25 0ctober 2018: False flat (vals plat in Dutch)

The accompanying music is this time from Roberto Carlos (here with Pablo Cruz) who we met in Cayafate where he was performing as a folk singer. The song is called 'Trago de amor'.

He promised us to come to New Zealand and perform in our garden. Keep your agenda open!

Slight mistake. Started the car early in the morning thinking "I'll quikcly clean the wind screen".

A few minutes later the temperature gauge informed us of an inhumane environment around the car.

Still, we had to get out after only a few miles to have a look at the 'Ojos de Mar'; the 'eyes of the sea'. From the moment we left the village we saw a creature moving fast through the landscape, using a short cut. He arrive about 3-4 minutes after us. Introduced himself as the manager.

That meant that he had to registrar us (!?!?), but not before taking our pictures from carefully chose locations so that our fingers pointed exactly to the Cerro Aracar, a 6086 m. high mountain nearby. The registration encompassed photographing our licence plate and car. He probably came from a long family line of plane spotters. Not too many planes is this area, so what do you do....... Getting back to the other side of the mountain meant going over it again. Nienke wasn't too happy about that considering the amount of trucks we'd seen the day before.

Once on the other side (I know it's getting pretty boring) the landscape was amazing again. We'd been wondering about several paintings in lodgings of elephants. Even rooms named after them. We assumed it was just the cheapest decoration they could get on Amazon, but it turned out to be related with the stunning area between Tolar Grande and Salar de Pocitos; El Arenal. It literally looks like elephants feet.

We'll quickly skip describing the town of San Antonio de los Cobres. Interesting name, but terribly boring. It was a extremely windy (you don't know half of it Welly!) mining town. The most interesting thing was that when Nienke asked two policemen for directions to our hotel, they just jumped on the back seat (indeed, 2 on 1) of our car while Nienke took the still a quarter full jerrycan of petrol on her lap. Happy to oblige! You may know Nienke likes to aerate rooms, so she did in this hotel as well. While we were enjoying dinner (lomo or pollo) the shower turned into a mini desert.

Our next road stop was this lovely donkey. Unfortunately Nienke was still very static (shoes, car, desert, we just don't know why, but we both walked around like triggerhappy batteries) meaning that every time the donkey sniffled Nienke outstretched hand he got a minor electric shock. So we drove on to the top where we met a nice couple from London who just came from the other side. They complained a bit about the road but because they were quite under dressed (ice cold wind on the top) we did not take them very seriously.

Have to say, as you can see in the above clip from our dashcam, they were kind of right after all. At some points it became eery quiet in the car. After the scariest part we had to help a motor cyclist who had fallen and was too out of breath to get his bike up again. We stopped at a nice stream where I used my energy (not easy at 5 km hight). to clean the car, a bit.

We couldn't even see anymore what music was playing, the display of the radio kept being blurred by dust. After having splashed around for an hour or so (much to the amusement of a few passer byes) we continued our journey. Quickly discovered that they had grey dust here, instead of the orange stuff we were used to.

On our way to Cachi we passed some more interesting landscape. Cachi was a nice little town. It was 26 degrees which explained the summer clothing of our London mountain friends. The man from the local-Site gave us some info about the town. The river walk he advised had been washed away 10 years before and the nice stream turned into a algae infested puddle. Not sure why we undertook the journey to the pre-Inca remains far down the valley. I guess because he said there'd be a guide.

After a hardly existing path finally ended between a huge cliff with a mud stone hut and 2 car wrecks, a teeth less woman more or less indicated that her son (the famous guide) was not there but we should just head for two white rocks  in the distance and we would find it. Glad I used to be a boy scout after all. We did find it and a nice stream as well. You can see the rocks where they used to grind their food in.

From Cachi we drove to Cafayate, a very nice town surrounded by wineries and stunning rock formations. Just south of Cayafate were the amazing ruins of Quilmes. A town of 5000 people who resisted the Inca's and even managed to resist the Spanish for 130 year.  Truly beautiful. On our way to Quilmes we were stopped by the Regional police. I showed my Dutch drivers licence, which clearly puzzled him enough. Uh..., buen viaje. 10 minutes later another road block. the Gendarmeria, the national police. Great communciation! Again no idea what to do with our papers, so they asked if I had drunken some wine. Not at 10 am sir! Ah, yes, the All Blacks are great. Oon our way back to Cayafate we expected the same 2 road blocks again, but they weren't there, proving our impression that if you want to smuggle things in Argentina, do it during siesta!

The only road block we encountered this time was from a nosy lama.

We had too much food and wine (for instance during the concert of Roberto Carlos) and too many car rides. I was still half dreaming when I heard Nienke mentioning the obvious. She had convinced the owner of the cabana we were staying in to loan us some bikes. A 'Bodega' (winery) in the foothills was her goal. Called 'Los Nubes'. I think I already gave it away. Foothills? Los Nubes (the clouds)? Anyway, we now remember again what 'False flat' means. Had to buy two small towels for our concrete saddles and reached the winery finally in a rather less impressive way. Nevertheless we enjoyed a beautiful example of the irrigation canals the aboriginals had build. They are still being used. Briefly visited some unimpressive ruins with our guide 'slomo'. Even standing still I almost ran over him. We left the bikes with 'slomo' (seemed like a safe bet) and stumbled the last 50 meters up to the winery.

Great reward. Quickly restored the lost calories with some empenadas, tamales and a bottle of cold Torrentes while enjoying the view over the valley. 2000 m. high.

Needless to say we looked great and confident on our way back to town. Here is Nienke arriving at the wine museum. A very interesting display of the journey from starting the first stalks to making the wine. Really enjoyed it.

Next day we visited Quebrada de la Conchas. Fantastic rock formations. Still can't get enough of it. Great names like 'Diabalo', the Amphitheather, the Castles.

We did some walks between the mountains and over valleys.

Even managed a selfie in which we are actually both visible.

Beautiful display of colours.

Ended up at a weird hotel. We assumed it was closed and there was nobody there, but a lovely lady ushered us to the garden for the great view, accompanied by another generous glass of torrontes.

20 October 2018: Walking on the moon - crossing the Puna

Hi guys, the music with this blog is "walking on the moon" from "the Police".

Because we had 'done' the two national parks in one day (making our host worry when we did not get back before dark) - the second day in San Augustin we decided to check out out the 'valle fertil' - the gorge in the local hills close to town. Where the name 'fertil' (fertile) comes from we have no idea as it's very dry and dusty with enormous cacti. Very impressive for someone from green NZ. There was a little stream in which we even took a bit of a bath in our togs as it was a very hot day thanks to the hot winds that blow in this part of Argentina and make a hot day even hotter. It was around 27 C and it's only springtime.. We gave a local farmer a ride and also picked up his friend at the next intersection when we finally got out of the valley after often wondering (me) if we would ever get out. Giving rides to locals is order of the day here as a lot of people simply don't have cars and go by foot or horseback if they have one. It's nice to have a bit of a chat but we still have to meet the first chatty farmer haha (same as in NZ unless there is beer involved). Back at the hotel we met a lovely couple from Holland and had a nice dinner (yes baby goat again) with them at the local hosteria.

After saying goodbye to the lovely hosts we took off for Chilecito driving through a stunning part of 'Ruta 40' called Quest de Miranda - red rocks in all sorts of shapes and forms, very beautiful. We made a stop at a bridge where I took a photo of a Argentinian family driving around in probably his work cooling truck and in turn they took our photo in front of a lovely gorge. 

We had booked a cabana (little bach or sometimes just a motel room) in San Florentina which turned out to be in the hills next to Chilecito. Very nice relaxed hippy style place, built and run by Franco who spent a year in NZ a few years ago travelling and working. He went back to his roots and started building cabanas when he returned and has created his own little piece of paradise there. 

Cabanas made out of river rocks from the Rio Amarillo (guess what that means?!) that runs past the property. Very unusual colour thanks to minerals that were also mined there in the last century. After a visit to town we decided to walk up the river the next day - and saw the little tower we built for Ruben was standing strong. All we could think of during the walk was Ruben as his funeral was taking place more or less at the same time in Holland. I walked the Heaphy Track with Ruben in December 2016 and am so grateful that we did make lots of good memories together.

On our way to Belen the next day - the starting point of our big desert drive - we visited one of the Inca ruins in this area Ruinas Chincal. Interesting place, likely the largest Inca place in this part of Argentina. The Incas went as far as Mendoza in Argentina. On the photo I am standing at the stairs that led to the highest hill of the village which was 
used for religious ceremonies. 

Photo of the local butcher shop in Belen - the dogs know where and when to go for their meal. Just like in Chile, there a lots of dogs around. In Chile mostly confined behind locked gates, here in the towns they roam around freely. Some have an owner but most don't. They are being fed and watered by everyone. Meat and food is left on the streets for them to eat and they walk into restaurants and sit next to your table to beg you to drop something.
In Belen we were stopped by the police. Upon hearing we were from New Zealand the female officer only wanted to know if we'd seen the famous movie (who's name we'd never heard of) with Lucy Lawless (her hero) which apparently was recorded in New Zealand. DId not have to show any paperwork.

The next day we started our big desert road trip; driving the Puna as they call it here. We had changed our initial idea of driving to Buenos Aires and seeing Montevideo after talking to our host in San Augustin. And we are glad that we did and changed our plans - what a experience we were about to have! In that very large desert there are only three tiny villages where you need to find a hosteria or a hospedaje and in the first village the hosteria was booked out by a group (of Japanese we joked). So we had to book bit further afield in the second village and luckily that worked out. For the second leg of our journey we hadn't been able to find anything on the internet so would have to 'wing' it and see if we could arrange this later and if not, change our plans.  During this road trip we suddenly saw a lady coming out of nowhere with a goat and a cat. We thought she wanted a ride, but it turned out she had a sore throat and wanted some pastilles. We were the first to pass in days, so logically...... We gave her some Fishermens friends. She may hate the Dutch now.

Before going we had to get a stack of pesos as all accommodation here is paid in cash - if you have followed any news lately about the latest financial crises here you will understand cash is important and not easy to get for Argentinians as there are measures as to how  much they can retrieve from their own bank accounts. That is the same for us, we can only get lower amounts of cash out of ATMs and pay sometimes about 5% of that amount in fees on top of paying to the NZ bank for using a foreign ATM. In that sense in our view NZ banks are as backward as the SA ones...

The drive to El Penon was beautiful, we oh-d and ah-d a lot not knowing how much more beautiful it would get. The most interesting part began when we began to spot volcanoes and black lava and of course we couldn't resist and had to walk on it to get rid of that nasty memory of last year with Hans his knee business :-).
I am posing a bit but wow is the desert a windy place - every time you open the car door you blow out of the car and the sand blows in, literally going everywhere.

60km after El Penon we were close to Antofogasta where a volcano has created a beautiful lake just outside the village. Greeted by lamas and flamingos in the late afternoon sun was a great welcome and end to our 6 hour drive.

In the hosteria the locals confirmed that yes we can continue our drive with our 2x2 to the next village but if we wanted to see the area around Antofagasta it would have to be with a 4x4.
The next day we toured with one of the local guides called Hilario (yes we thought it was funny too) and it turned out to be a great day. See the little clip here of him driving through a very narrow gorge, steep and lots of loose sand. We would have be stuck but also it would have been impossible to find your way off road through this landscape of craters.
A mini glacier in the desert - a really nice surprise. Because of the altitude (Antofagasta is at 3200m) of the terrain, streams are frozen every morning and there are patches of snow as it's still springtime. 

The landscapes are just out of this world - it definitely felt like walking on the moon :-).

Views like paintings - red rocks, dark rock, sand with white salt against blue skies, just beautiful.

Hilario's whole family are guides and farmers (except two sisters that work as police officers) but none of them speak any English. All the guides we have met so far in Argentina don't speak English, almost no-one does. Apparently it's very expensive to learn English as it isn't taught in school, only privately which means the majority never learns it.  So I am very happy with my basic Spanish as we do need it every day, starting with finding the accommodation we have booked in the small villages.

One of the many valleys around the craters that we visited, sharp edgy rocks in all forms and sizes.

In front of the salt flat that's part of the Laguna Grande (crater lake) you see a group of very pretty in pink flamingos. The flamingos had just returned from Chile, where the Atacama Desert is much hotter than this desert as it's a at a lower altitude. So they spend winter there and return to Argentina for the summer.

Desert landscapes where you expect Indians to be on top of these mountains looking for Lucky Luke and the Dalton brothers. Or even Rantanplan, the dog.

This is the grass that paints the hills yellow in the desert; a type of grass that is the food for vicuña (a cross between a gazelle and a lama). 
Close up the grass is quite big and takes funny shapes, the ends are also razor sharp so how this animals can chew on this stuff we have no idea. 
On the second night in Antofagasta we were in doubt what to do as running out of cash was going quicker than we anticipated but also finding our next stay in the next village was not easy. We didn't want to drive for 7 hours on difficult terrain to go camping below zero. Late in the evening we found a phone number on the internet and lucky us with a text message we managed to find a hospedaje in Tolar Grande for the next evening.

The second bit of our journey was definitely off the beaten track. Most tours go to El Penon and back and if tourists travel to Tolar Grande or the village before it (8 families) Antofalla, it is with a 4x4 and a guide.
Our Toyota performed well, but height was certainly needed to cross streams (sometimes frozen like here) and track over big rocks. Very small narrow winding bits of road, Hans was in his element!

The good thing was that we didn't expect to meet any other car and in 6 hours we didn't which helped me not think about it too much.

This clip is from the salt flat (called salar in Spanish) at Antofalla. We agree this is the most beautiful one we've seen because of the three volcanoes sitting in the salt flat and the beautiful red colours that mix with the white of the salt. Just stunning.

The scenery just kept changing and changing, every view an awesome one. The peaks of the Andes are very high ones - all over 6000m.

Colour makes me happy, so happy!

The vicuñas who eat this yellow grasses live in herds like deer; one male and a bunch of females and little ones. Often you only see them last minute because they blend in so well - the colour of their fur is the same as the grasses they eat. A fun fact is that we also witnessed is that all members of a herd poop in one place - very neat and tidy haha but we figure it has to do with them marking their territory.

This pic is where the final 2 hours of our journey started; crossing the very large Salar de Arizo to get to Tolar Grande. The naturally formed pyramid is a bit of a surprise - sculptured by nature - wind, water and sun. The salt flats are purely of volcanic origin, a product of evaporation of salty continental waters of volcanic origin. 

On the road through the salar we started to encounter the first large trucks which was the first traffic all day. The trucks were clearly hauling road construction materials but also temporary living containers. Something big must be happening in that salar area in the next few months/years.
After the hour crossing of the salar we landed in the trickiest bit of our journey - the road which must have been ok for 2x4 when our host from hotel Rustico drove it (or heard about it from visitors) - had been turned into a loose sand 'road'. The one thing that our 2x4 is not good at is loose sand. But yeah, after 6 hours of driving what do you do? 

Hans did great and just stepped on it which worked really well, once you have the momentum you can keep going but it did feel like driving Paris Dakar at times. All the while we also had to pass and give way to a large number of trucks that just kept coming our way. We could only stop on tiny bits of sand that were not that deep and soft to let them pass.
If we had gotten stuck the good thing would have been that there would have been a truck to pull us out!
We made it to Tolar Grande around 6pm after an awesome breathtaking day of driving. Made a few photos with the evening sun just before entering the village.

After asking three different locals of which one called our host with my phone when I asked her, we found our hospedaje. Confusing because all the hospedajes are called Hospedajes Familiar... Basic but nice with a couple of other guests that we chatted with. The local restaurant provided pollo or vaca (chicken or beef) and local wine which was a satisfying end to a great adventurous day. And you know what was the funny thing? We are with the two of us and in walks a large group of Japanese with their guide to have dinner. The group from El Penon we believe! As they travelled in a larger bus they must have driven the other more 'normal' road to Tolar Grande, but we did have a giggle. The staff as well as they were a weird bunch - all taking off within a minute after finishing their meals without any goodbyes. Next blog the last day of our desert trip.

October 9th 2018: Ruben

Life can be very cruel. We lost a very  good friend this week after a tragic car accident. Ruben (on the right with Nienke while doing the Heaphy track in New Zealand 2 years ago) leaves behind Sabien and 3 children. This tragic loss makes us realise even more how fragile and precious life is and how important it is to enjoy every minute of it. Ruben will never be forgotten and Sabien and the children will always be in our hearts.

This is Paco, the guard donkey at the last place in our previous entry. The owner had just put his property on AirBNB when we booked. Wasn't really ready for it yet, but he was very friendly so we helped him with a lot of tips.

A night later we stayed at a quirky place from South African owners. A totally recycled and upcycled house. Very nice people indeed, invited us over for the BBQ right away. Had some interesting talks about politics and travelling.

And he gave us some good tips about wineries in the area. Here we're at Villard winery in Casablanca. Pretty huge compared to NZ.

His son helped us getting rid of the lock on our spare wheel. Used a huge angle grinder to cut it through. Turned out the car dealer had been lying all the time. No spare keys, papers not ready, etc. So we spent our 25th anniversary at the car dealers place, being angry at them and upset with with the bad news about Ruben in hospital.

We were quite happy to leave Chile and drive through the Andes. On the phone you can see the many bends we had to take to get over the very high pass. With our mind still gone a bit we managed to completely miss the Aduana, the Argentinian Immigration. When we finally noticed it we had to drive back 17 km to get the necessary stamps. Luckily the Aduana did not see the mistake in our paperwork. The idiots from the car dealer made us 'Germans' on the authorisation form. Germans!!! Now we can go to the 'Beerfest' with Birgit, our German friend.

Magnificent view over the many hairpin bends on the Chilean side.

At the top, Cerro Aconcagua, an impressive mountain, 6960.8 meter high.

Stunning drive through the mountains of the Andes.

The colours of the spectacle around us were amazing.

Driving around in this scenery is definitely not boring.

Nienke filmed quite a bit when we were driving and taped me singing along with Mumford and Sons.

Got our first taste of the great Argentinian wines in the very first village we ran into. We ordered a quick lunch and both got a rather generous glass of Malbec, about 3 to 4 times the size of the portions you get on the Chilean side. Lesson well learned as we still had a few miles to travel to Mendoza.

Mendoza is a town in central west Argentina, famous for its wine. So we booked the 'Trout and Wine' tour (?) and visited 4 beautiful wineries. Here you see an experiment, ageing wine in concrete barrels. They were even thinking of going back to concrete amphora's.

Humongous tanks in the Alta Vista winery.

We have done quite some wine tasting in New Zealand, but this was something special. Almost laboratory like. Each of us sitting at a table with sinks in front of us.

Unfortunately we could not book a room here. Would have been nice to put our tent up here between the barrels.

I think our tour lasted about 5 hours and we're absolutely fans of the Argentinian Malbec now. But also of the Torrentes, a white wine made of the Torrentes grapes from the north of Argentina. It's a bit comparable with Viognier.

Somehow we woke up again the next day and had a nice stroll through Mendoza. In the evening we stumbled upon a big party (I think they're following us) in the main square with lots of folklore and nice food. Several really big paella pans. Delicious.

These beautiful mountains we saw on out way to the Talampaya gorge. We had the idea of walking through it, in 34 degrees. Unfortunately for us there had been sightings of a puma, for the first time in 30 years. This meant that the word 'puma' was present in every sentence around us.

Our 5 hour walk was reduced to 2 hours as we were not to disturb the puma, or it was too dangerous. We think our guide was just lazy and used it as an excuse to get back to the shade.

It was beautiful enough not to be too disappointed. On this picture you can see Nienke and I at the bottom doing something I still do not understand. Is apparently funny.

Haven't seen a puma or even signs of it. The other tourist saw puma signs in every piece of animal pooh around.

The excitement was all a bit hilarious. A single puma would not attack 5 adults walking in a canyon, let alone a minibus full of lazy tourists. Besides, they found a cadaver in the small gorge we were meant to walk back through, so it wasn't hungry any more. It all made me think of the hysteria in the Netherlands when "poema's" and wolves were sighted in the Veluwe.

We decided to use the time we would have spend sweating in the gorge on a new road, piercing and winding itself through the Sierra de Valle Fertil. So nice. Not sure why they called it 'fertil', everything was extremely dry.

This Argentinian version of Uluru marks the border of Ischigualastu, or Valley of the Moon. According to the guide in these prehistoric surroundings the Inca's already named them the Valley of the moon.

Nienke wondered, to the amusement of other English speaking tourists, how the Inca's knew what the surface of the moon looked like. Ah well, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

The guide was talking so fast that even Nienke had troubles understanding her. I guess the round stone balls were dinosaur pooh. Fossilised of course.

What a beautiful park. We saw animal shapes in the rock formations around us.

A snail?

The sun emphasised the beautiful colours around us.

A group of guanaco's were curious what we were doing there.

I think this is pretty much proof South America and Australia were once connected. The red dust is starting to cover our car which we actually don't really mind. A dirty car may attract less burgles. Not that we feel unsafe, the people are so very kind here.

We've picked up a some locals a few times. That's what you do here, you help each other. Gave Nienke the chance to practise her Duolingo in reality. It was already dark when we drove back to our hotel. Driving in the dark is quite a challenge here. Black horses standing half on the road, Argentinian cars without lights (not kidding you), cyclists and scooters without lights, people walking in the dark, etc. We'll try to avoid driving at night from now on. Amazingly you see quite some Renaults 12, Peugeots 504, deux chevaux and other in Europe and New Zealand extinct cars. Driving very slowly of course, often hanging in there with duct tape and pieces of string. Usually missing some apparently unnecessary parts like lights, bumpers, and windows. And they told us to make sure the car was in tip top shape to avoid fines from the Argentinian police!

Last picture for today. The sun going down over Ischigualastu, casting our shadows over the mountains. Fitting picture, makes us realise how Ruben has casted his loving shadow over our lives. We will always remember him.