The Best & Worst

After seven months of traveling by bus, boat, horse, and foot through Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Bolivia, we decided that the best way to put El Circo Fantasma! to rest would be with a list of highs and lows from our trip. Many of these things were covered more extensively in previous posts, and we’ve tried to link back to those where appropriate. However, we thought that by putting them together in a definitive Best/Worst list, we could arm future travelers with information about what not to miss and what, at all costs, to avoid. We also thought the list would function pretty well to offer an overview of our travels. So without further ado, here goes….

Best Camping: Rio Valera at Estancia Harberton (where we had the place to ourselves, except for geese and red foxes) and Puesto Seron in Torres del Paine were both absolutely amazing. Worst Camping: The hot and dusty sites in Purmamarca and the frigid and muddy Camping Los Perros in Torres del Paine.

Best Town: For Nate it was Gaiman, for Emily, Ushuaia. The Worst Towns were the relentlessly unfriendly border town of La Quiaca and the dusty, hellishly boring Perito Moreno.

Best Room: Because it offered a warm bed after ten consecutive frigid evenings outside, we’ll go with Posada Costa Serena in Ushuaia. For style’s sake, however, Trelew’s Hotel Touring Club is hard to top. Worst Room: The bathroom at our hostel in Uyuni smelled so bad that you had to cover your nose and run in and out. And in El Chalten, we shared a room at an Albergue with a French couple who unabashedly stole one of our headlamps. Perhaps for this reason, we can’t remember the name of either of these places.

Best Hike: 9 days of peaks, glaciers, and lakes on the Torres del Paine circuit. Worst Hike: Watching cars pass us on the way up to the spectacularly boring Garganta del Diablo in Pampa Linda (Nahuel Huapi National Park).

Best Museum: For its giant sloth dung and cabinets full of skeletons, this honor goes to the Museo de Ciencias Naturales in La Plata. Worst Museum: The 12-peso Nau Victoria––a crappy, lifesize reconstruction of the boat that Magellan docked at Puerto San Julian––was an astonishing waste of money and time.

Best Bus Ride: Spiralling up the switchbacks to the dizzying Abra Condor pass on the way to Iruya was awesome. Worst Bus Ride: Doing the ride back, in the dark, at six in the morning, was absolutely terrifying.

Best Argentines: We feel duly obligated to give it to the Haack family, who welcomed us into their home in Buenos Aires for three months. The couple who took us Bodega hopping in Mendoza were also muy amable. Worst Argentines: The proprietress of Perito Moreno's heladeria (which also doubles as the town’s only locutorio) was memorably awful.

Best Organized Trip: The three-day tour of the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia definitely lived up to all its hype. Worst Organized Trip: Honestly, we didn’t spring for these trips very often, but all of them (including Peninsula Valdez and the Cueva de las Manos) were pretty stellar.

Best Wildlife: Nothing can beat watching sea lions give birth on the beaches of Peninsula Valdez, but the penguin colony at Puerto San Julian came very close. Worst Wildlife: The goddamned coatis at Iguazu Falls, who stopped at nothing in relentless pursuit of our lunch.

Best Attraction: The Perito Moreno Glacier is as incredible as all Argentines say (with tears in their eyes). Worst Attraction: Is the aforementioned Nau Victoria an attraction? Because never have we felt so ripped off.

Best Steak: Hands down, the bife de chorizo and lomo at El Boliche “de Alberto” in Bariloche were the best steaks that either of us will ever eat. The Worst Steak was the undercooked meat we made during a pitch-black DIY asado in Tilcara.

Best Alfajor: Dear traveller. If you ever have the misfortune to be stranded in Perito Moreno, there is hope. The alfajors at Chees’1 are seriously the best alfajors in the country. Go forth and eat dulce de leche while you wait two days for your bus to come. Worst Alfajor: the homemade alfajors for sale in the Quebrada taste like honey smashed between two pieces of cardboard.

Best Drink: The bottle of Escorihuela Malbec we bought after a grueling hike up to Refugio Otto Meiling in Nahuel Huapi National Park really hit the spot. So did the warm can of Austral beer that Nate lugged over Paso John Garner at Torres del Paine. Worst Drink: The unspeakable café con leche that we got in Tilcara (3 parts powdered milk to 1 part instant coffee) is now a thing of legend.

Best Bodega: Etchart in Cafayate was ridiculously generous with their free samples. Worst Bodega: The ones in Maipu (Mendoza) that charge for tours and tastings.

Best Deal: We tried to pay three different times, but nobody would take our money. Therefore, the free overnight train from Uyuni to Villazon, Bolivia has to rate as the best deal of a trip chock full of them. Worst Deal: The Nau Victoria. We cannot emphasize enough how much this thing blows.

Best Running Joke: The all-purpose “Saben los cosas que son ricos!”, which a bakery employer once offered as a compliment. Worst Running Joke: “Can we check email? Maybe one of the grad schools will have gotten back to me” pretty much speaks for itself.

Best Local Delicacy: Steak, duh. Also, choripan (spiced sausage between crusty bread) is as special as Wisconsin Brats. Worst Local Delicacy: Coca Leaves. They taste and smell awful.

Best Local Fashion: Bowler Hats! Worn by thousands of stylish Bolivian women. Worst Local Fashion: Pretty much all of Buenos Aires fashion, but especially the mullets.

Best Shower: The hot water at Puesto Seron on the Torres del Paine circuit is worth its weight in gold. Worst Shower: Many frigid showers were taken in concrete bunkers, but cold dousings at La Quiaca and Tilcara was particularly memorable.

Best Asado Ingredient: After much debate, we agree that bife de chorizo is the best cut. Worst Asado Ingredient: I can’t believe we ate ubre (udder).

Best Beach: Mar de Ajo. Worst Beach: Peninsula Valdez at low tide (miles of mucky sand, frigid water, and giant jellyfish).

Best Weather: Coming on the heels of snow, the days we spent at Tierra del Fuego National Park were blissful. Worst Weather: Rain kept us from seeing the falls at Iguazu for more than a day. Driving rain and freezing temperatures made us want to write off Parque Nacional Los Glaciers after just three days out.

Best Argentine Expression: “Vale la pena!” which is used for everything, and “puede ser” which is all-purposely baffling. Worst Argentine Expression: “Tranquilo Chicos”, which is the providence of all annoying, dreadlocked hippies.

Best Off-The-Beaten-Path Excursion: The zodiac tour to the penguin colony at Puerto San Julian was magical. So was camping at Estancia Harberton (everybody goes as part of a package tour, but they all neglect to pitch a tent). Worst Off-The-Beaten-Path Excursion: It was very cool to see Butch Cassidy’s old digs, but I’m not sure it was worth the 8-hour round-trip bus ride. Also, we have serious doubts whether the mythical Xanadu of San Isidro (past Iruya) actually exists.

Best Bus Movie: Shooter. We wholeheartedly endorse this movie. The dialogue is incredible (“I’m gonna do whip-its until I pass out”). Danny Glover’s performance is Oscar-worthy. Attn. Hollywood: more ridiculous B-movies of this ilk need to be made for long South American bus rides. Worst Bus Movie: Probably the third dubbed showing of The Longest Yard, but there are many competitors for this slot.

Best Stereotype About Americans: Everyone in Chicago is a gangster and owns a tommy gun. Worst Stereotype About Americans: We’re all Bush-loving imperialists!

Best Artisanias: The textiles in Bolivia were beautiful, and well worth hauling out in our packs. Worst Artisanias: We found the “artisanias del sal” in Bolivia pretty amusing. Useless items constructed of rock-hard salt.

Best Book: We read a lot of British classics (all that’s really available in English), but the most bizarre and gripping book we got our hands on was Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea, which we picked up at a Patagonian book exchange. Worst Book: D.H. Lawrence’s The Plumed Serpent is so, so wretched.

Best Bookstore: Walrus Books in Buenos Aires. For having a very decent selection, and for buying our thousands of paperbacks so we didn’t have to lug them home. Worst Bookstore: The ones (and there are many) where you have to order at a counter, and not browse the stacks. Insane.

Best Gear: Our tent survived a lot of wind and rain, and never once let us down. Worst Gear: Sadly, our MSR Whisperlite. We managed to break and/or lose no fewer than three key components, and the horrible solvente industrial necessitated a full scouring of the fuel line after each use.

That's it! Thanks to our readers for following along for so many months. –NSH & EMW

Still in need of a pony.

Nate and I managed to drag ourselves away from Salta La Linda and its delightful assortment of anthro museums and locutorios long enough to take an excursion on horseback through the nearby mountains. Our riding party consisted of six British schoolboys and Alejandro, our patient guide. The schoolboys were keen on role playing games and Pixar movies. Aah, the exciting debates they had on our ride from Salta to the ranch - would a sequel to Monsters, Inc. be any good? Was The Incredibles awesome, or super awesome?

The ranch was a former convent, set in the hills high above Salta. We toured the old chapel, and then got down to the all important business of horse selection. Nate and I classified ourselves as "experienced" riders (after all, we had ridden independently relatively recently), and were accordingly rewarded with two of the better horses. I also proved myself to be a vastly improved rider by getting on the horses unassisted.

We were somewhat worried that riding with a guide would cramp our style, but Alejandro proved to be an excellent companion, knowledgeable not only about horses but also Argentine drug laws and drug production, cures for altitude sickeness, wine making, people of the countryside, Andean cuisine, etc, etc. And, he had no objection to letting the horses stretch their legs, and even permitted us to engage in the occasional race. At the insistence of the British boys, he even agreed to participate in one, his far superior horse quickly outpacing the rest of the field, and almost as quickly disappearing down the road and out of sight. -EMW

So Much Water So Far From Home

With less than a week to go in our trip, Emily and I have decided to check off one of the last of Argentina's outstanding attractions. By travelling to Iguazu Falls, tucked neatly into the tri-border area between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, not only would we be able to see one of the country's most famous natural sites, we'd also be completing a four month circuit that's brought us clockwise around nearly the entire perimeter of Argentina. We decided that it was worth going a little bit out of our way.

We broke up our 24-hour bus ride from Salta with a stopover in sweltering Resistencia--a likable if disagreeably steamy city filled with all manner of sculptures and other public art. It being Sunday, all of the museums were closed, so we ordered a parillada and hunkered down in air conditioning. The nadir came later that evening when the waiter at a bus station confiteria refused to change the channel from a post-game soccer press conference to Dice-K's big start against the Yankees. We actually watched every pitch of the first four innings on MLB Gameday while waiting for our bus to arrive. It was pretty anti-climactic.

Because we hadn't slept in a bed in three days, we spent our first afternoon in Puerto Iguazu napping. But by the second morning, we were ready for the park. Aside for the Perito Moreno glacier, the falls at Iguazu are Argentina's most beloved tourist attraction. There are nearly 300 separate falls, spread over an area of more than 2 miles, and their lush, subtropical setting aids the overall effect immensely. They're taller than Niagara, and half again as wide, but they don't serve as a backdrop for anything like the Serial Killer Wax Museum, so there are some drawbacks.

At any rate, Argentina has done an admirable job of building many miles of fairly discreet catwalks around the park, allowing for a multiplicity of misty vantage points. Many of the areas were constantly clogged by tour groups, but we found some relief on Isla San Martin--a small island at the base of one of the more impressive sets of falls. Elsewhere in the park we observed caiman alligators, multicolored butterflies, and grotesque, wet-snouted coaties, which executed complexly choreographed maneuvers in an attempt to steal our overpriced lunches.

We left Iguazu in the pouring rain, with plans to return the next day in order to take a boat ride and hit the few remaining walking trails. Unfortunately, nearly 24-hours later, the rain still hasn't let up, leaving us with one more morning to try to make a run at it. Afterwards, it's back to Buenos Aires and then home. But stay tuned, because we're not quite finished posting. We're planning an epic best/worst list to wrap things up. -NSH

Woozy in Wine Country

We finally got around to taking one of the many day trips from Salta. Located just shy of 200 km from the city, Cafayate is a lazy, pleasant village known throughout Argentina for its stellar wines. A number of bodegas grow their grapes in the area's high-altitude vineyards--well irrigated and perpetually sunny, the region is apparently quite hospitable to malbec, cabarnet, and torrontes varieties.

In the last three-and-a-half months alone, we've logged literally thousands of miles by bus, train, 4x4, and van. Sick of riding, we decided to try something altogether different and drive. Emily piloted us past the Salta city limits (I stupidly left my license in Buenos Aires, and decided to ride shotgun so as not to become the second member of my immediate family to see the inside of a Latin American prison). We flew through the multicolored Quebrada de la Concha (I'm pretty sure that this translates into something completely indecent) and landed in Cafayate around two. After a stop at a tourist kiosk for a map of the bodegas, we headed off in search of what we figured would be the first of many free drinking spots.

Bodega Etchart churns out one of our all-time favorite budget malbecs. When we arrived, the bottling area was a blur of noise and movement, as bottles rolled down the conveyor to get corked. A woman motioned us into a dimly lit tasting room, poured us eight glasses of wine, and left. "For you!" she said, pushing four in each of our directions. By the time she returned minutes later, we were buzzing. We said we'd buy a couple of $3 bottles, which pleased her enough that she decided to pour us one more glass of their premium blend for good measure.

As we stumbled away from Etchart, blinking woozily in the sun, we quickly realized that we were going to need to scale back the rest of the afternoon. We visited a no-frills table swill bodega and admired the pyramid of cheap jugs in their showroom before politely declining a tasting. After a glass of torrontes and malbec at Vaseja Secreta, plus a bowl of cabernet sauvignon ice cream at a local heladeria, we were ready to call it a day.

We returned the car without incident late that evening, the odometer reading about 10 km short of our purchased allotment. Between Cafayate and our bodega tour of Mendoza, we've made out pretty well on our binging excursions. -NSH

Our Salta Siesta

Sometimes we don't post for days at a time because we're too busy moving from place to place to write anything down. In this most recent case, however, we've just been too lazy. Since the very end of March, we've been living in a small but pleasant apartment in Salta, a historic city in the northwest of Argentina. We have cable TV, a stack of books, a hot plate, and a stash of wine bottles. We don't get out all that much, hence the lack of posts.

Salta is sprinkled with attractive churches and neo-colonial buildings, most of them clustered around the scenic central plaza. Sometimes we walk down in the late afternoon to drink coffee and watch the crowds of school teachers who are invariably demonstrating. They've set up a home base beneath the arches of the white-washed Cabildo, where they hang caricatures of greedy Argentine politicians and chant for fair pay. A recent newspaper editorial chided the teachers for being too selfish about their rights. "What about our right to hang out under the Cabildo!" the Salteno complained. I think the crisis might be coming to a head.

Speaking of crises, we've lately taken to watching Cronicas with some frequency. Somehow more crass than Fox News, the sensationalist TV channel has a knack for eye-grabbing headlines ("Three People and a Bolivian Dead in Fire") and outrageous footage. They always manage to beat the cops to the scene of the crime--a couple of nights ago we watched masked protestors set fire to a politician's office in Buenos Aires, the police arriving ten minutes into the live report.

For the most part, however, life in Salta is pretty tame. We've hit up most of the major attractions, including a cable car up to the adjacent Cerro San Bernardo, and both of the city's anthropology museums, one of which houses Incan mummies. Other museums we invariably visit while they're closed for siesta, and vow to wake up early enough for the next day.

We've got about two more weeks in Salta, and hope to spend some of that time exploring the nearby Cafayate vineyards and maybe a cloud forest or two. We also skipped over some Patagonian highlights in recent posts, so maybe we'll write about those retroactively. But, it's also quite possible that we'll be too busy watching Cronicas and drinking malbec to manage much of anything. Time will tell. -NSH

Salt of the Earth, Bolivia

The bustling town of Uyuni, Bolivia, located nine hours north of the border town of Villazon, appears to exist solely for the purpose of catering to tourists desiring 4x4 expeditions through the surrounding countryside. We first heard about these tours from a pair of Dutch boys at a Chilean hostel, and figured we'd never participate ourselves. However, curiosity eventually got the better of us.

Our tour consisted of our driver, Leonardo, his wife/our cook Barbara, and five Italian agronomists. Three of the Italians live in La Paz and speak fluent Castellano. Two were visiting from Italy, and spoke only Italian, which to my ear sounded like fluent Castellano. Anyway, they were all quite nice, and besides for the occasional communication problems, we preferred them to the squawking Brits and Aussies we encountered at each stop. Also, they reminded us a lot of the characters in The Best of Youth.

On the first day, we explored a train "museum" -- really an old rail yard where locomotives are left to oxidize in the dusty air. From there, we visited a tiny town where a woman demonstrated how local families dry, pulverize, and package salt for consumption. And from there, we headed to the blindingly white salt flats, covered in many places by a warm cover of rainwater. Everything sparkled and shined, and the water made the mountains on the horizon seem to float in air.

The highlight of Day One was the town where we ended up and it's eerie necropolis. We spent the hour before the sun set exploring the site, which consisted of beehive-like constructions of rock scattered throughout a desert landscape. Each of the constructions housed visible human remains. Many were just skulls and femurs, but there were also some remarkably intact mummified corpses, dressed in tattered woven material and surrounded by pottery shards. All of the remains dated to pre-Incan times.

Day Two brought us to a series of small lakes, many of which were choked with colorful micro-organisms and deposits of arsenic and borax. We watched pink and white flamingos traipse about, their skinny legs folding at impossible angles. At night we stayed at a crowded encampment, sleeping seven to a room. Before bed, we taught Leonardo how to play Rummy 500, and neglected to correct him when he slapped runs and three-of-a-kinds down on the table that weren't deservedly his. Afterwards, everybody turned in early to be rested for our 4:30 am wake-up.

We pulled out the next morning in the frigid, pitch black, listening to Leonardo's stories about how drug smugglers move marijuana and cocaine into Chile by dressing up as tourists on the same 4x4 excursions we were on. We climbed to 4900 meters (the Italians had a GPS to verify it) to take in roaring geysers. The steam smelled noxiously of sulfur, but everyone was eager to brave it for the heat it provided.

The highlight of Day Three, and possibly of the trip, was a stop at some thermal baths. Despite the lack of an adequate changing area, the Italians stripped down to their tighty-whities to go for a dip. Not wanting to disrupt group solidarity, we quickly joined them, relaxing in the warm water while more tours arrived and spent awhile gawking and photographing us in their parkas and wool hats. Eventually, almost everyone joined in.

The Italians had a bus to catch that night, so we spent most of the morning and all of the afternoon booking it back to Uyuni. Unfortunately, our jeep was unwilling to cooperate. Because one of the wheels was improperly aligned on its axle, Leonardo had to make infrequent stops to remove the wheel and reattach it again. Once, someone asked how long it would take to walk to Uyuni. "A day and a night," Leonardo said, "Then another day and another night, and probably another one too." He drew some kind of symbol in the dirt with a tire iron, which presumably helped. Also helpful--continually crossing himself in between bites of coca leaves.

In the end, the fickle gods smiled down on us. We made one last stop at a town that Leonardo claimed existed solely for drug trafficking. The low stone houses were all shuttered up, and on the hillside, above a yawning cave, the mangled remains of a prop plane were twisted into the rock. There was definitely a story there. From the town, it was a straight shot to Uyuni, with the occasional braking for llamas the only thing to slow us down. After 14 hours of driving, the Italians made their bus by about 20 minutes. -NSH

Quebrada Arriba

After Tilcara, we continued up the Quebrada de Humuaca to the tiny town of Iruya, which we reached via a stomach churning three hour bus ride. As we bought our bus tickets, we were warned that because it had rained the night before, the roads were particularly bad, and the bus would not in fact be going all the way to Iruya - instead we would be dropped off a couple kilometers from town and would need to complete the journey on foot.

The ride, mostly over dirt roads, occasionally through full fledged rivers, was indeed rough, but our bus driver performed impressively. The ride was through beautiful high Andean plateau, climbing to the 4,000 meter Abra Condor pass. I'm not sure whether it was because of the extraordinary views or merely the lack of oxygen at that altitude, but our entire bus became giddy as we went over the pass, snapping photos and jumping from one side of the bus to the other in an effort to get the best views.

About two kilometers short of Iruya, we encountered a river running across the road. Despite our bus drivers best attempts to drive through the torrential water, we were unable to cross. Instead, he got out of the bus and began throwing rocks in the river, in an attempt to construct a temporary bridge. After waiting a few minutes, all the tourists piled out the bus and began to assist him, gleefully throwing rocks and splashing each other, while the locals remained on the bus, hoping that our efforts would pay off. After fifteen minutes of construction effort, the driver sucessfully negotiated the river, and managed to deliver us all the way to Iruya.

In Iruya, upon disembarking from the bus we were met by an enterprising youngster, who promised to get us a room for 25 pesos. We followed her up Iruya's steepest hill, where she took us from house to house, until we finally found a family with a suitable room for us.

We spent two days in Iruya, mostly watching the donkeys and goats that have the run of the town. After a fruitless attempt at acquiring some horses for a day's riding (the owner of the hosteria sent us to check at a kiosk, where we were informed that the only person who might have horses was the hosteria owner) and exploring the nearby canyons and riverbeds on foot (somewhat taxing giving the altitude). We left Iruya early on the morning of the third day, waiting for the bus in the dark at five am with a crowd of locals and one friendly donkey. We arrived in Humuahaca dead tired, but in time for the bus to La Quiaca, our final stop in Argentina before heading into Bolivia. -EMW

Where The Streets Are Paved in Cheap Empanadas

With our finances dwindling and our return to the states still long on the horizon, Emily and I have decided to head up north, where the living is miraculously cheaper. Fortunately, the warm and arid region of Argentina where we've ended up is also full of many colorful and interesting sights.

After securing an apartment rental in Salta beginning April 1st, we continued on to the city of Jujuy, which is very fun to say (hoo-hooey!). The bustling, Andean city is useful as a jumping-off point for the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a stunning gorge that boasts polychrome strata, eerie rock formations, and picturesque villages that feel lost to time.

Our first stop en route was the tranquil hamlet of Pumamarca, whose sights include a beautifully austere 17th century church, an impossibly crowded, cactus-strewn cemetery, and a dramatic mountain--El Cerro de los Siete Colores--that towers above the town. We took a long walk around the rainbow-colored rock, counting many more than seven shades of orange, pink, grey, and green. We also loitered around the central square, where squat old women sell weavings and other wares. After sampling lomo de llama for dinner (it tastes kind of like pork, but... smokier?), we retired to our tent, which we'd foolishly staked a mere six inches from four of the most annoying girls in Argentina. They stayed up all night taking flash photos of each other and singing Bob Marley's "Jammin", but I think one of them got trapped in the bathroom the next morning, which I attribute to karma.

From Purmamarca we continued up the gorge to the slightly larger town of Tilcara. Boasting a campground with a) space and b) grass, we were wholly prepared to love place. However, resolving to attempt an asado, we almost came to grief in "downtown" Tilcara, where none of the stores are ever open, and don't stock anything even when they are. Thankfully, we finally found a butcher willing to hack some slabs off a hanging cow carcass, and a bakery with stale bread. No one in town had any carbon, but by shovelling together the coals from extinguished asado fires back at the campground, we were able to get a flame going. Sadly, we had to eat our steaks in the dark, as we'd neglected to remember that the sun sets hours earlier than it does in Patagonia.

The next morning we were tricked into ordering the world's foulest coffee (3 parts powdered milk to 1 part instant coffee, add boiling water) before setting out for the Pukara--the imposing ruins of an enormously complex pre-Columbian fortress that was used briefly by the Incas. Roaming around the reconstructed stone walls and ominous sacrificial altars, we were willing to overlook Tilcara's other flaws. And, because our tickets to the Pukara also got us into an archeology museum housing Andean mummies, we decided that Tilcara deserved a thumbs-up.

For the next week or so, we'll continue climbing up the gorge, reaching altitudes of 4000m. as long as our tender American lungs don't collapse. We plan to poke around at least three or four more of these tiny hamlets before ending up in Bolivia where, my mother warns me, they have something called "the road of death". -NSH

Butch Cassidy, har har har

We broke up our journey between Perito Moreno Ciudad and Bariloche with a stop in Esquel, planning to head over to Cholila, a nearby town featuring the dilapidated remains of three cabins where Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place spent 1901 to 1905, hiding out from the law and trying their hand at a more peaceful ranching life. Our travel planning was flawless, except for our failure to take into account the fact that Esquel and Cholila are near each other only in a very general sense, somewhat like Maine is near Delaware. However, having stopped in Esquel, we felt committed to completing our excursion, and we hopped on a bus for Cholila.

We asked the driver to drop us off at the Casa de Piedras tea house in Cholila, a wily attempt to conceal our true destination. The bus driver knew what was up though, elbowing Nate as he got off the bus and chortling, “Butch Cassidy! Har har har!” Apparently it was obvious that we had not taken the five hour bus ride for a cup of tea.

After arriving, we blundered around the farms on either side of the road, hopping random fences only to find ourselves face to face with enormous steers. We finally realized we would never find the cabins by relying on blind luck alone, and walked over to the Casa de Piedras, where we wandered through a deserted tea room, and entered the kitchen looking for assistance. We found the owner, hair still in curlers, enjoying lunch in front of a blaring television. She put her arm around me and kindly (pityingly) directed us 200 meters back in the direction we had come from, to the sign clearly labelled “Butch Cassidy” with an arrow pointing towards the cabins. As we left, she wistfully asked us if we were very sure we didn’t want any tea.

We arrived at the cabins shortly after. One was partially rebuilt, while the other two were in a sadly (but authentically) decrepit state. Someone had gone to some effort to impart a creepy vibe to the site, with animal skulls nailed threateningly to the fence and skins draped from the rafters. We searched unsuccessfully for an escape tunnel the three had allegedly built and contemplated outlaw life.

Veni, Vidi, Vindimia!

Nearly a month ago, Emily and I resolved to make it as far north as Mendoza for the city's annual celebration of the wine harvest. Held the first weekend in March, Vindimia is an unrivaled spectacle of vino, consisting of parades and music and dance extravaganzas, and culminating with the election of a beauty queen from among the ranks of the city's rival districts.

Normally we're pretty lax about scheduling, but in this case our planning paid off. We stepped off the bus on Saturday morning and into the throng of Carrusel, a procession of floats, marching bands, and sequined dancers. From the beauty queens throwing fresh (and often heavy) produce to the throngs below, to the gauchos who struggled mightily to coax their horses across the grates in the street, there was a great deal of excitement to observe.

Mendoza is Argentina's wine capital, and as such, it's a major port of call both for oenephiles and dilettantes who dig free tastings. The two of us fall squarely into the latter category, so we decided to spend our Monday in Maipu--the satellite town where the bodegas are most densely clustered. While waiting for the bus to bring us there, a slick salesman sidled up next to us and told us about a bike rental place in central Maipu. He explained that the evil cartel of "Bikes and Wines" was run out of Mendoza, while the mom-and-pop operation he was helping--unimaginatively called "Rental Bikes"--was a local operation. This was our first indication that a battle for the hearts and minds of malbec-guzzling bike renters was being waged in wine country.

Unsure with whom to pledge our allegiance, Emily and I decided to walk to the first bodega. Nicknamed "La Rural", San Felipe is a vineyard that churns out the usual batch of malbecs and syrahs, while also housing a museum dedicated to winemaking. After admiring some 16th-century cowskins used for mashing grapes and marvelling at rich U.S. buyers who dumped half-glasses of $80 peso wine into the communal jug, we decided to move on.

Fortunately, we weren't long before meeting a very friendly couple from Buenos Aires who were driving from bodega to bodega. The "Bikes and Wines" vs. "Rental Bikes" debate had been settled for us. We sat in their backseat while they navigated between wineries, and quickly discovered that being chauffered between cool cellars was far superior to pedalling under a scorching sun. Plus, we were able to drink about three times more red wine than would have otherwise been possible.

We tried to duplicate the magic the next day, but failed miserably. Two of the three bodegas we visited charged money for tours and tastings, and a fourth turned out not to exsist at all. Now that Vindimia's over and most of the major bodegas are under our belts, Emily and I have been using our time to stroll around Mendoza's wide, shady streets, hang out in its spacious parks, and explore its smattering of sites, including an anthropology museum, an aquarium, and even a greenhouse housing deadly snakes and spiders. We can't quite bring ourselves to trudge out to the bus station and buy our next pair of tickets--things in Mendoza are laid-back, friendly, and addictively relaxing. -NSH

I want a pony!

After weeks of backpacking and camping, Nate and I were in desperate need of a sleeping situation not involving thermarests and tents, so we decided to spend a couple of days relaxing at an old estancia on Route 40 run by Petty and her husband Coco. Key to the estancia experience for me was the possibility of horse riding. When I called to make our reservation, Petty informed me that the estancia did indeed have horses and, "if you know how to ride, you can certainly ride." I sat on a horse once 15 years ago without any major problems, so I informed her that yes, of course Nate and I knew how to ride.

Once we had arrived at the estancia, she seemed slightly more reluctant to entrust two of her horses to our clearly untutored hands. Over breakfast she made us sign a release form while fellow guests (who were too scared to ride themselves) reminded us of what a great responsibility we were accepting by taking the horses, and quizzed us about saddlery, asking if we were aware that the horses here were saddled western style. We did not. Did we know what western style was? No. After thoroughly demonstrating our ignorance of all things equine, Petty introduced us to our horses. Nate was given Petty's horse, Coco, (apparently named after her husband), while I rode Pampero, a fat brown horse. Under Petty's close watch, I took Pampero for a practice ride around the paddock, while Nate kicked a totally immobile Coco in a fruitless attempt to get him moving. Petty watched for a few minutes before announcing "I think you'll need a whip!" Whip in hand, Nate got Coco moving, and we hit the trail, chasing sheep around the estancia and marvelling at the bone and carcass littered landscape.

The beauty of taking horses out alone (especially when provided with a whip) is that you can finally do all the things that guides, for some reason, restrain you from doing: make the horses run, jump over streams, play chicken with the other riders. The downside is that horses are willful, lazy animals, and without a guide or a competent rider to keep them in line, they immediately lose the trail, pretend that they are totally unfamiliar with the terrain, and generally use all their wiles in an attempt to trick the rider into letting them return home. We fell for none of their tricks, and had an excellent ride. -EMW