Argentina June/July 2010

It welcomed us freezing our water system, but Argentina was love from the first sight. Its friendly people with their thing for kissing for ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’, also strangers… its beautiful roads with system of gas stations where you can buy great coffee and fresh medialunas, take a hot shower, use wifi and camp for free no worries… its mountain and vineyard landscapes with autumn colours on the flats and white winter high up there; its unbelievably tasty steaks which you can buy really cheap everywhere- out of the five weeks we spent in Argentina so far, we had non-steak dinner maybe 5 times. I wish I could add to this list awesome skiing but I can’t (yet). Winter in the southern hemisphere this year is shit. It came late, it hardly ever snows, or when it does, the next day wind blows it all away, where, I don’t know because we didn’t come across any hidden stashes yet. Maybe there is a secret valley in the Andes where all the snow goes to live happily ever after undisturbed by civilisation and its offspring. Or maybe it is just our beloved Mother Nature messing with us, you know, to keep us on our toes so we don’t forget who the boss is. Whatever the reasons, good snow this year is a struggle here and so July had gone and we found only one patch of snow in Las Lenas where we could play, and so we did, on and off for 2 weeks.
Hot springs! Did I mention the abundance of thermal waters that Argentina seems to have. We visited a few very groovy places but nr 1 on my list is Termas de Cacheuta just out of Mendoza- great range of temperatures covered by its many pools indoor and outdoor, sauna, picnic area and a cool location in the mountains.
We were in Argentina from 14 June till 18 July and our itinerary was following: crossed the border from Chile thru Paso de Sico, a few days in Salta (slow transition back to civilisation again), a couple of lazy days at Cabra Corral (lake), Los Banos in Rosario de la Frontera (first bathtub in 16 months), San Miguel de Tucuman, Catamarca, Termas de Santa Teresa (shithole in the middle of nowhere, open only to hotel guest), La Rioja, Patquia, Chepes, Caucete (gas station with great showers), San Juan, Mendoza (where the wine hatches), Lujan de Cuyo, Termas de Cacheuta (fuck yeah!), Los Penitentes (no snow), Las Lenas (beautiful skiing terrain) and Malargue (nice town), back to Mendoza area (hot springs, changing spark plugs, etc), Los Penitentes (still no snow) and over to Chile.
We gonna be back in Argentina soon and frankly, I can’t wait. Argentina feels like the forgotten world of my childhood, where people are friendly and have time for family and friends, where rules are few and flexible and so you can relax and enjoy just being there. Sure it ain’t perfect- it’s just a country made of just people. But it has this something that many countries by now have lost. The best I can describe it is a sense of freedom.