Ben's Year in Argentina: My first week of holidays.

I don´t really DO anything in Buenos Aires, but technically I´m on holidays from it. I´ve been travelling with Emmo and Brennen up north. With Emmo, our first stop was Cordoba, a nice little town about 12 hours out of BA. It was this town in which we watched Argentina get eliminated from the world cup. That was sad. The streets were quite empty for the game until Germany scored their third goal and people started leaving the cafes they were in. Dinner was excellent and cheap that night, at a place called La Zete which serves Middle Eastern food. I thoroughly recommend it.

La Iglesia Catedral in Cordoba.

La Iglesia Catedral in Cordoba, again.

Catedral Los Capuchinos with its distinctive missing spire, left off intentionally to represent the imperfection of humankind or some crap.

The next day, upon advice from Kiwi, our close-to-Córdoba-living-diving-instructor, we headed to a small town on an artificial lake called Carlos Paz about an hour away. One of this town´s main tourist attractions is a big cuckoo clock close to the centre. It´s about as impressive as it sounds... I had baby goat chops for lunch and realised they were baby goat chops after i ate them. Goat is delicious. We should eat more of it in Australia. They´re pests in many areas. Let´s kill two birds with one stone and start eating goats, OK?

We took a trip on the reservior which is quite beautiful and surrounded by mountains. For the return journey, our guide decided to sing karaoke for everyone. It was strange. He gave the boat the option of silence, or just a few songs from him. I think that´s weird. But he really got the whole boat in to it. They were screaming for more when we arrived back at the wharf. Em joked it was the way to attract more customers the next day. "Oh look, Diego! They´re having a great time! What fun! A Karaoke singing guide! Let´s book a trip with THAT boat!"

A sail boat on Carlos Paz reservoir.

View of the reservoir from the dam wall.

Emily on the boat.

I headed to Salta that night, and met up with Brennen the next day. Em went back to Buenos Aires because she actually does something there. It´s called w o r k...

Brennen arrived a little late, and we did some touristy things like climbing the Cerro San Bernardo (it´s a little hill, which was easier to climb seven years ago), and taking the teleférico (gondola) back down.

View of Salta from Cerro San Bernardo

Brennen at the top of Cerro San Bernardo.

Then we went to meet up with his spanish friend from uni, Ana, who told us that she and her boyfriend Elias had looked into a two day tour around the deserts of Salta. We went and booked it with them, and it was an incredible 2 days of solid spanish and beautiful mountainous desert scenery. We stayed the night in Purmamarca, a really pretty little town, if somewhat touristy (or perhaps because it´s touristy), which boasts multicolored hills. We saw a whole bunch of ruins too.

Salta´s Plaza by night.

Brennen with Cactus

A cactus bicycle

Baby llama.

Our guide, Jesus, was excellent. He knew heaps and was willing to share it. He was also funny. He asked us which order we wanted to see things at one stage, and Elias said, "Whatever you want", to which Jesus replied, "Well, i want to go home and hang out with my wife and kids". But we didn´t let him do that.

We were at altitude for much of the trip and it causes tiredness. All three passengers passed out asleep in the back. Jesus is chewing coca to stay alert.

Salt flats of Salinas Grandes.

Evaporation pools for salt collection.

Rusty picks next to an evaporation pool.

Brennen.

Colourful hills near Purmamarca

Brennen with an interesting rock formation.

Dried mud near Purmamarca

Cardon cactus.

The supposed ´postcard´ shot of Purmamarca and it´s multicoloured hills.

I can´t actually remember where i took this, or what it´s of, but it´s a nice photo.

A furry cactus in a botanical garden we visited.

More multicoloured hills. This was called the painters hill or something. Should´ve written it down.

After Salta we caught a daytime bus full of ridiculous scenery to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. We arrived in the afternoon, and booked tours to the Valley of the Moon and the El Tatio Geisers for the following days. We stayed in a hostel the owner himself described as ´rustic´ called La Casa del Sol Nacimiente (the house of the rising sun). For the whole three days we were there I couldn´t get my friend Dave´s karaoke version of the song of the same name out of my head. And he screams it (well).

While eating lunch at some random cafe, Yasmin and her boyfriend Bob walked in. Bob looked different from the last time i saw him. And by different, I mean he no longer looked like Harry from Harry and the Hendersons. Not that i can talk - at least he put some conscious effort into his beard.

We went out with them for a few beers that night which was good fun and slept in the following morning. In the afternoon we took the valley of the moon tour, which leaves at 4pm and gets back after the sun is down. Advice to anyone who takes it - at sunset, walk as far as you can out along the path - most people stop earlier, which means they don´t get to see all the way into the valley.

Looking down the so called dinosaur´s back.

Las Tres Marias, which should really be re-named. But i guess the one and a half Marias doesn´t have the same ring to it.

A big dune on the way to the valley of the moon

The valley of the moon

Brennen being a goose

The next morning we were collected for the geyser tour at 4am. That was quite early. Managed to get a little bit of sleep during the two hour climb to the geysers and we arrived before the sun was up. The temperature was a brisk NEGATIVE FIFTEEN DEGREES CELCIUS! I think that´s the coldest place i´ve ever been, although i was fairly rugged-up, so it didn´t feel toooo bad. We saw some other things around the place, but they were boring compared to the geysers, and got back to the town by about 12 midday.

The geysers at dawn.

Ice crystals forming on blades of grass

The geysers from afar.

A frozen river on the way back.

One of the boring things we saw on the way back. Some 15th century church or something.

We hired mountain bikes for the afternoon and headed first of all to the ruins at Quitor which are about 3kms out of town. We walked to the lookout there and made our way back down through the ruins. They´re an impressive and extensive 12th century fortress.

Ruins of Quitor.

Taken from the lookout above the ruins.

More ruins.

The descent.

Then we rode back into town, and another 8kms to the circular ruins of an ancient town at Aldea Tulor. The ride there is very pretty, and you pass through a little town with a a dusty football field backed by mountains and volcanoes. The ruins, however, although about 2000 years older than those at Quitor, are much smaller and not as impressive.