Ok, its been a while since I blogged, Becky and I have been trotting all over Argentina, heres what we saw.
Becky and I are in (were in, this is now 8 days ago) Cafayete which is a fantastic small wine town in North-West Argentina. Its quite a sleepy old place nestled within the most incredible wild wild west backdrop full of cactus, glowing red jagged rock mountains and rolling vine yards. Jealous yet? you will be.....
Becky and I are in (were in, this is now 8 days ago) Cafayete which is a fantastic small wine town in North-West Argentina. Its quite a sleepy old place nestled within the most incredible wild wild west backdrop full of cactus, glowing red jagged rock mountains and rolling vine yards. Jealous yet? you will be.....
I love wine. The vine yards are beautiful and tranquill, the whole process of making it is fasinating and of course, the buisness of getting down and tasting the stuff is the best bit!
There are lots of wine bodegas to go and visit and try and learn a little and hopefully taste, a little more! Our favourite was Nanni, a really quaint, Organic, family run bodega that makes incredible white called Torrontes, one dry (which we aqyuired 2 bottles of) and one sweet, I loved both. And its so cheap, 3 pounds a bottle, hence I talked with the ladies there about shipping some home but it didnt really make sense considering it costing at least 20 times the price of the wine to do this, so all that was left to be done was sip sip and guzzle as much as we could whilst we were there - ooh its a hard life eh!
White wine in South America is a lot rarer, good white wine that is, so it was even more of a treat to find this light, fruity, floral, with hints of honey and gooseberry delicious tasting liquid mm mm.
Ooh and what we have discovered - this is fantastic, is that a lot of Argentinians have Italian blood and decendents, the ice cream is bloody amazing!!!! We have been smapling wonderful flavours everyday, ( occasionally twice a day). We walk into a differnt parlour each day, to lay our hungry eyes upon many shiny stainless steel round vats, containing such lush flavours such as Dulce de leche con brownice (Argentinaians go mad for anything caramel based, and this is caramel flavour with added brownie or chocolate pices or just extra caramel) creamy coco, cappucino, swiss chocolate, dark chocolate, chocolate with nuts,ooh and Ferrero Rochet (Age & Annie yiou would love this one, its tastes exactly like them, how fantastic) ahhhhhh Im reminising......
Then you choose your 2 flavours, and they pick a small ish wafer cup and laddle the good stufff out with big spatulas (this is a really good sign of a great ice cream, its just creamy and plyable and needs to be just spooned up and heaped into a vessel instead of hard and forced out with a scoop) and they just pile it really high so you cant help but look like a right greedy pig, but hey, when in Rome!
Considering all of the ice cream we had already eaten and the amount there was left to eat (spending at least 6 weeks in Argentina) we deided some physical excercise was in order. A good old bike ride to see some water falls and have a lesurly swim and maybe stop off at a vine yard on the way (well, it was on the way - be rude not too)
Well, oh my goodness....this 6km was so freakin hard, because it was actually up hill and on sand!! Have you ever tried to cycle on sand, up a bloody hill!!!! its like cycleing with a flat tire, and not moving - at all!!! and using a lot of energy!!! It takes lots of pufffing, panting, swearing and lots of water and little stops to push the bike and also sit on the ground re thinknig this silly idea! ooh and a picnic half way to refuel! But, we did it!! and it didnt take all day, suprizingly. We didnt actually make it all the way to the water falls as these were a 2hr walk once we had goneas far as we could on the bikes and had to srabble around on foot over rocks and beside cacti for the rest of the way. But this was out of choice, as the sun was beating down and we found a lovely natural plunge pool to bathe in and a huge rock to sun bathe on instead, pretty impresive I think and so bloomin worth it, especially as the cycle down hill was super easy and we only had to touch the peddles twice and it took a fraction of the time, a good day all in all! All that was left to d was prepare a little dinner, crack open the Torrontes and sit under the stars on our terrace and feast, happy happy happy.
Time to move on and head to the mother of all waterfalls, Iguazu!!!
Iguazu is sandwiched inbetwen Brazil and Paraguay on a thin strip of land. Brzil and Argentina both share this incredible force of nature and you can smaple the falls from both sides if you so wish. The bus ride however was 28hrs so a bit of a journey followed, but, I think, this makes me stronger and I will never hesitate in getting a 5-6 hr bus ride in the uk or anywhere else ever again.
There are lots of wine bodegas to go and visit and try and learn a little and hopefully taste, a little more! Our favourite was Nanni, a really quaint, Organic, family run bodega that makes incredible white called Torrontes, one dry (which we aqyuired 2 bottles of) and one sweet, I loved both. And its so cheap, 3 pounds a bottle, hence I talked with the ladies there about shipping some home but it didnt really make sense considering it costing at least 20 times the price of the wine to do this, so all that was left to be done was sip sip and guzzle as much as we could whilst we were there - ooh its a hard life eh!
White wine in South America is a lot rarer, good white wine that is, so it was even more of a treat to find this light, fruity, floral, with hints of honey and gooseberry delicious tasting liquid mm mm.
Ooh and what we have discovered - this is fantastic, is that a lot of Argentinians have Italian blood and decendents, the ice cream is bloody amazing!!!! We have been smapling wonderful flavours everyday, ( occasionally twice a day). We walk into a differnt parlour each day, to lay our hungry eyes upon many shiny stainless steel round vats, containing such lush flavours such as Dulce de leche con brownice (Argentinaians go mad for anything caramel based, and this is caramel flavour with added brownie or chocolate pices or just extra caramel) creamy coco, cappucino, swiss chocolate, dark chocolate, chocolate with nuts,ooh and Ferrero Rochet (Age & Annie yiou would love this one, its tastes exactly like them, how fantastic) ahhhhhh Im reminising......
Then you choose your 2 flavours, and they pick a small ish wafer cup and laddle the good stufff out with big spatulas (this is a really good sign of a great ice cream, its just creamy and plyable and needs to be just spooned up and heaped into a vessel instead of hard and forced out with a scoop) and they just pile it really high so you cant help but look like a right greedy pig, but hey, when in Rome!
Considering all of the ice cream we had already eaten and the amount there was left to eat (spending at least 6 weeks in Argentina) we deided some physical excercise was in order. A good old bike ride to see some water falls and have a lesurly swim and maybe stop off at a vine yard on the way (well, it was on the way - be rude not too)
Well, oh my goodness....this 6km was so freakin hard, because it was actually up hill and on sand!! Have you ever tried to cycle on sand, up a bloody hill!!!! its like cycleing with a flat tire, and not moving - at all!!! and using a lot of energy!!! It takes lots of pufffing, panting, swearing and lots of water and little stops to push the bike and also sit on the ground re thinknig this silly idea! ooh and a picnic half way to refuel! But, we did it!! and it didnt take all day, suprizingly. We didnt actually make it all the way to the water falls as these were a 2hr walk once we had goneas far as we could on the bikes and had to srabble around on foot over rocks and beside cacti for the rest of the way. But this was out of choice, as the sun was beating down and we found a lovely natural plunge pool to bathe in and a huge rock to sun bathe on instead, pretty impresive I think and so bloomin worth it, especially as the cycle down hill was super easy and we only had to touch the peddles twice and it took a fraction of the time, a good day all in all! All that was left to d was prepare a little dinner, crack open the Torrontes and sit under the stars on our terrace and feast, happy happy happy.
Time to move on and head to the mother of all waterfalls, Iguazu!!!
Iguazu is sandwiched inbetwen Brazil and Paraguay on a thin strip of land. Brzil and Argentina both share this incredible force of nature and you can smaple the falls from both sides if you so wish. The bus ride however was 28hrs so a bit of a journey followed, but, I think, this makes me stronger and I will never hesitate in getting a 5-6 hr bus ride in the uk or anywhere else ever again.
Iguazu is absolutly amazing and incredible and breath taking, its a VAST! tropical, magical wonder, that suprizes and amazes at every turn but ill let the pictures do the talking...
We stayed at a Lovely hostel, a bit like a hotel, with a great big kidney shape pool, this enticed us to extend our stay by a day just to kick back and laze by it, recharge our batteries you know!
We met a couple of people to share our day with, 2 Argentinian guys to wander this amzing place with. One was nice, the other, slightly creepy, but hey, my day woudnt be complete without having some slightly sketchy person nearby!
You can get so so close to the falls, and in some parts, every now and then the ater gets whipped up into a frenzy and completly soaks you, Becky and I spent the whole day practcaly in and out of the water, lucky it was so hot. We even went out onto the edge of the falls in a speed boat, again this was like taking a shower in your clothes! we coudnt open our eyes as the water spray was so blustery and crazy powerful, completly surrounding us, so so much fun.
Well, enjoy the pics, ive lots more to tell of quaint villages, lashings of more amazing ice cream, street tango & no sleep, but we have spent 2 nights partying in Buenos Aries and now we have to go shop in yet another amazing market and of course catch the hot beautiful sunshine :)
HAPPY EASTER AMIGOS xxxxxxx
