As
Buenos Aires faded into our rearview mirror, we excitedly awaited our
coming weekend in Mendoza. We had skipped the wine capital of
Argentina so far on our trip, but were excited to plunge into the
Malbecs, Cab Sauvs, and other great wines the region is famous for.
The drive across the country was unexceptional as we motored along
busy highways that were of high quality. The only real hassle was
making sure we had our perishable foods hidden in the fridge as we
were stopped at several state border checkpoints. Thankfully a
combination of city living and craftiness allowed most of our things
to get through unscathed. Driving into Mendoza, we could quickly
see that the wine tour experience here would be different from
Cayfayate, as the city is much larger, the traffic greater, and the
city more spread out. There was a clear gearing of things towards
tourists, and tour buses in particular.
We
made our way through the outskirts of the city towards a campsite
that had good reviews and would be a nice basecamp for us and our
friends. Happy to see signs advertising the campsite, we followed
them down a bumpy gravel road towards the site. We pulled in, and
immediately saw the complex was HUGE, made to hold hundreds during
the summer, with overnight and picnic campsites, a pool, playground,
the whole shebang. The owner pointed out where we could grab a spot,
which wasn't difficult because the place was empty being low season.
We settled in, unpacked, and messaged our friends Colin and Aurielie.
Being a bustling tourist metropolis, we moseyed over to the grocery
store to load up on wine and grill meat to celebrate the evening.
Returning to the campsite, we saw the bright blue “Dodge
Experience” parked near our site. We first met Colin and Aurielie
in Guatemala, and last saw each other in Cusco Peru, where Aurelie
and Bethany's families joined us for drinks. Colin was wearing his
trademark smile, and we chatted about life on the road since we'd
last met as we began unloading. In true French fashion, they
encouraged us to spend the afternoon playing a wine game, where we
covered the wine bottles and attempted to guess the color, blend,
age, and type of the wine blind. Bethany and I, being novices,
considered getting the color correct a win for us. Colin and
Aureiele, being experts, would try to guess if it was a blend. By
the end of the fourth bottle, it didn't matter if you were right or
not.
“What's
going on? Why are you getting up?” a half-asleep Bethany asked me
in the middle of the night. “Nothing, just checking something
out.” I replied to her. As I was drifting off to sleep, headlights
swept across the tent and I heard the rumble of an engine, that then
went into idle, with the lights aimed near where Sweetcakes was. As
they sat there for over a minute, I started to get worried; were we
being scoped out? Was someone breaking into Sweetcakes? I hopped out
of the tent, and saw a couple in an SUV periodically outlined by the
headlights as they walked in front of the vehicle. Overlanders? But
it's late at night, and overlanders wouldn't come into a campsite
this late! Nevertheless, satisfied, I crawled back into the tent and
settled down for the evening.
“So,
we can rent bicycles from this place?” Bethany asked no one in
particular as she looked at the gate to a nice house with a lawn in
Mendoza. At that moment, the old man sitting against the fence
looking into the distance perked up and inquired if we were looking
to rent bikes. We said we were, and he cheerfully got us bikes,
bottles of cold water, and gave us a long run-down on great places to
check out during the day. We formulated our plan, and kicked off our
wine tour.....by going to an olive oil factory. This was fine though
as we got the private tour, learned about their process for making
it, and celebrated surviving the tour by having varied flavored oils
over bread, as well as olive tapenades and spicy sundried tomatoes.
Leaving the first place with a full basket wasn't a great idea, but
we knew our future selves would thank us for being so smart.
From
there the wine tours started, and we didn't feel so bad about the
wine we were drinking as we had to haul ourselves so far across town
to get to them. It was serious work on the old bikes and Bethany and
I quickly realized that we were seriously out of our biking form. The
wineries were nice, but we realized that many of them brought their
torrontes grapes down from Cafayate as the altitude in Mendoza was
too low to make the Malbecs and Torrones pop with color and flavor.
Let's be clear though, the wine wasn't bad, particularly when
we were wrapping up our last tasting of the day and Aurielie poured
her last two out after tasting them. Bethany and I shot each other
looks as if to say, “The wine has to be pretty bad for either of us
to do that!” But we're just unsophisticated Americans, not classy
French. After a long day of drinking and eating, we returned the
bikes and settled down at the rental shop to have our free
celebratory glass of wine. Tired and hot from the biking, we
naturally took the chilled white to help us rehydrate. [That's how
it works, right?] Returning to the campsite, we had a chance to
introduce ourselves to the overlanders who had arrived the previous
evening that I initially thought were devious thieves. Kevin and Emma are an Australian couple making their way north from Buenos
Aires. We actually knew they were in the area from Facebook, after
learning about their unfortunate break-in early on in their trip
where thousands of dollars of gear and photography equipment was
stolen. “It was just an absolutely crap week.” Emma explained of
the time leading up the break-in. “I hope the assholes got the
bedbugs we'd just caught.” she said with pure vindictiveness in
her voice. Frankly, I couldn't blame her. That evening we fired up
the 'barbie' [seriously, Bethany could not stop making
'barbie' jokes with her terrible Australian accent.] and did
homestyle parrilla, enjoying some of the wine we'd just
purchased as well as some cold brews. A great way to celebrate great
trips.
I'll take 2.
"And remember a meal without wine is breakfast!" truer words were never spoken.
"Age only matters for cheese and wine"
Doin' it ourselves.
We
bid farewell to Colin and Aurelie the next morning, promising them we
would come visit them in France at their guesthouse and try the wine
that's unique to their town. [Really, what a burden it would be!]
We also told Kev & Em that we were making our way to Cafayate and
to look us up when they got there, as we'd love to meet up again!
“Hey
guys, I was looking at my itinerary for my flight down there. It
looks like my flight into Buenos Aires and my flight to Salta are at
different airports?” came the question over the phone from my Mom a
few days before her visit with us started. “What? No. We looked
into it and made sure that when bought your ticket they were at the
same airport.” came Bethany's reply. “Oh, ok, well, let me
forward you my itinerary so you can verify. Whew, I was worried!”
Bethany and I sat in Sweetcakes in the parking lot of a grocery
store in Mendoza, on our way out of town, waiting for the e-mail to
complete it's forwarding. After arrival, Bethany opened it up.
“Well shit.” was enough to let me know that indeed, she was
going to need to make a transfer between the airports. “We'll call
you back mom, we need to figure this out.” The two airports in
Buenos Aires are across the entire city, with one focusing on
international flights and the other on domestic. There thankfully
was a shuttle between the two, but it would likely take so long she
would miss her connection. We then spent the next few hours trying
to call the Aerolineas Argentinias help line to change her
ticket, while also realizing that phone calls on our Argentinian SIM
card were ruinously expensive. 14$ later in fees, and 6 attempted
calls that had either been dropped because of an empty balance or
poor signal, we finally had her ticket changed and her shuttle
booked. We explained to her what she'd need to do to get between the
airports, and wished her the best of luck as we continued our way
north to Salta to pick her up in a few days.
We
made a tough to decision to skip part of the scenic drive along Ruta
40, as the route had been under construction our last time through
the area. We ended up being validated in this choice, as we
discovered later that the road was in really rough shape and Kev and
Em tried it not long after us.
We
spent a quick [half?] day in Cafayate to scope out places to stay
when mom arrived. Several places looked great, and we enjoyed
getting to stay in the Luz y Fuerza campground again. During
the drive up to Salta the following morning, we anxiously awaited a
phone call from my mom with updates on how her transfer between the
airports went. We hadn't heard anything, but finally noticed a
missed call from a number we didn't recognize and a voicemail.
Realizing we hadn't set up our voicemail on the phone yet, we quickly
got through the setup to listen to our message, which was Mom calling
us to let us know she'd been able to get on an earlier flight and
would be arriving at two instead of at eight. YESSSSS!
After
hugs and happiness with her arrival, we made our way back into Salta
and to our boutique hotel for the evening. We were greeted with a
glass of wine and a beautiful room for us to share for the night.
Bethany and I went to park the car at the secure lot nearby the
lobbyists directed us to, but saw it was closed. Driving around, we
attempted to find another, but to no avail. Eventually we rolled
back to the front of the hotel and checked in with them. “So, we
can't find parking, is it safe to park in front of the hotel?” we
asked, with caution in our voices. There were reports from other
overlanders that smash and grabs against tourists were increasing in
Salta, and the last thing we wanted was to go through another
burglary. “No, it will be fine!” the staff assured us. So, with
a bit of trepidation, we left Sweetcakes out front, but made sure to
take in all the important valuables, and hid some other stuff in
Sweetcakes, and crossed our fingers.
We
took a stroll around the nearby plaza, took mom out to some delicious
fast food, and helped her settle in to her first night in Argentina!
We awoke the next morning and went down to breakfast, and happily saw
that Sweetcakes was fine. We packed up, excited to roll down to
Cafayate for wine tastings! We tossed our bags I the car and checked
out. We were parked across from a school, and had noticed the
students out and about along the second and third story balconies.
Returning to the car, Bethany remarked that the students seemed to
notice a commotion that was going on below them. “Looks like
someone got in trouble....” she said with a bit of a sing-song to
her voice like a kid would have. At that same moment, I was putting
the key into the door and noticed it wasn't fitting. “Son of a
bitch, we were just broken into!!” I said out loud. As I
was processing that, someone came up to us and asked if the vehicle
was ours. “Yes” we replied. “Some men broke into it, but the
police caught them. They're over there.” the person told us,
pointing to the two men with their hands behind their backs against
the fence of the school.
Thinking
back to when we'd dropped our stuff in the car a few minutes earlier,
I remember turning to look as I heard a car making the sound of a
hard acceleration in reverse and thinking to myself, “man, they're
really in a rush to get into that parking spot.” and realizing now
it was the thieves parking to break into our car. I was furious, but
was happy to learn that since they had been caught, our stuff was
fine. After a few minutes, Bethany had the idea to check the car for
our stuff, and lo and behold, the guys had gotten in. We were angry
at ourselves because normally our valuables are tucked underneath the
bed platform specifically to protect it if we had a break-in, but
were all still in the backpack from when we'd brought it into the
hotel.
A
plains-clothes police officer told us they'd caught the guys, and
asked us to take the time to press charges as the men were known to
target tourists. We agreed. Bethany got frustrated when we saw
local TV news reporters showing up; they wanted to do an interview
but I couldn't speak Spanish and Bethany didn't want to. Pulling her
aside, I said to her, “this is an opportunity for us to tell the
people of Salta how tourists like us know it's not safe for us here
and let them know what overlanders think about their city.”
Reluctantly, she agreed, and started talking to the reporter. The
reporter was excited to have a gringo [and a blond!] who knew Spanish
to interview, but as I watched them chat from the side, I could tell
he was quickly getting bored. It was his own fault though, as he
kept asking elaborately long questions to Bethany that only required
one word answers. “So, those men over there broke into your car
and stole your stuff?” “....Yes.” “And the police caught
them and got your stuff back and you're happy?” “....Yes.”
Finally though, he finally asked a bit of an open-ended question and
Bethany took the opportunity to dive in. I distinctly remember
seeing the reporter's eyes perk up and then his attention focus as he
realized he had some good TV coming. “Well, it's just sad because
we love Argentina and its people, but it's so sad that Salta
isn't safe for tourists like us! We're leaving Salta today and aren't
coming back!” Bethany told the reporter. Gold Jerry, GOLD!
Eventually they took us over to the getaway car, with the thieves still up against the wall near us. In one of the single best moments of our trip, there was the ludicrous scene of the police dramatically opening the trunk of the car and the cameramen jumping forward and zooming in on the view of our two bags there, followed by the police taking our stuff out of the bags piece by piece to itemize on the police report, and one of the thieves muttering “this is crazy!” as he got drug to the front of the car, bumping Bethany and saying, “excuse me Miss” to her. From there we went to the police station to file the official report and get our stuff back, where one of the plains-clothes cops told us how he saw the men break into the vehicle from 50m away, sprinted down to him and put him in a headlock and tossed him to the ground. It was a dramatic reenactment he gave us. From there, we made our way over to the Judicial Palace [court house] to press charges and finally headed out, half our day gone. “Well, now at least you got a taste of real overlanding!” We joked with mom. The day could only go up, and it quickly did as we took the drive through the valley between Salta and Cafayate.
Eventually they took us over to the getaway car, with the thieves still up against the wall near us. In one of the single best moments of our trip, there was the ludicrous scene of the police dramatically opening the trunk of the car and the cameramen jumping forward and zooming in on the view of our two bags there, followed by the police taking our stuff out of the bags piece by piece to itemize on the police report, and one of the thieves muttering “this is crazy!” as he got drug to the front of the car, bumping Bethany and saying, “excuse me Miss” to her. From there we went to the police station to file the official report and get our stuff back, where one of the plains-clothes cops told us how he saw the men break into the vehicle from 50m away, sprinted down to him and put him in a headlock and tossed him to the ground. It was a dramatic reenactment he gave us. From there, we made our way over to the Judicial Palace [court house] to press charges and finally headed out, half our day gone. “Well, now at least you got a taste of real overlanding!” We joked with mom. The day could only go up, and it quickly did as we took the drive through the valley between Salta and Cafayate.
ENJOY JAIL, SUCKAS
The drive we remembered as gorgeous still was. It started with green farmland on the way out of the city, where we eventually stopped to grab mom some coca-cola. “This tastes weird...” was the first thing she said upon trying it. “Yeah, they use real sugar down here. It's awesome.” was our immediate reply. Once we made it to the entry of the valley, the green swapped out to browns and reds, and the sun started to break through the clouds. We paused to take a short hike, then continued down to Cafayate. Mom marveled at the stunning views of the mountains and rock formations, and the sky cleared up as we came out of the pass into the Cafayate valley.
We were still worked up over the theft I guess....
SO STEEP. what a bunch of goofballs
We
found a nice cabana to stay at and worked on finding a
locksmith to tend to Sweetcakes. Not wanting the day to go to waste
though, we made sure to grab some wine.
The
following day we took it easy and went to just a couple wineries,
including our personal favorite, Domingo Molina. As we made our way
up to the central plaza at the end of our day, I saw a familiar
vehicle parked: Roger! Kev and Em's Nissan Patrol! We went over and
said hello again, introduced our mom. The five of us agreed to
reconvene the next day to do some additional touring together, and we
did, hitting up several of the in-town wineries we could walk to.
Enjoying yet more wine, and super cheap tastings, we settled in for
lunch. As lunch was wrapping up, we heard the strong stoke of a big
diesel engine, as Kev looked over and quipped, “huh, Colorado
plates..” Wait, Colorado overlanders? Don't we know some people
fro—OH MY GOD IT'S AJ AND KAT!!! For discerning readers, you may
recall we met them back in Guatemala when we hung out with Dan and
Heather. We introduced them to my mom, Kev, and Emma and caught up.
Super excited, we decided that further wine tours would now be done
in large group to facilitate happiness. We celebrated this great
decision by going out to dinner that evening and drinking lots of
wine. Bethany was in “rare form” as they put it to us.
Argentinian Lunch [dinner] with Kev & Em in Cafayate
As
the only couple that had been through Cafayate previously, we made
sure to take everyone to our favorites, again making a trip to
Domingo Molina. At this point, we figured we had earned a discount
from the winery for bringing so may people to the place [and it being
our 4th trip up there]. Domingo Molina was started up in
the hills of the Cafayate Valley by the sons of the brothers that
started the Domingo winery down in Cafayate that is popular
throughout Argentina as a decent cheap wine. The sons named their
winery after the surnames of their parents. After their winery was
up and going, one of the sons struck out on his own to start a goat
cheese farm. Naturally, we went there and walked around petting
goats and eating [then buying] copious amounts of cheese.
Bethany and her maps.....
Bethany getting herself into "rare form"
Getting the low down on all the awesome parts of wine making.
100 year old barrel taps
Derp?
We celebrated a successful day by picking up two 5 liter bottles of wine, the group promising each other that we'd drink them both, on top of the wine we'd already drank that day. It was a chilly night, so Kev & Emma, Bethany & myself crammed into AJ & Kat's camper with their dog Alex chilling up on the bed. We spent the night playing Cards Against Humanity and polishing off the first 5L like champs. Finally, we were all falling asleep while sitting up and decided to cash out for the night. Bethany and I climbed out of the camper and walked to the front gate, to immediately realize the staff had locked the gate for the night. Thankfully, the wine had warmed our hearts and minds and we happily climbed the gate / fence, popped over the barbed wire, and went down. Glad we were wearing jeans and coats to make it over, we then made our hike home.
Things are about to get even more awesome. [background, AMAZING ALFAJORES]
Our first 5 liters are gone. Bummer.....
OH RIGHT WE HAVE 5 MORE!!!!
Day-trip with mom down to Quilmes
Another day, another Sweetcakes issue
Lunch after Quilmes was enough for all of us.
“Do
I need to bring my insurance card?” Mom asked us. “No, I highly
doubt they'll take an American insurance card in Argentina.” came
Bethany's wry reply. Mom's yearly bout of pleurisy was acting up and
she needed some medication. She quickly called her home clinic
[using MagicJack; free wifi calls to US phone numbers; love living in
the future!] and got the name of the medications. From there, we
walked a few blocks over to the pharmacy in Cafayate, went inside,
and asked the man working there if they had what she needed. After
two minutes of explaining what we needed and what he had, we figured
out that the names were close but a little different between Spanish
and English. We then forked over the 5 dollars, and left. It was a
few minutes later that mom was able to pick her jaw up off the
ground.
Eventually
our fun times in Cafayate had come to an end, we needed to return to
Salta. [despite what Bethany told the reporters] The drive back was
going to be fun though: one of the TripAdvisor highlights, and
something we hadn't done, was the 'Route of the Bishop', a route
through the mountains outside of Salta. Coming from Cayfayate, we
had a beautiful drive through the vegetation free desert, climbing a
slow grade up through the highlands, reminiscent of southern Bolivia.
Eventually, we crested and realized we were eye level with the
clouds out on the horizon. Mom, being scared of heights, was doing
her best not to freak out too much, particularly when I pulled over
to the side of the road. It was great to have an opportunity to do
some altitude driving again; I've realized over this trip how
beautiful it is to be on mountaintops looking out over a hilly
landscape. Maybe that's just the Iowan in me who's unused to it, but
it gave me another chance to appreciate all the fantastic views I'd
seen on the trip.
"It's national news here! They caught Claudia's brother's killer....after he killed his girlfriend when he confessed to her, and after he killed Claudia.....WHAT?!?!?!?!" The killer eventually confessed to his grandmother, who convinced himself to go to the police and turn himself in. The man told police Claudia contracted him to kill her brother for several thousand dollars, and then never paid him. He strangled her in Punta del Este, the city we rented from her in, in a hostel she used to own. When Claudia was unloading to us at the rental, she said how she had to go complete her brother's death certificate but wasn't sad he was dead because he was "a terrible man, who beat his wife." So...I'm willing to take the suspects word as true. Which means, AHHHH THIS IS THE CRAZIEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO US ON OUR TRIP WTFFF?!?!?!
Old Route 40
Looking over the switchbacks of the Route of the Bishop
As we sat in the hotel in Salta, Bethany leans back from the computer and says, "Oh, we have an update on Claudia from our friends in Uruguay!" For those following along, you'll remember our crazy experience with Claudia and her rental. If you haven't read it, go back to our Uruguay blog and read it now.
Taking the Teleferico up over Salta
waterfall at the top of the hill overlooking Salta
one of the churches in Salta
"It's national news here! They caught Claudia's brother's killer....after he killed his girlfriend when he confessed to her, and after he killed Claudia.....WHAT?!?!?!?!" The killer eventually confessed to his grandmother, who convinced himself to go to the police and turn himself in. The man told police Claudia contracted him to kill her brother for several thousand dollars, and then never paid him. He strangled her in Punta del Este, the city we rented from her in, in a hostel she used to own. When Claudia was unloading to us at the rental, she said how she had to go complete her brother's death certificate but wasn't sad he was dead because he was "a terrible man, who beat his wife." So...I'm willing to take the suspects word as true. Which means, AHHHH THIS IS THE CRAZIEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO US ON OUR TRIP WTFFF?!?!?!
Bethany
made the difficult decision to return to America early due to one of
her family members becoming ill, so our time in Salta was a bit
hectic: Bethany swapped our plane tickets, hers for a few days from
then, and mine for a week after hers. The difference: I'd be flying
out of Sao Paolo, where we were leaving Sweetcakes. This would be a
real trial for me, but I was confident I could make it work. Bethany
left from the Salta airport Saturday, and we snapped our 'trip
completion' shot with Sweetcakes. The rest of the weekend Mom and I
did some light exploration around Salta, and then she was on her long
return journey Monday morning. Now it was just me, Sweetcakes, a
border crossing, a language I didn't speak, and 2600 kilometers to
Sao Paolo.
We did it!