Departure at 8.30am for a longish drive, in time but not distance, to Tupiza, (Photos here.) I was back at 8.15am from my visit to the train cemetery but Karen wasn’t where we had agreed to meet – at the restaurant where we had our breakfast the day before. Turned out she had gone on a mission to find bread and tomatoes for lunch with Geoff we were just about to send out a search party when they appeared with said supplies.
We had a choice of routes – 400km of boring motorway or 200km of scenic dirt road – we opted for the dirt road for the truly spectacular scenery but talk about shake rattle and roll, no dozing on the truck today! After 4 ½ hours we had only gone 100km so slow going but worth it for the views. With about an hour to go and the light fading we came across a Bolivian bus that had broken down – multiple punctures. Stuck ! Two hours later having not just changed the wheels but the tyres as well due to the odd assortment of rims on the bus (and borrowing Ithaca’s tools to do it) they were eventually able to move the bus enough for us to get past. Now pitch black, the already challenging drive was now serious, with headlights on plus the roof mounted rally lights Rogan did a sterling job of getting us down the winding mountain route and together with Kirsten navigating the incomprehensible route into town. We grabbed a quick bite of chicken & chips at a tiny cafe that was closing around us for the princely sum of 80p each and headed to bed after a long and tiring day.
There are lots of tours and activities in and around Tupiza but most opted to chill after our fairly hectic program of the previous week. Some were going walking but we opted for a more sedate Jeep tour, joined at the last minute by Sue, and once I solved the issue of cash. The ATM wouldn’t play ball the previous night (the only other ATM in town being out of order) and then inspiration struck and I used the Spanish rather than English menus and money popped out. Confirmation it wasn’t a fluke when Sue tried the same thing – no cash when using the English menu no problem in Spanish.
We had a great day – firstly seeing some of the valley we had missed in the dark the previous night – absolutely stunning and then visiting some of the other gems including “Valley Los Machos” where the rock formations look like a certain part of male anatomy and where we met Francois, Heather, Lisa and Jean walking, also “Canon del Duende” a hidden valley that you enter literally via a hole in the wall. It was very Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid.
Incidentally Tupiza is where the famous robbers made their last robbery – the payroll of the Aramayo Mining Company on Nov 3rd 1908. This resulted in the standoff with their pursuers about 120km from Tupiza, not as romantic as the film supposedly Sundance was fatally injured and realising there was no escape Butch shot Sundance and then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. However there are endless conspiracy theories that they did actually escape and the bodies never found……………
Sure it’s all good for the tourist industry J Lunch was a hit with Karen as we had explained the gluten free issue and the tour company had gone overboard to compensate, fruit, yogurt and Tameles – corn dough stuffed with Llama meat – proved much more popular than the stand ham and cheese sandwiches for the rest of us. On the way back we passed a local lady carrying a heavy load in the middle of nowhere and Sue suggested we offer her a lift which she gratefully accepted for the 5 or so miles to town and the market, where we think she was headed. to sell whatever it was she was carrying.
Back about 4pm and did some blog preparation before heading out to El Alamo for a drink with about half the group. El Alamo is a strange place with multiple rooms – one a disco and the decor a sort of 50’s diner meets soft porn set with some fairly suggestive posters of Marilyn Monroe, Wonder Woman and bikini clad girls with cars.
We went for dinner with Geoff, Tony and Vanessa for more chicken. After a couple of us ordered a ½ chicken and chips plus rice they wouldn’t let us order any more as said it was too much as they expected us to share and indeed the portions were huge. Tony and I went back to El Alamo for a night cap and spent a pleasant hour putting the world to rights. Early start next morning with a 6am departure as although only 3 hours to the border but with a total drive to next stop of about 8 hours and because you simply never know how long a border crossing will take. As it happened it was probably our fastest crossing of the trip with all of us plus truck and formalities completed in an hour!
One odd thing about the border was the sheer number of porters ferrying goods across to Bolivia. It’s obviously cheaper / faster to employ the porters than take the trucks across. Slight
chaos ensued when one of the porters spilled her load of apples, Bolivia imports apples from Chile as they don’t grow well in Bolivia and hence they are by far the most expensive fruit, causing a traffic jam on the narrow, fenced path reserved for the porters to the displeasure of those behind. Time is clearly money as the porters push the heavy loads one way and then run back the other for the next pick up.
We were heading for a campsite that was also a rafting and zip lining centre, it was a bit of a detour but it had been arranged for them to provide a “surprise bbq” this plus the location next to the river justifying the detour. The surprise turned out to be no bbq as despite Kirsten having a confirmation email from their office the people on site had no knowledge of our booking and certainly no food for 25.
Plan B was a quick emergency pasta dinner off the truck however as it was basically pasta with tomato sauce I made do with a chocolate bar and to bed in our tent as no upgrade available, still an excellent location and good facilities including a nice hot shower.
Next day no one went zip lining which was just as well as drive was longer than expected due to slow roads, en route we stopped at Calyate a pleasant place but we only had 30 mins and Karen and I needed to get drinks for the bar – we were slightly late back but to loud cheers when they realised we had some drinks.
We ended up 80km short of our intended camp-site but found a reasonable alternative in Rio Horno. A beef stir fry for dinner which was our last cook group – a bit of a result as we only did breakfast and a relatively simple dinner. We stayed up late with most of the group which decimated the bar supplies meaning we will have to do another stop for our last night camping in order to avoid a riot ! Tupiza Photos Here
Onward next day towards Cordoba and a 3 night stop at a working Estancia (farm).
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Chilling at Estancia, return to BA
A long drive, with of course the extra 80km shortfall from yesterday, and the last 70km on a dirt drive barely big enough for Ithaca. We did manage to scrape one post which did some minor damage to the truck corner trim but we think it was the camels straw from the repeated thumps that particular corner had received. When we finally arrived at the Estancia the accommodation was in shared rooms – ours had a double bed and 3 singles so sharing with Kirsten, Jeanne and Francois. Lovely and comfortable the only issue being the incredibly noisy toilet door making it impossible to make a quiet trip to the loo in the night!
Our dinner that evening, was barbecued beef ribs from the farm, absolutely melt in the mouth and cooked to perfection. Accompanied by a bottle of local Malbec – for us carnivores it’s good to be back in Argentina!The next day was Karen’s birthday which was greeted by balloons on the door but as we were in a shared room we thought it best we postpone our normal birthday celebrations for another time………..
Setting Off
Congratulations over breakfast from the entire group and a gift of chocolate & wine from Tony and Geoff. Jeanne wanted to do some washing and the advice was to go to the river so Karen joined her and had a fun time doing so. Suggestions that she shouldn’t be doing washing on her birthday let alone in the river and that perhaps I should do it were given short shrift.
Later that day Karen and I wandered back down to the river, a truly lovely spot, a pleasant couple of hours scrambling over the rocks and playing grown up “pooh sticks” with 2m tree trunks caught in the rocks. Back for lunch, another pasta / tomato non-starter for me but a convivial gathering nonetheless. Dinner a much more satisfying beef casserole accompanied by the bottle of Syrah from Geoff & Tony. Kirsten had found some gluten free cookies in lieu of a cake. All in all a great day for Karen apart from not being able to pick up the messages from the family as we are in a very remote spot without wi-fi.
After breakfast, the next day, we had another pleasant walk around the farm and down to the river, meeting up with Tony & Vanessa who had also spent the morning scrambling over rocks too. Karen had horse riding booked for the afternoon along with Francois & Lisa and accompanied by Daniel, the gaucho, a very pleasant 2 hour ride around the farm in the sunshine. A number of the group anticipating overfull bags home donated their ferry hammocks to the staff at the Estancia which were very welcome.
L to R, Kare, Francois, Lisa and Guide
When the horse riders were back we played Perudo – a great dice bluff game which is helped by drinking in fact is very similar to an old drinking game of my knowledge called spoof. Appearing at a family gathering near you soon. Dinner was barbecued steak, excellent quality and beautifully prepared followed by homemade tiramisu & fruit salad for Karen. It was a very relaxing few days enabling us to recharge our batteries after a very debilitating week of being ill.
Next morning we were all ready for the 500km drive to Rosario after our few days of R&R. It was slow going until we hit the tarmac at around 10.45, and a pleasure to be back in a land of well stocked and clean service stations. Rosario is the birth place of Che Guevara, Marxist revolutionary and Lionel Messi – world footballer of the year since 2010 and now alleged tax dodger. We stayed at the municipal campsite as it was getting dark. Kirsten and I made a beer run – kindly getting a lift from one of the staff to an ATM and a taxi back from the supermarket with copious amounts of beer, wine and nibbles for our last night camping. Greeted with loud cheers from the thirsty crowd who promptly set to in demolishing the newly acquired stock and a fine job they did too. Dinner was an excellent chicken curry followed by toasted marshmallows around the fire.
It was an early start, after a welcome porridge breakfast, and a final inventory and clean of the tents as we packed them up for the last time. Then a relatively easy 250km run to Buenos Aries and back to the Bohemia hotel. We settled the bar with most of the group en-route, after 6 months it was around $220 in profit which we gave back to people based on the amount they had spent. We were joint highest spenders as a couple, Ken easily the highest individual spend.
Of course being the end of the trip we had to unload everything from the truck – thankfully being Sunday we were able to park outside the hotel for an hour or so before it was moved to a truck park – this included both our main bags, tripod, camera case, laptop and associated cables, our hammocks and other souvenirs. We had packed a collapsible bag in our luggage as we are allowed a generous 32kg luggage in 2 bags each with our TAM flights. Their policy of 23kg out and 32kg on the return journey made a great deal of sense for tourists. A brutal clearout of worn out t- and unwanted bits such a extra tent blanket meant we were comfortably under the weight limit with only 3 bags to check in, Karen taking the laptop and myself the camera as carry on luggage.
As it was Sunday there is a major craft / antiques street market close to the hotel so we went for a mooch with Colin and Jane, after coffees we went our separate ways as we wanted to do some shopping including a mate cup and supplies of mate for Michael. That just left us to concentrate on our final group dinner and a terrific night it was too at the excellent “Gran Parilla Del Plato” restaurant otherwise known by the group as Butchers Shop as it is in a former butcher shop. Complete with tiled walls and meat hanging racks, however also great food, wine and service.
A fun night topped off with a glass of bubbly courtesy of the restaurant, we had asked for separate bills for basically 3 tables, what we got was the bill randomly split into three, this took some sorting but eventually we got there thanks to the maths skills of the relatively sober Lisa. Stressed by the effort involved we then found Lisa & Heather in the Gibraltar pub, next door to the hotel, ordering chocolate brownies and cake at well past mid-night. After more chatting and general hilarity we finally got to bed well after 2 am. A great last night.
There were emotional goodbyes next morning as a couple of the group were leaving for the airport and home – Mikkel heading for work the day after he lands in Denmark – and then the rest of the group leaving for their Uruguay extension. Having seen them off we had a few jobs to do including checking in for our flights the following day. A shock to see our connecting flight had been changed to 6am meaning a 15 hour stopover in Sao Paulo waiting for our transatlantic flight. No thanks, so we decided to go the TAM offices and were rewarded with a no quibble change to a 7pm flight meaning a mere 1 hour stopover in Sao Paulo and then on to London. Result.
Karen and I had a good 2 hour walk to the TAM office, lunch in an excellent Italian bistro and then a wander around the Floralis Genérica – a famous huge flower sculpture. Then the bus back to the hotel where we had an example of the friendly locals, as we had insufficient change a stranger paid our fare and made sure we got off at the right stop.
The changed flight meant we effectively had an extra day in Buenos Aries and after saying goodbye to Terry, Leslie, Jeanne and Neale who were leaving for the airport at 10am for their 1pm flights, we had another walk around the city and then a final lazy lunch. We treated ourselves to a fantastic steak, red wine and champagne ice cream lunch at the Butchers Restaurant before leaving for the airport – slightly squiffy! It was a great farewell to Argentina and South America.
Arrived at the airport at 4.29pm checked in and bags gone by 4.37pm fastest check in ever, irritatingly I left my “I love boobies” Galapagos cap in the taxi but hopefully Tony can retrieve it. I bought some skull candy headphones for the flight home, uneventful flights, brilliant welcome home from Steph and Graham – banners, hugs and kisses and that’s it we are done.
I will think about a final word.
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