A week in Argentina
Our Antarctic cruise ended in Buenos Aires, Argentina so we figured as long as we're here we may as well check out a bit of the country.
And of course Iguazu Falls is one of the most well known tourist destinations and so we had to see it.
So that's us in the picture above with a very small part of part of the falls behind us. It's actually the falls as seen from Brazil and not from Argentina. If you look at the pic below you'll see that the border between Brazil and Argentina runs right down the middle of the Iguazu River and the falls. If you want see the falls from the Brazil side as well as the Argentine side you have to buy a Brazilian tourist visa - and it's not cheap - can't recall exactly but probably a couple hundred bucks each - we figured as long as we're going to see the falls better see them properly - from both sides. Money well spent I'd say.
We were at the falls the first two days and then we had three other Argentine adventures, each two days in duration. So same as Antarctica (if you've done that blog already)....the links below will jump quickly to the associated text / pictures.
Iguazu Falls
...Iguazu Falls is, according to this Wikipedia page, the largest waterfall system in the world. It is freaking huge. The pictures below will not do it justice. PLUS both days we were there were overcast and rainy so the pictures are not very vivid. Tough shit for us I guess - maybe we'll go back some day.
The pics below are not in any particular order and there's really no explanation required for the most part. Just a lot of water and a lot of noise.
There are some observation platforms as shown below. On a day like we were there you get really wet on these.
Our hotel was in the middle of the jungle.
Not much of a view from our balcony.
This little guy was living nearby.
Decent enough place though.
An outdoor spa that never got used.
And a nice pool that would be great on a hot sunny day...
This little critter is a coatimundi and they're everywhere here. They're beggars and it's a real problem keeping tourists from feeding them.
The babies like to play...
A short video of the falls.
All pictures from Iguazu Falls are here.
Salta
Salta is a city in the Northwestern part of Argentina.
Why the hell did we go to Salta?
When we decided to spend some time in Argentina we didn't have much of an idea where to go - we knew about Iguazu Falls of course and we knew we'd be ending the cruise in Buenos Aires. We also knew that we like drinking wine from Argentina's Mendoza region.
We contacted an outfit called Zicasso.com - a service that matches travelers (like us) who aren't sure about what they want to do and see with local travel planning specialists. We'd used them (Zicasso) before with reasonably good results.
We had also used Zicasso to find a travel planner for our Chile trip and it turned out we had the same company, Glove Travel for both trips.
So part of the process when dealing with a travel planner like Glove Travel is you have to tell them what you want to see and do. So Iguazu was easy - we wanted to see the falls. What else...??? We wanted to see the country and we wanted to see all the sites in Buenos Aires at the end of our time in Argentina.
So they (Glove) suggested a two day visit to Salta after the falls and a two day visit to Cafayate after Salta.
A whole bunch of info about Salta here.
So we flew from Iguazu in the morning and got to Salta airport about noon. Our guide picked us up and took us to our hotel where we had lunch and some liquid refreshments.
After lunch we investigated the city.
First the obligatory visit to the main church.
Some shots of the interior.
It's not the Vatican but pretty impressive nonetheless.
Can't remember what the deal is with this creepy guy.
I think this is a statue of a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity and was killed for it. His bones are buried underneath apparently. Creepy!
After the church we went up to the highest point in the city.
The weather is looking dark. Luckily it stayed okay.
Salta is a oretty big city. 600,000 + people.
So back to our hotel.
We had a funky little cottage away from the main hotel.
Very rustic.
So that was it for day 1 in Salta.
Second day we take a road trip to look at the scenery in the area.
Some amazing rock formations.
We're going a loonnnnngggg way up
The white strip in the middle is the salt flats.
The Andes (I think) in the distance
And the salt flats.
We're at an altitude of 4,170 meters...that's almost 14,000 feet.
We're above the clouds.
This, believe it or not, is a vendors site. Mostly junk.
On the way back down we see a lot of llamas.
They don't mind blocking the road.
We stop in a town for lunch on the way back to Salta and this vendor has a pet llama
The entire town is a market place but it's all the same stuff and all junk. Could not find a decent souvenir.
A couple videos.
So that was pretty much it for Salta.
Cafayate
Our third adventure in Argentina was a trip to the town of Cafayate and surrounding area. The drive there, from Salta, was part of the adventure, such fantastic scenery.
You can see from the map below that Cafayate isn't far from our previous destination. Only about 190 km from Salta.
Our trip here was a result of our fondness for Argentine wine. We drink a fair amount of Argentine wine - mostly Malbec - and mostly all from the Mendoza region. Our original plan included a visit there to spend some time at the vineyards but our travel planner, Glove Travel, advised that there was an entirely different area in the north with fantastic wines. As it was close to Salta we said "why the hell not?" and added it to our plans.
The Spanish language is somewhat strange. They have no idea how to deal with Js and Gs..for example our guide's name was Jorge. Spelled funny but sounds like George...right? Wrong... it's pronounced Hor-Hay. We all knew that though.
Cafayate looks like it should sound like "calf a yat eh" but its "calf a zhat eh". The "Y" in the middle sounds like ZH..like Dr. Zhivago.
So I asked our guide Horhay how they pronounce Llama. I seemed to recall the double ls end up sounding like an "E" or a "Y" in Spanish. Like Seville (the city in Spain) is Se vee ya. At least I think it is.
So Llama could be ee-ama or just Yamma....nooooo. He said Lee-ama or Zhama. He said whichever you called it, Lee-ama or Zhama, people would know what you were talking about.
So right there I gave up thinking I would some day learn to speak Spanish.
The road to Cafayate is very scenic and we stopped a few times to take pictures.
We finally get to Cafayate and have lunch at the Piatelli Winery.
That's our guide Jorge
We finally get to our hotel - Patios De Cafayate. Not a bad place - the room wasn't the best we've had.
They're cooking a pig for dinner.
He certainly has a startled look on his face.
There are animals all over the hotel yard.
Zhammas
Horses.
And a dog who bothered everybody at the restaurant in the evening. He would go table to table begging for something to eat
And if you gave him any attention...
...you'd have a problem.
The waiters would try to drag him out when he became too much of a nuisance but he would just drop to the ground and lay there and he was too heavy to lift. They just laughed about it. Pretty smart dog.
The next day we had a bit of free time in the morning so we investigated the winery next door that is associated with the hotel. The tasting room wasn't open yet though.
Beautiful grapes.
After we went to tour another winery.
We had a fairly substantial glass of each of these locally grown and processed grapes.
These barrels are no longer used in the production of wine...strictly for ambiance.
Walking around the town square I noticed a table set up where you could get your blood pressure and you blood sugar tested. I don't know what they charged for it.
After another nice lunch we visited an ancient Indian site.
This isn't the ancient part...this part is where some guy thought he could build a hotel on Indian land and do it without getting the proper approvals and permissions. The Indians showed him who was boss and he had to walk away from the project losing millions apparently.
This is the ancient settlement. At least so we were told. We couldn't hang around as long as we wanted to...the skies opened up finally and pissed down on us.
The nest day we drove back to Salta to catch our plane top Buenos Aires in the afternoon.
On the way we stopped a couple times to look at more scenery.
There's a person in this picture. About a third of the way up ...just right of centre. There must have been tremendous water flowing in the past to create this canyon.
Zoomed.
And growing on the power lines are "air plants" - at least that's what the guide said. I thought bullshit - there's no way a plant can just grow in the air. Well I was wrong. First time ever but I was wrong.
See here.
Our last stop before the airport was a museum dedicated to three children that were sacrificed and buried on a mountain top around the year 1,500 AD. Pretty interesting stuff.
The museum did not allow photos but there's a bunch here.
And some info here on a wiki page.
And a very interesting Youtube video.
That's it for Cafayate.
Buenos Aires
..Buenos Airies is a large city, about 3 million people. It's the most visited city in South America.
The two following pics were actually taken the day our cruise ended and we were flying to Iguazu Falls.
These two were taken on our return from Salta. It's a very green city with trees planted on every street.
It's a modern city that still retains much of its Spanish charm.
We had a nice hotel, the Hub Porteno. Arranged by Glove Travel.
Our room was way fancier than required.
And it had a nice rooftop patio area for having a cocktail.
We only spent two days in Buenos Aires. The first day we had a guide and driver for about six hours. She showed us the main sites in the area where we were staying and explained about Argentina's past.
This is a government building and the barricades are set up because there are many protests that take place here. No idea what they're protesting about.
And of course another visit to a church.
Inside the church is the crypt of Jose de San Martin who was the leader of the army that gained independence from the Spanish for Argentina, Chile and Peru. Apparently his body is not actually in the crypt but buried in the yard outside the church because he was suspected of being a freemason.
Many of the buildings we saw were very "European"
And many are very modern looking.
And the obligatory visit to the local market.
Yummmm! Brains.
We also visited La Recola Cemetary which the BBC determined i one of the world's best cemeteries. A Wiki page here.
It's laid out like a city and this is one of the tree-lined streets.
There are many fantastically beautiful crypts.
And some not so beautiful.
May are well maintained.
And many are not.
This is the final resting place of Eva Peron.
A pretty interesting place.
The next day, our final day in Argentina we just wandered around. It was a Sunday and the city was pretty much shut down.
We visited a open air market where all types of interesting items we for sale.
Didn't have my size
Jots of junk-tiques
And we saw lots of guys catching a mid day siesta.
And that was pretty much it for Argentina.