Mendoza - wine country!

My first stop in Argentina was Mendoza. But let me go back slightly to the bus ride from Santiago. To get from Santiago in Chile to Mendoza in Argentina, I need to cross the Andes. One of the most beautiful bus rides I've ever been on!

Snow capped mountains turning into snow drenched mountains and winding zip zag roads up and over them. The photos are taken from a moving bus so don't do it justice at all! At one point we even went under a ski lift from one of the small resorts. The Chilean military was also out in full uniform having a ski lesson. It was stunning! The border crossing was freezing however! I was not even a little bit prepared for it... Having come from Santiago, that was reasonably warm, I hadn't thought about wearing an extra jumper or having my hat/scarf/gloves in my bag. Luckily I had my coat with me. Butstill, it was cold!

After the border it was all down hill and the landscape slowly changed to a desert one. Mendoza was a lot warmer. The first two days I was walking around in a t-shirt, in the sun with brilliant blue skies. Mendoza is the capital of wine making country here in Argentina. This is why I was here.Wednesday afternoonI booked a half day wine and tango tour through the hostel. After weighing up a couple of tours, varying ridiculously in price I decided to give the hostels tour a go.... And what a disappointment! The tango which featured so prominently in the name of the tour, was actually just a 5 minute lesson outside of a winery. With no music and the winery guide as the teacher. The wine wasn't much better either. We visited two wineries, Domiciano and Stocco de Viani. Whilst the wines were bed, they weren't anything special. And the tour through the winery was very simple. Here's a tank, here's a barrel, here's a bottle. That kind of thing. Not all that exciting. We also visited an olive oil factory and a chocolate factory. So the emphasis on wine wasn't all that big either. The rest of the group seemed to love it though, and almost everyone bought at least one thing from each stop. Some maybe it was me? Maybe I'm just too much of a wine snob for a hostel operated tour? Well, two days later I would get to find out. Friday I had planned one of the more expensive tours. Through a company specialised only in wine. Expectations were high. And expectations were met! This group was much smaller. A retired American couple (who were only in town for 4 days, doing a different wine tour each day), an Australian couple and a young Swiss guy. And our guide who kinda looked like Shakira. The first winery, Clos de Chacras, we were met with a glass of white wine. It was a small boutique winery where everything was done by hand. They have a very small production amount, much smaller than it once was and as a result, in the cellar they have the original wood fronted tanks. Preserved so that people can see how things used to be.

I thought this was great. It's not often these days that anything original is preserved. Then it was back upstairs and to the tasting room!

This tasting was paired with two cheeses, nuts, raisins and crackers. Wednesday's tour had no food so I was already more impressed. I'm not a big red wine person but these were very nice. Only the Cabernet Sauvignon I didn't like, but that is a very heavy grape.

Outside of the winery they were barbecuing two mini goats. Saturday was Independence Day in Argentina and this was in preparation for the celebrations.

I'm not going to go through all of the wineries, I will only say that the second was called Domino del Plata, Caelum and had an amazing 5 course meal at Bodega Vistalba.

At the second winery, we were given a plank of food and asked to pair each wine with an item.

From left to right we had a Torrontes (the only grape variety originally from Mendoza), a Malbec, a Brioso and a sweet Malbec and food wise there was rocket, cream cheese, caramel (national dessert of Argentina!) and salted crisps. I thought the Malbec went well with the cream cheese but had no clue about the rest! The Australian lady said everything went with the caramel (she had already confessed her love for caramel as soon as she saw it!) and the Swiss guy thought everything went with the crisps. Their tasting room was downstairs in a room filled with wine.

This winery was more high tech. It's actually only been open since 2001 and a year after opening the owner (Susana Balbo) was crowned most influential female wine maker. Not bad after only starting a year earlier... The winery was beautiful! Views of the snowy Andes, peaceful patios and a beautiful lake. And all surrounded by the vineyard.

They were using a relatively new tank. It's egg shaped. Something that originated in France about 3 years ago.

Lunch at Bodega Vistalba Was amazing. Another stunning location, with views of the mountains. We had a different wine with each course. By this point I had stopped taking notes on what we were drinking. I just know we had a Chardonnay, a Malbec rose and 3 reds. I went for the steak, what with being in Argentina and all... They are amazing here! On the first night at my hostel they had an asado (Argentinian BBQ) and that was really tasty, really tender meat. That I thought would be over-cooked because it took them 2 hours, but it was perfectly medium in the middle.

I've wanted to come to Argentina for a long time, although I never really knew why... Now that I am here i get it. Great steak and great wine! Oh and beautiful scenery and perfect weather. There is a very good chance that I may not leave...

Easter Island - Isla Pascua - Rapa Nui

Easter Island was not on my original plan for this trip. I hadn't thought about flying out to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and spending a few days on the island. But the more I thought about it and the more I looked at the flights, the more the idea grew on me. The things that finally pushed the decision was the fact that the business class tickets were affordable! And item number 5 on my bucket list is fly business class. Sold!

And this was a Dreamliner which was pretty exciting too! There are no window blinds... They just dim automatically when it's sunny outside or when it's time to sleep!

But I'm glad my plan changed!

This was the view from the plane taking off from Santiago, just as we passed through the clouds (and before my window self-dimmed) of the Andes peaking through the cloud cover.

The island is beautiful.

The day I arrived I just wandered around the only town on the island, Hanga Roa. The island survives on tourism so it was no surprise that all of the shops were selling souvenirs. From the place I was staying, it was a 3 minute walk to the coast. There is a small harbour where the tourist boats leave and dotted around here I found my first Moai statues.

The second day I headed out for a walk. A lot of the area around the town can be reached by foot. I set out with a route in mind. Turned out it was way too ambitious and I cut it short and after an hour and a half of walking and only getting a small fraction of the route done, I headed back into town.

And to the beach! Well that may be over exaggerating it a bit... It was more like a small patch of sand next to the ocean.

I spent some time here watching people and the various boats go by. One in particular looked very interesting. It looked like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean. The next day I was speaking to 2 American ladies who said it was a Naval training ship that they had looked around. It was on a training mission and when I saw it it was heading for Hawaii. The don't use electronic navigation but do everything the old fashioned way, with paper maps and using the sun and stars to know their position.

After a while at the beach and when it was getting close to sunset time, I headed to THE best place on the island for sunsets. There I waited an hour and a half for the sun to set. However, the clouds didn't feel like cooperating and there wasn't much of a sunset. Fortunately, I got this pretty cool photo of the sun rays shining through openings in the clouds. So it wasn't a completely failed mission.

The next day I rented a jeep so I could explore the whole island. I pretty much saw every Moai statue, rock carving, quarry and beach.

My last day I spent wandering about. The weather wasn't fantastic and was raining every other hour so I didn't venture far. I did walk up to the airport to see the Dreamliner land.

Turns out I'm a bit of a plane spotter... Then it was back to the mainland and time to hatch a plan how I can get a free upgrade on my flight home...

Valparaiso

Internet in Bolivia was rubbish! The north of Chile wasn't much better... Things starting picking up in Santiago, but it's still not great! I did find a new trick to adding photos into my text from my iPhone so not reliant on finding PCs anymore...

Anyway, I am in Santiago at the moment. Or at the airport to be more precise. I'm off to Easter Island for the rest of the week. After a month of constant moving around I need to stay put somewhere for a few days and relax. What better place than Easter Island. The internet is going to be rubbish though that I know already! It's not going to be cheap either! Which is why one of my checked luggage is filled with fruit, veg and pasta. I am going to cook this week.

Yesterday I went to Valparaiso for the day. I originally wanted to stay there longer but because of the (somewhat) unexpected trip to Easter Island, a day trip it was!

Valparaiso is a port city about 2 hours bus drive from Santiago. It's known for its graffiti, it's colourful houses and the numerous funiculars that get you up and down the hilly city.

And lots of graffiti it has!

A lot of the steps have been painted colourfully or have inspirational phrases written on each step or like this one, has been transformed into piano keys.

I rode the oldest funicular in Valparaiso. It was built in 1883 and originally ran on steam power. I was actually expecting that it would take me high up into the hills of the city and give me a fantastic over everything. Kind of like the cable cars in La Paz. The reality was that it went up one street (about 50m) maybe...! Not what I was expecting...There was a view of the harbour, but it's a very industrial harbour. No cute little fishing boats here.

There are also quite a few little pieces of artwork dotted around the city.

Valparaiso is actually a UNESCO World heritage site. Thanks to this building:

It belongs to an international company. They applied to extend the buildings (the glass but they dropped on top) and the city said no. Fearing it would ruin the look of the city. But the company threatened to take its business elsewhere and the city caved. The people of the city weren't happy with this and fought to get protect the city from it happening again. They got the city on to the UNESCO list, although some say it would have happened at some point anyway. Say what you like about the building. But it does stand out!

Salt flats in 3 days

It's advertised as a 3 day tour of the salt flats, but really it's a tour of the whole south west of Bolivia.

Somewhere around mid morning I was picked up in the jeep that would be home for the next 3 days. Our driver was called Omar and our guide was Diego. Together with a Danish couple and an Irish couple, we departed Uyuni. First stop was a train cemetery.

At some point, the Bolivian government privatised the rail system. The rail system was used for passengers but also for transporting the various minerals Bolivia was mining. Especially silver, copper and salt. When, in the 40's the mineral prices crashed, a lot of the mines closed and the people left. The trains were all dumped just outside of Uyuni and as the years have gone on they have rusted and the remaining locals have stolen parts of the trains to make other things.

Today, it's a tourist attraction where you can climb in and on the trains and take train selfies until your hearts content.

After the excitement of the trains we headed towards the salt flats. It was a gradual change. The ground underneath us became whiter and whiter and then the hexagonal shaped cracks started to appear.

By this point we had left the roads behind and little did I know, at this point, that I wouldn't see another paved road for 3 days or until I was well into Chile! We drove and drove until we stopped. In the middle of no where. The only thing to indicate a location was a tyre. Standing up on the salt. And that was it. We were dropped off here and given mountain bikes and the instructions to "cycle straight forward until you get to the hotel". Ok then.

Getting a selfie on a bike, where you can actually see that I'm in a bike, proved a lot harder than I thought! But off I went. Turns out cycling on the salt flats is a lot harder than it looks too. Especially considering the gears on my bike were broken and seemed to be stuck in unbelievable-hard-to-peddle-gear! The cracks in the salt didn't help either as they were quite high in some places. But after much huffing and puffing I made it to the hotel. The salt hotel. One of three in the area. Completely made out of...? Yup, salt! As I cycled up, hiding behind our jeep was a picnic table! The guide was busily preparing our lunch. Now I understood why he cycled past me so fast. I didn't think it was very Bolivian of him. In a land where everything is manaña, manaña!

And the picnic was no standard affair... No. We dined on alpaca steaks with quinoa and salad! I was tempted to jokingly ask if there was any salt, but with it being the first day, and wanting to make a good impression on my fellow tourers, I kept my sarcasm to myself. Lunch was packed away and we headed off to a place ideal for taking those illusion photos everyone has.

This is where I found out that trying to do handstands on salt is not pleasant! And that, I can't hold a handstand long enough to even get a decent photo!

We then continued on to an island. Incahuasi island. Or Incas house. Island is a bit of a strange concept when you are driving on what should be the water part. It was an island full of cacti.

They grow at a rate of a cm per year and reach a maximum height of 8m. If they grow above this, the wind breaks them.

From cactus island we drove to another island. At this point the sun was getting close to setting so we were racing against time a bit to get to the sunset location. Anyway, the island. At first it just looked like any island, with a massive cave. I didn't expect much. And to be fair it wasn't that interesting... But the group photo... Pretty cool!

So then it was back in the jeep and full steam ahead! To what seemed like another random spot in the middle of the salt flats. At this point I was starting to wonder how the drivers knew where they were... The guide asked me to point to the direction I thought Uyuni was in. Normally my internal compass is pretty spot on. Here, however, I wasn't even close! This place is completely disorientating! The guide explained that they use the mountains to navigate. No problem on a blue sky day like this, but in winter the whole place is covered by low hanging clouds.... No idea how they find their way then! Anyway, the sunset was amazing as expected. Diego, the guide, was also a budding photographer and as such had plenty of cool ideas for photos...

It's amazing how fast the sun disappears here. Within 2 minutes of getting out of the jeep it was gone.

And then it got cold. Really cold! Really fast! Seeing as though it's forbidden to drive in the flats when it's dark, we had to get out of there fast! Or risk getting lost.

I've never really thought about this... But the sun rises and the sun sets... What about the moon? Well, I experienced my first moon rise in the salt flats and it was magical! The moon was so huge and clear! We happened to be along side of a lake when it started rising up from the horizon and the reflections on the water surface were amazing! The iPhone camera may be good, but not good enough to capture this unfortunately...

Day 2 we headed away from the salt flats and more into the lagoon areas. First lagoon was called Largo Cañapa. Home to 3 species of flamingoes! The Andean flamingo, the James flamingo and the Chilean flamingo.

Some times there can be up to 25,000 flamingoes on the lagoons in Bolivia but because it is winter they have all flown to warmer climates, so we only saw a few. We stopped at around 5 of the lagoons in total. All slightly different, some looked coloured due to different minerals or organism in the water. Such as the red lagoon, green lagoon and the white lagoon. We also made a stop at the stone trees.

Where wind erosion has created tree like forms from the rocks. The Incas had very active imaginations and the guide also told us we could see other animal forms in the rocks... But I dunno, they just looked like rocks to me!

Last stop before the hostel was the geysers.

Tonight's hostel was really more like a building site. There was no floor in the rooms, just pebbles. And there was only one toilet for the whole hostel. No showers. No heating. And the electricity only worked from 6:30pm until the generator was switched off at bed time. It was an interesting night... Next to the hostel was a natural hot spring. As one of the two hostels close to it, we were allowed to go in there. After dinner. When it was pitch black. And freezing cold! But the hot spring would be 39 degrees so nice and warm. It was! It was great. Laying in a hot spring, in Bolivia, under the moonlight gave a fantastic view of all of the stars. There is literally nothing around here and the places that are here have no electricity. So no light pollution. It was a great experience. Getting out of the hot springs not so much... It was cold... And there was no way to warm up. No heating or hot showers. Just layering of clothes and getting straight into bed. With 5 blankets and a sleeping bag. And sleeping fully clothed. It was a cold night. I think it was around mid afternoon the next day before I could feel my toes again... Oh yeah we got free bottle of Bolivian red wine in the hostel. We had to drink it from shot glasses. It was all very classy. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be... But I'm looking forward to the vineyards in Argentina much more!

The final day consisted of 2 stops. The first one was alongside the road at a place they call Dali Valley. Because it looks like something Salvador Dali could have painted. The second another lagoon. On the border with Chile.

It was completely frozen (as was I!) and had the Licancabur volcano as a backdrop. Behind the volcano is Chile. My next stop...

Potosi - Ghost town??

Along my travels, everybody that I've talked to about Bolivia has said go to Potosi. Some people say stay there for a few days, others said a day was enough. So I broke up the bus journey to Uyuni by stopping in Potosi for 2 days. What have I found? A ghost town.

There are few people walking around the streets. Shops, cafes, bars and restaurants are closed for the majority. Even the market, which is usually the bustling centre for locals was all but deserted. It was because I was walking around at stupid o' clock in the morning. It was 1pm. Maybe it was siesta time? Or is it all about the mines here? The mines I don't want to go down because I am claustrophobic. And I've been down the coal mines at Beamish and the copper mine in Germany on the DataCo field trip, how different can these be? If the mines really are the only attraction here, it's going to be a very long 24 hour wait for my bus to Uyuni...

Sucre

I did not know. But Bolivia has, not one, but two capital cities. La Paz and Sucre. Sucre is the official capital, while La Paz is where the government resides. Sucre is a much smaller, older, prettier city in my opinion. I had one day to spend here before heading on to Potosi. Highlights within the city were the local market, where literally everything was for sale! I wandered through the butcher stalls, where the steaks looked amazing and were soooo tempting, the chicken stalls less so. I think it was the chicken feet. Complete with nails that put me off. I headed to the fresh juice section.

About a dozen stalls covered in fruit, behind them stood women of varying degrees of moodiness. Bolivians are not the friendliest of people. I found this out while trying to purchase bread do my breakfast. Anyway, I picked a women, who at first glance didn't look very happy. But it turned out she was very friendly. I asked for a melon juice. I love melon. And I hate that back home it only has flavour for about two months. During summer. Here, in winter, it still tasted of melon. It was refreshing and cold. And I could have drank 5 more of them. Once finished I handed my glass back to the lady, but she insisted I had another glass as there was still juice left in the blender that hadn't fit into my glass first time around. I didn't take much persuading... But now I was in a conundrum. I had a second glass of juice. But it was offered to me. I didn't ask for it. Do I pay the 5 Bolivianos again? Or was it free? I had no clue. I decided to go down the tipping route and as I handed my glass back, I gave the lady a couple of Bolivianos. Her reaction was to shake her head. It wasn't necessary to pay extra (conundrum solved!), but my insistence was worth it. She broke into a very sweet, old lady smile and eventually accepted. Maybe the trick to finding friendly Bolivians is just patience and persistence...

La Paz from above

After spending yesterday wandering the streets of La Paz I wanted to get a different perspective. In 2014 a cable car network opened. It currently consists of 3 lines, although another 7 are in the planning.

I took the red line up to El Alto, a suburb of La Paz and the view was spectacular!

The city stretches as far as the eye can see, down one side of the valley and back up the other. The horizon is dotted with soaring snow-capped mountains.

El Alto is at 4,095m above sea level. I know this thanks to the incredibly helpful signs!

In the way back down I stopped at the middle station. The city cemetery. It was recommended to me by an ex-colleague who is currently living in La Paz. And a good recommendation it was. The cemetery was nothing like those in England of the Netherlands. The people are not buried underground, instead they are above ground, in walls.

The walls kind of reminded me of apartment buildings. The graves a decorated with photos of the deceased, flowers some had nodding flowers and others had others items such as miniature coke bottles of cuddly toys. While I was walking through I saw one family who were visiting because it would have been the deceased's birthday. They had a guitar and were singing "feliz cumpleaños" or happy birthday.

Some of the walls were like houses. I guess these are for the richer families. The even richer families were buried in statues. One thing that I noticed was that despite being in the middle of a giant city, and underneath a cable car route, the cemetery was an incredibly peaceful place...

La Paz

Today I had a wander round in the massive city that is called La Paz! And it is HUGE! Wherever I look I just see the city sprawling out in front of me and up into the surrounding mountains!

I missed breakfast in my hostel this morning so I had to find somewhere outside to eat. Being lazy I Google Mapped the closest Starbucks. Turns out there are none in Bolivia, but I did get a hit on Google Maps and that was a place called Alexander´s Coffee. Described as the Bolivian Starbucks. Why not I thought? So off I went! Starbucks it was not – but it did have decent coffee and some breakfast-like food. From there I wandered a bit further and came across a street that was blocked off by fences. And guarded by multiple armed soldiers. Turns out it was heavily guarded because these were the streets that surround the Bolivian Palace of Government.

This building is situated on Plaza Murillo. A square with a big statue in the middle and smaller statues around the edges.

And, as it seems with all squares on this continent, there were hoards of pigeons! A small boy was standing in the middle of them, feeding them and didn´t seem at all bothered by the fact that they were landing on his arms, shoulders and even head!

Other sights in La Paz include the Witches Market and Jaen Street. I was expecting the Witches Market to be, well full of witches. Or at least stall selling all kinds of potions and maybe the occasional voodoo doll. For as far as I could tell, it just sold souvenirs. Oh and the occasional alpaca foetus(!). Jaen Street was a pretty, narrow, old street with colourful houses. There are a number of museums here, providing a history of La Paz or Bolivia.

Last job of the day was to visit the bus terminal and arrange a ticket out of this city! Easy-peasy you may say... but the bus terminal was overwhelming! On entering, there were people yelling various city names, trying to get me to book a ticket at their stand. I declined. My tactic was first do a round of all the stalls and then pick the bus I liked the look of best! They all had photos of the buses themselves and some even had photos of the insides and the different seat options. Sucre will be my next stop and it is a 12 hour overnight journey from La Paz. So I was looking for a bus that had full-flat seats. It would be more expensive, but my back would be grateful! For 180 Bolivianos (€23) I managed to find something called a "suite executive" seat on a bus leaving La Paz tomorrow night. It´s even a single seat, so I won´t have any strangers snoring away next to me...