We'll be comin' down the Andes...

04 Nov Left Salta today bound for Cafyete, a small town further south and in the foothills of the Andes. Its a wine growing region and has a lovely climate. The bus trip took us through amazing scenery akin to something you might see in the Roadrunner cartoons. We checked into a nice hostel and had a look around the town.

05 Nov Rented a couple of bikes and decided to do a mini triathlon of sorts. It involved cycling to this place along a dirt road and then walking for 2 hours along a riverbed to a waterfall, swim for a bit and then back home. We got to the end of our cycle and started heading along the river bed. We were following these arrows and it turned out to be the wrong way. We weren't the only ones to go astray. We met Juliana, an Argentinian girl coming the opposite way and she told us that she met a couple of local boys who said she needed to go back. We joined forces, found the right way and started heading up the right riverbed. The river walk was very lush with lovely pools, small waterfalls and cacti. The walking involved climbing rocks and all kinds of obstacles. It started to get more difficult as we got close to the final waterfall. We were climbing this steep ridge and I looked back for Juliana. I saw her slipping and she fell about 10 metres, bouncing off rocks and ledges like a rag doll. I shouted for Fiachra, just up ahead, and we jumped down after her. I was sure she was dead. She was miracously on her feet saved by her squashed backpack and the final land was into a small pool of deep water. Her head was split open and blood was pouring down her face. She could hardly walk with the pain in her back and was white as a ghost. We pulled her out of the water and sat her down. We decided that Fiachra run on for help and I would play it by ear and stay with her. Well enough to walk we stumbled along and met Fiachra coming back with help, a couple who had hired a guide. Their guide had ran on and called the hospital. After a long, slow and tedious return to the road we were almost there and we met the medical resue team with a hard stretcher but was not now needed. Driven by themselves, the police arrived (4 of them) in a taxi ( a 30 year old Peugeot 504) and questioned what happened. It was hard not to laugh. They all piled into the taxi and drove to the hospital. Juliana was xrayed in the head and back and was ok. She had 9 stiches in the scalp and had an injection for the pain directly into her spine. We brought her home from hospital via the pharmacy. Shattered from exhaustion and the nerves me and frog sat down to a steak dinner and a bottle of wine.

06 Nov We went on a trip with 2 dutch girls from our hostel that we had met in Salta. We went on a 90km tour of the surrouding countryside and saw amazing rock formations. We were brought to this small canyon thing that had a local focloria (traditional music) band playing. The small rock formation had excellent ascoustics and without speakers filled the place with music. We went to this other place called 'Tears of the Sun'. It was a chasm type rock enclosure that created little water droplets that fell on our faces. It was hot, a completely cloud free day and the desert was as dry as a bone. Apparently no scientific explanation has been made. Wierd. Walter our guide drove us around in his old Peugeot and even let me drive it. It was a grand old yolk and we havent come all that far in the 30 odd years since it was built. At one point we were standing along the San Andreas fault, where 2 tectonic plates meet, and has witnessed some serious earthquakes.We saw lots of other stuff but only seeing would do it justice. That evening we went wine tasting ans sampled some organic wine.

07 Nov Left Cafyete this morning at 5am. We took the bus to Tucuman, which is probably about 2 hrs 30 mins away by car but took the bus 6 hours. We drove through every two bit village along the way picking up everyone from Nuns to school kids and their teachers. It was interesting to see part of their daily lives and general goings on in a dusty country village. It was exactly like what one would imagine rural Mexico to be like. We got to Tucuman about 12 and luckily got a connecting bus to Cordoba 5 minutes later. Another 8 hours later we arrived into Cordoba, after experiencing the maddest drivers in the world. It was a friday night and there were suicidal drivers everywhere. We were sitting on the front two seats of the double decker and watched it all happen. One lad was overtaking the bus with no space and ended driving into the hard shoulder on the other side of the road to avoid a collision. Another lad overtook the bus on the hard shoulder. We got to Cordoba and it was a big fast, aggressive, horn honking town. It was hot and sweaty and the hostel was a dump.

08 Nov Walked into town to the world heritage Square, Plaza San Martin for a look around. It was a big dissappointment. Some of the things to see were shut down for no reason and the banks were all out of money. We made an executive decision that the vibe was bad and got the 9pm night bus out of there that day.

09 Nov Arrived in Mendoza at 9am and after checking a few hostels, had to hang around until 2pm to check in. We met up with Cristina, an Italian girl, and all headed into town for a look around. It appeared to be a nice town but we didnt do much today. We met an Irish couple in our dorm and we all went out for dinner that night.

10 Nov After a good night sleep, Fiachra kindly shared his bed with a certain Italian lady, we got picked up for a mountain bike trip. After an hour or so, we arrived at this adventure centre place, collected our bikes and went further up into the mountains. The going was all on dirt roads with big rocks sticking out so we had to on our guard. It was tough in places but got progressively got more technical. Thank god for my BMX and dirt biking days as we were flying through twists and turns, narrow little passes, through streams, up and down like fiddlers elbows and flying it.
We both fell off a few times but escaped with only a grazed elbow. When we got back, we got chatting to an Irish couple from Meath. They were great craic and were on their honeymoon.
That evening we found an Irish bar and decided to have a beer. I got chatting to this Argentinian lad and he went on to tell me about great Irish lads he met while serving on the Peace corps in Kosovo. I asked him if he met many British soldiers and he said that he had and his superiors had met there British counterparts, both of whom had fought on opposite sides in particular battles in the falklands war. The stories were fascinating stuff.

11 Nov Went on a wine tasting trip to the world famous Maipu Valley, where most Argentinian export wines come from. We got the local bus therefrom Mendoza and rented bikes from a Mr Hugo. We cycled around to all the wineries and visited a chocolate liquer factory and olive factory. Funnily enough we had the best wine in Mr Hugos back yard when we returned the bikes as he kept filing our glasses with the locally made plonk. Back on the bus on the way back to Mendoza we watched an amazing thunder and lightening storm. The orange sunset against huge forks of pink lightening was beautiful.