The Plastic Backpackers - Salta & Mendoza

So I left you all in Potosi...

After a fantastic, if not at times, a little scary day spent in the mines, Daniel and I found ourselves on yet another night bus to take us to the border between Bolivia and Argentina...

I can tell you now that one of my pet hates is getting off a bus, where people have been snorting and snoring all night, before sunrise and being pounced upon by 10-12 vulture-like bus tour operators....Even worse is when they follow you down the street when you have given up saying you're not interested, and have now decided to ignore their constant screeching about what times the next busses leave - And all of this before 6am...

I can also tell you the border town of Villazon, Bolivia, has absolutely nothing happening at that time or at any other time of the day, for that matter...However we did find a tiny hovel, owned by a very lovely couple, who made us coffee and bread, while we slowly got our brains into first gear.

We then took the short walk to the bridge that made the border...Got out of Bolivia, just after 6am, only to have to wait to get into Argentina - Border didn't open until 7am...Gave me a great opportunity to get beaten at backgammon a few times, and for the both of us to meet a Hugh Grant lookalike, who gave us some great tips on doing Mendoza, Argentina's wine region...
All in all, it's not so bad waiting at borders, if you're going to get advice on how to best sample the wines of a country.

Finally after 20hrs of travel time, we arrived in Salta. Decided it was a good idea to break the trip up and stayed there 24hrs. Salta is a lovely little town, and had we stayed here a little longer, we probably would have made it to the vineyards here too, but hey....Can't have everything.

This is also the place where Daniel decided it was a fabulous idea to leave his keycard in an ATM...And to realise he'd done so half an hour later. Wouldn't have been so bad, if both of us hadn't been starving....However dinner was postponed and calls to brothers partying in Spain, (long story, too long for the blog,) and brothers sleeping in Sweden were made, cards cancelled and two bottles of red promptly consumed...

Funny how us girls are absolutely fantastic at spotting things...Inbetween, losing the card, organising our bus down to Mendoza, doing some quick sightseeing, I spotted my first souvenir!!! An Oliva (Argentinian Bag Designer) handbag...Ladies it is just gorgeous and it was just begging to be taken home by moi!

Before we knew it we were back at the bus station, to travel down to Mendoza....

Now is when I should explain 'The Plastic Backpackers'...The term came up in Chile when Katerina told us we were not real backpackers as we had unassumingly booked a bus to the north with reclining seats and the price included snacks...Apparently this was luxury travel....

Well, Katerina, if you thought that was luxury... After not having slept properly for almost 72hrs, I was happy to pay a little extra on another overnight journey...We travelled first class from Salta to Mendoza...Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that bus travel could be so comfortable, and hilarious.
You could almost fit another half a person in your leather seat...You had a blanket that covered you from head to toe when you were lying horizontally to sleep...The food was not so bad and included wine, AND (this was the best part,) you get to play Bingo with the rest of the passengers!!! Daniel was very upset, when he lost with just one number to go. Poor baby!

In first class there were five of us...One German, and Italian, a Dane, Daniel and myself...Well, once we hit the open road, the German promptly poured himself a whiskey, and insisted we all join him - It would help us all sleep!

The movie that evening happened to be the latest Rocky....Seeing as I hadn't seen the first many, it wasn't the movie I was laughing at, but the Italian and the German, who were cheering at the happy moments arms and legs in the air (this can be done when your seat reclines all the way back), booing at the bad guys, were waving their arms in the air when the music came on. Needless to say it wasn't the movie that was the comedy.

Just outside of Salta the bus, along with a few kilometres worth of cars behind us were stopped on the highway due to a demonstration of somesort...Fires, dancing, drums...It lasted approximately half an hour, before we were rolling again...With me almost missing the bus, I was so intent on what was going on...

Finally arrived with a decent night's sleep, to a very, very, very wet Mendoza....We were driven with the Danish girl to one place...But the Plastic Backpackers preferred having a private bathroom, so decided to walk to another hotel. By the time we made it there, we looked worse than drowned rats.

However, after a hot shower, we headed off to the Museo de Area Fundacional....Our main reason for going was to see the Incan mummy found on the slopes of Aconcagua, (Sth America's highest mountain). How disappointing....They only had a photo.

The museum made up for it though, as they did have an olive oil tasting which was amazing!!! Found out about Prensa, Frantoio, Arauco, and Manzanilla, oils which are named after different olive varieties...With exception of the first which is a blend of the other three....Very yummy - Couldn't help ourselves, had to buy a couple...One which would make its way back to Sweden.

So here we were in Mendoza, heart of the wine country of Argentina....Plastic Backpacking fever hit us again, and instead of doing a bicycle tour of the vineyards, we chose a few exclusive vineyards to see over the space of two days, hired a driver and organised lunch on day one in a place serving typical food, and on day two in a French restaurant....It's a difficult life.

La Rural, Familia Zuccardi, Carmelo Patti, Achaval Ferrer: All the vineyards were amazing, as all of them included a tour of the vineyard and an explanation on how their wines are made...Fermentation time, el sombrero, new versus old processes, and the famous oak barrels...Most of them are from France. Apparently French oak is definitely the best to age wine in...Needless to say a few bottles were bought....A few bottles were sampled...

One of the vineyards which caught our attention was Carmelo Patti...Wines simply bearing their maker's name...And so they should be considering he makes the wine himself from A to Z: From manually selecting the grapes, to emptying and cleaning the vats, to checking each corked bottle for oxydisation, to sticking the labels on the bottles, to putting them in boxes ready for shipment...For 9-10 months of the year there is only him and another man working in his little winery...Three more people are employed when it comes to harvesting time...

That's wine made with a lot of love...


The Mendoza region is best for growing Malbec, which comes from a translation of French meaning 'bad mouth' - It was a grape variety which did not grow well in France...Hence the name. Boy did we drink a lot of it. By the end of our two days, I was feeling extremely knowledgeable - Almost expert material; Give me the grapes and the machinery and I'll make it for you!!!!

Our time in Mendoza was clouded though - Quite literally....Mendoza usually gets 200 millimetres of rain per year...During our 5 days there, they received half of that, which is quite unheard of, and a worry for the wine makers....Too much water in the soil, means watery tasteless grapes...Not good for vino.

While in Mendoza we also went to a tango evening...A dinner and dance affair...No, not us dancing - Professionals. It was just sumptious. The restaurant was located in an old wine cellar, and vamped up. The dancers glided throughout the restaurant, while we were sampling a scrumptious plato para picar.

We also decided that a few days hiking to the base camp of Aconcagua were in order...However our dreams were quickly swept away when we went to book our nights in the geo dome - It had been snowing and the geo dome was closed...We could do it ourselves, but would have had to buy a heap of equipment that either both or one of us already had...Just not in Argentina...So we decided on a one day tour instead, to get a decent view of the mountain.


There isn't much to say about the actual tour....Out of the 11hours of the tour, we spent approx 8 of those on the bus...Not brilliant. However we did see Aconcagua...With a lecture:
We were told that part of the tour was a 1.5-2 hour hike within the national park...Well, when we arrived at the park road, we were met by big cement trucks who were doing road works, and so we could not get to the start of the trekking path....


We all jumped out of the bus about 200m away from the trucks, to take our photos...I pretended not to hear the guide telling other people in the group that we could only go a distance of 100m from the bus for our photos...Dreadful view of the mountain as there was a hill infront of it. So, Daniel, Tom, (Austrian guy) and I walked to the top of the hill to get better photos...I kid you not, the top of the hill was a further 100m...Boy did we get into trouble when we got back....Rebels!!!!


Funny part was everyone, in the bus telling us that we had done the right thing.

The Mighty Aconcagua....And us.

After five days...It was time for us to move on...Direction Buenos Aires, to catch the Buquebus across to Uruguay....


Time for another blog....
More pictures available on: http://www.ringo.com/profile/alex_corcoran2000.html