AspiringNomad

Argentina, you fantastic country!
We arrived in Salta after what turned out to be a better bus than expected thanks to the random shacks in the middle of the desert at the border selling Empanadas, crisps, biscuits, Coca Cola and of course, water! Much needed for all of us.

We walked to our little apartment and crashed out for a while before freshening up and heading for dinner.
We had heard that Argentina was going to be fairly cheap for travellers thanks to their awful economy and blue dollar rate but none of us were expecting to be able to get a 3 course meal, with fresh lemonade and beers for 5 people for just £26. Simply laughable, but we were far from complaining, we have been living like Kings and Queens since being here. Definitely no hostels for us, apparently Argentina don’t want you to make friends with anyone!
In the last 6 days I’ve discovered that this country has it all. Good food, beautiful scenery, civilisation (compared with other South American countries) and it’s super cheap! What more could one ask for?

The following day, we spent the morning sorting out a few loose ends before starting our road trip. Kalib and Migs returned from Western Union at about 8:30am. I assumed that they had nipped to the supermarket aswell until it transpired that the shopping bags were infact full of 100peso notes!
We had withdrawn £750 between 5 of us. So we had 750,000AR$ (Which we call Argee Bargees)
One ‘stack’ was 10,000 worth of 100 notes. You can imagine what our apartment looked like when they returned. Apparantly WU didn’t have any bigger note denominations, so we stuffed all our bags with as much cash that would fit. We have since been laughed at multiple of times when counting out from our 100AR$ notes for a bill of 26,000 argee bargees. We just laugh along too and hope they have the patience to wait for us to sort it all out, or a note counter if we are really lucky!

The fun didn’t end there! That same morning, Aoife and I headed to pick up everyone’s laundry. To our horror as she put Chris’s bag on the table, the white shirt he had worn the night previous was now a subtle shade of pink!
Aoife’s little Spanish got us far enough to get some money back but apparantly we should have separated the red ‘Death Road’ t-shirt from all the other clothes!
You can imagine Chris wasn’t particularly happy when we found out that he now had pink socks, shirts and t-shirts!

We left Aoife in La Tacita Cafè with half of our luggage, Kalib was off locating his next rabies vaccination and Chris, Michael and I bundled into a Fiat Uno that looked like it shouldn’t have been able to move with us and our luggage in it! The taxi driver helped squash our bags into the back and as I pull my door close the arm rest falls off of it. The driver didn’t seem bothered and we headed to the airport to pick up our Ford Ranger 4×4.
It wasn’t long before we collectively met back up at the said cafè. We stocked up on freshly baked Empanadas, biscuits and water (because when in South America, what else do you snack on?) And started our journey to Cafayate, all before midday!

I’ve decided not to give you a day by day run down of what I did on my road trip. The truth is, we drove 787km through otherworldly scenery which would be impossible to articulate just how spectacular it was with just words. We also drank a lot of wine, and I mean a lot, we are in Argentina after all! We also ate arguably too much food and stopped off for way too many cortados.

On the first day we stopped at a little town called Chicoana for our first coffee. As we sit in the quaint little plaza, the town drunk approached us. He was rather keen on Chris who eventually gave in and gave him some of our table bread and the chocolate that came with his coffee. Eventually two men on a motorbike nearby politely asked the poor man to leave us alone. A few friendly smiles were exchanged and we decided we had seen enough of Chicoana and got back on the road.

Our first night spent at Cafayate was a hot one. It was still reaching 30° after dark. The owner of our 2 bed villa (which only cost £4 each per night) recommended a vineyard resort nearby that serves great wine and food. Piatelli Vineyard and the Aura restaurant within it, didn’t disappoint! A hotel complex that looks like it belongs in Tuscany, but nestled into the argentinian valley with mountains surrounding it was exactly what we had hoped for (especially as we had dressed up, which doesn’t happen often when travelling)!

We left Cafayate on our 3rd day and headed to Cachi. We left early at 6:30am this morning, it meant we stopped for coffee at about 8:30am after a bumpy road along RN40. It was not as bumpy however, as the bump created by Migs reversing our big truck into the side of the cafè that we stopped at.
Luckily the damage was minimal and no one was hurt, just Michael’s ego!
A quick message to Hertz and a little white lie about where the incident took place and we were back on the road.

We arrived in Cachi and headed straight to a vineyard that offered a 4 course meal with wine pairings for £11pp. After getting suitably drunk from wine at 2pm in the afternoon on a Wednesday, Kalib got us back to our two chalets that we had for the night for just £9pp.
The night sky was beautiful and after our stargazing tour in San Pedro we were all trying to locate different constellations and plants before calling it a night.

The 4th day had me clinging on for dear life in the back seat as we drove along the side of the mountain on a road that was barely wide enough for our car. We wondered why the route we had chose wasn’t a popular one. ‘Take the road less travelled!’ we boasted until the road less travelled became Death Road 2.0 and the reality of potentially toppling off the side of a mountain to my death became a reality. The car was extremely quiet for about an hour until we were at the top. 4800m, the air was thin and it was cold but we were on a massive high from our near death experience!

Driving down the mountain and across the valley was much nicer and I was more than happy to take the wheel at this point. We made it to Tilcara to our 3rd and final villa. Another steel which just seemed normal by this point, but this villa did come with a friendly cat which I was particularly pleased about.

To make up for the abysmal take away pizza that we had the night before, we decided to make some pasta of our own and have a night in the accommodation to make the most of it. Kalib and Aoife prepared tuna pasta with salad and we bought a few large, local beers and cookies from the shop. Just to reiterate how cheap it is here, that cost just £4pp.

The 5th and final day meant we had to start heading back to Salta. We decided to head back a bit sooner than planned as Chris was on deaths door with what seemed like a flu and we had discussed that he needed to go to a hospital to be checked out. Now, I’m no doctor, but when someone looks at you dripping with sweat stating that they are freezing cold, something is not ok!
One final coffee stop in a very hot San Salvador De Juyjuy, a few missed turnings due to Kalib’s very poor navigation skills and a couple of car games and we were back in Salta. Michael ended up having to drive the final part of the journey due to us getting pulled over through a police check. We had forgotten to turn our lights on which is a law here. This meant they had to check Kalib’s drivers license which typically he only had a photo of. We all knew this but assumed if Hertz let it slide then we should be OK. A little 10,000 argee bargees (£10) bribe was exchanged and we were allowed to continue on, with a different driver, that is!

We dropped Chris at the hospital for him to be diagnosed with what turned out to be Pharyngitis. A quick stop at the sketchy police station to get a statement for the ‘car accident’ and still time for a Mc Donald’s to round of the trip off to a brilliant end.

Chris and I are now off to Buenos Aires for 3 nights. We said goodbye to the others, but know we will all be reunited again in Mendoza on the 10th December which we are all very much looking forward to!