Salta

Another town close to the Andes, was having second thoughts about going here as it initially seemed very similar to the Andes around Mendoza. Not to say that it was not dramatic with the multi coloured mountains and the salt pan.

And we had our first close encounter with a Llama

And 3 hours later Adri was eating what could have been her mother for lunch - rather tough.

But  all doubts about Salta disappeared when we hired a car for 2 days and drove down to Cafayate  – definitely of the most scenic drives i’ve done.

On the way to Cafayate ...

And back via a different route ...

more pictures

Map of trip

Click on the blue markers to get the place names.


View South America Trip in a larger map

Mendoza & Uspallata

Next was Mendoza, capital of argentina’s wine district. We did not actually make it to any of the wine farms, but we certainly sampled their goods . The city is beautiful, we were in good hostels and had an all round good time.

In the middle of our stay did a 2 day trip to Uspallata, a little village in the Andes close to the Chilean border.  Stayed at a lovely hostel just outside the village, nestelled between the mountains and a stream. Christian, the owner was great and organised a fantastic  asado (braai) with round after round of tasty pieces of meat. Think their asados could be better than our braai’s (adri disagrees strongly).

Did a great horse ride into the hills around Uspallata.

Aslo visited another statue of Christ the Redeemer, this one being much smaller than the one in Rio, but more hippy in appearance and definitely much higher at 4000m.

It gets chilly at 4000m ...

more pictures ...

San Antonio de Areco

We had been hearing stories about the Argentinian buses all the way from Brazil and on the way to San Antonio de Areco I experienced my first one ... and it made me happy!

San Antonio de Areco, in the Pampas, is only 2 hours out of Buenos Aires, but is very much Gaucho (cowboy) country.

And of course Gauchos love their horses

Have never seen so many horses as I have in Argentina. Guessing they might be the country with the highest ratio of horses to people. And beautiful ones at that.

It was great spending a couple of days in the country - I keep on forgetting how much more I enjoy the countryside than the city when travelling. Cycled one day, another was spent on a Estancia (farm) - touristy, but still great and the last day chilling at a pool.

Buenos Aires

We flew from Manaus to Buenos Aires via Sao Paulo, and spent the five days surrounding New Years there.

Lovely city - leafy avenues, french architecture, and our first taste of Argentinian beef and wine.

The city of Eva Peron and of course, the tango!

More pictures of our time there can be found here.

So far we're really enjoying Argentina, maybe even more than Brazil. Great weather, braaivleis, beautiful countryside and have I mentioned wine?

Amazon jungle

The 4 days spent in the Amazon (Antonios Amazon Jungle lodge, about 200km from Manaus) was interesting but not at all tough for two people from Africa. Hardly any mosquitos (although we continue to take the malaria profilactics), and pretty tame except for the pirahnas and huge bird spiders on the ceiling :-)

Nevertheless, it was beautiful and certainly an experience. Here are the pictures.

Happy New Year to everyone!

PS We flew out of Manaus to Buenos Aires, where we are at the moment, and will probably head off to a town called San Antonio de Areco (in the Northen Pampas) on the 3rd.

Off to the jungle

Been in Manaus for 2 days now and heading off for a 4 day jungle trip tomorrow!

Manaus has been the coolest place (temperatur wise) with the least amount of mosquitoes of our trip so far - very surprised ... exactly the opposite of what i expected. Otherwise not a very exciting city, but expecting the jungle to be interesting.