Meat, wine and long bus trips

Our blogging promptness seems to have taken on a South American concept of time – i.e. slightly later than planned! Mostly due to the fact that we've been covering some serious distance lately. In the last week or so we visited the amazing natural wonder of Iguazu Falls, eaten meat, meat and more meat and had good family times in Buenos Aires, and then had some time wine tasting and bike riding in Mendoza. But now we’ve now reached the 12^th and final country of our travels, Chile!

In South America, bus travel is easy and affordable so everyone uses it. The good news is that Argentina has some of the best buses in the world. The bad news is that you are still on a bus. Our long-distance rides have been 15, 16 and 18 hours - longer than anyone wants to be on a bus! It’s kind of similar to a plane in that you get fed, the chairs recline to 160 degrees, wine is served, movies are shown, and in one case they even organised a game of bingo! Of course it’s also kind of different from a plane due to enthusiastic braking, endless corners and oncoming bright lights at 3.45am.

In Buenos Aires, we stayed with the Bagnoli family, who are family friends of Jess’. It was so nice to be part of a family again! We had lots of good food, with the highlight being an amazing asado (Argentinian barbeque). We think we are pretty good barbequers in New Zealand, but Argentinians are on another level! Their bbq’s are designed with a fire on the left and all the meat on the right, with no direct flames below it. As the embers fall from the fire, they are then moved under the meat. The meat slowly cooks into a state of perfection over 2-3 hours. Tender, tender, tender, and utterly memorable.

One of the other highlights of Buenos Aires was that I brought Richie McCaw’s All Black shirt. Well it was an All Black jersey anyway, with a number 7 on the back. It cost $23, so it was probably the real deal.

We needed to get from Buenos Aires to Chile, a mere 25 hours via bus. We made the sensible decision to break this up with a stop in Mendoza: serious wine territory. The vineyards and neighbouring olive farms are all close to town, so it’s very easy to rent a bike and do some wine tasting. The bikes came complete with no gears and a warning not to drink alcohol and ride (difficult on a wine tour). For some reason we started with an olive tour, despite the fact that neither of us like olives. Augustin (unfortunately not Augustin Pichot, former Argentinian halfback) was one of the brothers that ran the company, and gave us a guided tour. I immediately regretted being on the tour when he said “The olives on this tree are terribly bitter. You should try it”. And so we did, and they were indeed disgusting! The man knows his olives. Thankfully we also got to try some olives that fell into the tolerable/mildly enjoyable category, and had some really good olive oil and bread.

We then went on to see (and taste) some cool vineyards. All the wine was really good, and even helped to suppress the frustration of getting a flat tire 2km from home. Moral of the story: Don’t take shortcuts down stony backroads on under-equipped bikes after an afternoon of wine tasting. Bad combination!

Continuing the bus theme, we took a beautiful bus ride from Mendoza to Santiago through the Andes mountain range. We had a long delay at the Argentinian-Chilean border, because the Chilean government was there shooting footage of the border security process. We got the most thorough bag check EVER. Unfortunately there was no dramatic smuggling activity to be filmed, although there was an unnamed, rather gorgeous, New Zealand woman who had fruit confiscated for the second time on her trip. She shall go unnamed, but her name does rhyme with Hess Florence. (If you see her in the future, ask her about the embarrassing incident with the sniffer dog and the overripe banana at the Peruvian border).

We are now on the island of Chiloe, in Chile. We are here volunteering for the next month with a family who run a tourism business. They have three energetic young girls who are a lot of fun, despite telling me I “look like a devilish man with that red beard”. I’m convinced it was a compliment.

Petite snacks handed out on a classy busride

The roadside scenery as you pass through the Andes

Olive farm taste testing time!



Firey goodness....and I don't just mean the beard



All bikes should come equipped with a manly basket!

 

 

Buenos Aires glows at night

The Bagnoli's, minus a few

Photos de Iguazu!

Hi family and friends and any such others,

We've just visited Iguazu falls in Argentina/Brazil, and have made an album on facebook with a few photos. You can view the album without signing into the website - too easy! Click on the link below to check them out :)

Spoiler: Get ready for lots of water and lots of butterflies.

Photos photos photos! Click here!

Adventures with the Ecuadorian milk industry

We have just finished our final few days in Ecuador in true style – walking the Quilotoa Loop. The loop is essentially a collection of remote, uncommercialised villages in central Ecuador that can be reached by a challenging hike or via unpaved roads on unreliable public transport. Fun!

We set off on a rather packed bus (humans and live chickens) to Chugchillan, our first destination. From there we rode on the back of a truck to Quilotoa, the site of a beautiful lake in a volcano crater, and started an 11km walk back to Chugchillan. In an effort to ‘encourage’ visitors to hire a guide, the locals have removed all signs that offer directions. Although guide-less, we decided to be confident in the random scrawling on a rather vague map we’d been given. The map included helpful phrases such as “At the sandy outlook turn left, you can’t miss it” or “follow the path to the right after walking for ten minutes”. Unfortunately, there were many paths on the right and lots of sandy outlooks that turned out to be very easy to miss!

After a few wrong turns, we made it to a village where we hoped to buy lunch. We saw what we wrongly assumed was a lunch establishment. The signs were all promising: people eating at tables, large pots of rice and salad on the table, etc etc. But as we walked into the building, all conversation suddenly stopped and instead there was a hugely awkward silence. When asking if we could buy food, we were met with a decisive “no”. It turns out we had walked in on an official meeting of some kind. Oops. We moved on to the only other food option in the village, where they told us we could have a plate of hot chips for 50c. Unfortunately the chips were cold; the ‘hot’ bit came courtesy of a fried egg perched on top. Not ideal, but it gave us enough energy to make it the final 6.6km back home.

The following day we walked 14km with two Swiss friends and three hungry dogs to a tiny town called Isvilini. We stayed at a great hostel where we relaxed in hammocks, ate great food and played some epic games of Bananagrams (we reckon we've found a word game that trumps boggle!).

On the final day we needed to somehow get back to the city where we started the loop. We heard there was a milk truck going in the right direction, so we decided to try and catch that. It sounded ideal in concept – surely it would be 45 minutes on a large, slightly cooled milk truck with complimentary chocolate milks at our leisure. What came to pick us up was instead a very small, very dusty ute, with an open back for people to stand in and severely lacking in complimentary milk, cooling and general safety standards. There were ten of us crammed in the back tray, and while the first few people were lucky enough to get seats on rice bags and milk barrels, the rest of us hung on to rails that were missing bolts in what appeared to be essential places. While we thought we were on the milk delivery truck, it soon became apparent that we were on the milk collection truck. So we stopped at around 10 farms, where a lady from the truck would sprint off, get a bucket of fresh milk from the farmer, and then come and pour it into our barrel. Not content to just collect our money, the driver ensured we were kept busy by pushing the truck when it broke down on hills, pouring milk and lifting a small child off the truck. The quoted 45 minutes turned into an incredibly dusty 2.5 hours. It was a great adventure though, with the added bonus of having my dust-laden beard no longer appearing ginger for the first time in a month.

The trip was a great finale to complement the rest of our time in Ecuador - the relaxing in Baños and the crazy-mazingness of Galapagos. For a country we hadn't originally planned on visiting, it has been an absolute blast!

Laguna Quilotoa - what a colour!

This lady was all smiles until we asked if we could take a photo

A house along the route

Jess and her loyal steed. It turns out she really likes donkeys.

Anita and Rolf, our new Swiss friends

Dodgy swing bridge. We made sure we only stepped on the nails!

We were all trying desperately but unsuccessfully to avoid the dust

The milk truck was at maximum capacity!