Further Wanderings

Somehow or other it’s easy to forget how big a country Argentina is. When we’d arrived in Mendoza I sort of thought, “okay we’re up north now,” even if just on the edge of the north. But from Mendoza we took a 16 hour bus ride to San Miguel de Tucuman and still weren’t anywhere near the northern borders of the country. There was lots more travel (33 hours on buses!) and exploration to do before we arrived there.

Tucuman was just a transit point for us. We spent a couple of hours in the bus station before departing. As far as bus stations go it was actually kind of interesting: open air because of the low latitude and altitude of San Miguel and had coin operated TVs in the waiting areas.

Our next destination was NOT low altitude. The 3 hour bus ride to Tafi del Valle spent pretty much all of its time climbing up endless hills and swtichbacks into the Andes. Though unlike many visions of that range, the hills and mountains around Tafi (2000m ASL) were verdant and fertile. It’s a major dairy farming area and is noted for its cheese production (which is actually kind of what drew us there… we’re pretty easy to entice, aren’t we?)

The wild (north) west of Argentina

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As if we didn’t do enough lazing about and drinking local beverages in Santiago, we did plenty more of it in Mendoza. This wasn’t my first time in Mendoza. A good thing, since with all the laziness, we really didn’t get around to seeing all that much of it. We didn’t even make it to a winery for goodness sakes! (No worries though, we did cover the wine touring aspect by a sneaky, convenient method that was much easier than heading out into the wops to the wineries themselves…)

A fabulously decorated wine barrel preparing to serve as a table at a Mendoza street festival

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Arriving in Ushuaia felt like arriving home. The wind was howling, 70km/h with 100km/h gusts. It was a cold summer's day, certainly under 15C and probably closer to 10. The airport was stuck out on a peninsula removed from the rest of the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Whew… It’s been a while. Long enough that I scarcely know how to get back into it. Well, perhaps we can start with a (very) brief synopsis of what I’ve been up to for the past… Four months is it? 1. Visiting my ... [Continue reading this entry]