Hola from Mendoza,
My last email was from Puerto Varas and I had a full day there so I organised a day trip to Chiloe Island which was interesting if not a must see. It’s a big island and at the southern end is the finish of the Pan American Highway, or so I was told. The ferry operation to the island was very slick and the main sights are 100 year plus old wooden churches – big ones. I hadn’t done any visits to churches, which are an obligatory tourist activity, so this was a good combination of conforming and seeing wooden stuff that was surprisingly attractive and ingenious. The other touted tourist attraction is a bunch of old fishing cottages on stilts over the water – not a real wonder. I suspect overall the island is a bit like the West Coast in the 1950s. The big excitement was after lunch in a flash new eco-lodge, when our van/bus could not get through a soft piece of uphill track. The driver was a bit of a wendy and after three attempts I had to have a word to him about getting a good run on and hitting the bad spot at full speed. He possibly didn’t understand. In the end all the guys from the lodge came down and one took over driving and the rest sat in the back for traction and at maximum revs the bus shot up the hill with the driver using one hand on the steering wheel and pumping his fist in the air with the other.
This made me late back to Puerto Varas for a hot date with the ladies from Zurich whom I had sat with at meal times on the boat. They insisted on taking me out for diner and we had a nice meal with a couple of bottles of the best Carmenere on the menu, which is excellent stuff. I was as politically correct as they are in this modern age.
The next day was miserable and rainy so my trip of 4 buses and 3 boats from Chile to Argentina through the Andes was not the visual delight I remembered from last time. It’s very like the deep south of NZ so rain is not an absolute killer but I had wanted to be able to see the volcanoes. The last bus dropped me off near my hostel in Bariloche where I was easily the oldest, and the only interesting thing was that the taxi I ordered for 7 the next morning arrived for the first time at 7 that evening. Bariloche is supposed to be the tourist capital of Argentina but it is looking somewhat bedraggled and there are a lot of decaying unfinished hotel and apartment developments. There is also a lot of volcanic dust that has come from Chile and that doesn’t help the general appearance.
Despite my worries in advance I have to say AeroA did perform getting me from Bariloche to Mendoza. That allows for them not telling me that the airport in Bariloche was closed and being an hour late. As expected the quick flight I had originally booked from Bariloche to Mendoza turned into a long day starting with a bus ride from Bariloche to Esquil where there is an airport with a functioning runway. That bit took about 4 hours and I was actually glad it happened because it was a great ride up front on the top storey of the bus through the mountains, and because there were a few nice things about it of a philosophical nature. Firstly we went from the forest, lakes and mountains back to the wide, empty country the same as where I started this trip. Secondly the road we were on was the one I travelled last time for the trip to Comodoro where my southern search stopped. And thirdly the bus company AeroA had to transport us turned out to be the thieving lying bastards who robbed me back then – the much disliked Don Otto. A series of nice circular things. I thought about slashing one of Don Otto’s seats but decided such an action was not becoming of a person of my age and reasonableness, and besides my pocket knife was in my big bag and not accessible. Then a couple of flights totalling five hours with a longish wait in BA and eventually I was in Mendoza, the wine capital of Argentina and the last stop.
I remember Mendoza as a nice place to visit and it seems the same now. It is warm, and that’s because it is in a desert but there is plenty of irrigation water from the Andes nearby. Flying in I saw so many vineyards I was nearly thirsty. Given warmth and wine there are restaurants with tables on the footpaths and a general feeling of good times about the centre of the city which is the size of Auckland. For my first meal out I went a place recommended by the guy at the hostel and was served by the most arrogant s.o.b. waiter I have come across in an extremely long time. Basil Fawlty would have been proud of him but he was a oncer. Mendoza is a side show on this trip and the only reason for the visit was to do two days of wine tours which I will not bore you about, apart from to say it has been well worth the effort to get here, and that the local wine industry has a delightfully sexist approach to the people it hires as guides. I am not the oldest at this hostel. There is a really old Scots guy marooned here – he can’t ride off on his motorbike because he has got gout in his gear changing foot, and it is obviously stopping him from washing his clothes as well. He beats me for authenticity as he only stays in dorms, as long as he gets the bottom bed in a bunk. He has a stomach of a size that must make getting on a bike hard work let alone having to climb onto a top bunk. Having seen what he ate and drank last night none of this is a surprise – it included two litres of beer and a bottle of wine.
Now all that is left to do is to catch a once again delayed flight, to Buenos Aires, fill in 12 hours, assuming bravely that we will leave on time, and endure the flight home. I will be very happy to return to my lovely wife, my family, my home and my friends. It has been an agreeable and good experience doing this, and doing it on my own, but a month is enough, and I don’t think I will feel a need to undertake any repeats for a long time. The itch has been well and truly scratched.
And I doubt I will want a big steak for a while.
Hasta luego.
Dennis.