's made of concrete inside. The only thing remarkable about this place was the amount of rabid dogs running around. Normally the place is famous because "the train to the clouds" (el tren a las nubes) stops here.

We had some trouble finding accomodation in this place and we ended up staying in empty barracks administered by the local gendarmeria. They were not heated so you can imagine how cold it was at night at that altitude.

After a couple of days in Salta we rented a car and drove over Jujuy to Humahuaca.
Humahuaca is a little town 3000 meters up in the andes. People live in modest circumstances but judging by the number of little hotels and hostels a fair few tourists still visit this town.


a little wild west scene


the quebrade de humahuaca (the valley hrough which the Rio Grande flows


it wasn't very "grande" when we saw it

Today we (me and my american friend Sam) travelled to Salta, a provincial capital in the north of Argentina. (it's almost on the same latitude as Rio de Janeiro)
In Salta the population is mostly indiginous as opposed to Buenos Aires where everybody looks kind of southern European.

We took a bus from Buenos Aires which took about 18 hours but the trip was not too bad because the seats went back all the way so I could even sleep a little (interrupted by a huge woman in front of me who was heaving and hissing the whole night).



Salta is a very pleasant little city (500.000 people in the city and surrounding area) and we spend a couple of days to look around. We also took the cable car up the little mountain and decided it was a good plan to walk down on the 'stairs'.
Of course the stairs weren't adventurous enough for me so I suggested to go down the steep and rocky shortcuts. Which went fine except when we came to the end, a high fence , with no any trace of the stairs. Whichever way we looked there were big (read expensive) houses surrounded by fences guarded by scary looking dogs. On the other side thick brush and trees.
One of the houses was deserted so I managed it to the other side of the fence and jumped down a fairly high wall just to discover that there was a locked gate on the road side of the house.
Finally after about 45 minutes of cutting ourselves through either side we found the 'path' to the main road again....phew.

End of September my parents came to Argentina for a flying visit. They had a whole 6 days to primarily see me and see the country as well. As it was their first visit outside Europe I tried to give them a good impression of the sights in the city.
We saw a lot of things:
-Recoleta cemetery (where Evita is burried)
-Boca (el caminito)
-Colonia (city on the other side of the River Plate in Uruguai
-Plaza de Mayo (with the madres de la plaza de Mayo)


mum and dad


the famous 'el caminito' street in La Boca


las madres de la Plaza de Mayo


some real tango dancers in La Boca