Salt is the only spice an Argentinian will tenderize beef with. An Argentinian handles a roast with familiarity – they are raised on the stuff. In the harsh winter this year, produce costs more than meat sometimes. This situation suits many Argentinians just fine.

Any South American city worth its salt must have two soccer teams. They must have one team for the wealthy to cheer for and one for the poor. If this state of progress didn’t exist there would be nothing to riot over, or rather the riot would be more substantial. Whether by good planning or not, the working class team tends to win and consequently the riots tend to be in good spirits. Buenos Aires has four teams, two for the province and two for the city itself.

Arriving in Argentina from Bolivia is a bit of a culture shock as it seems to offer all the comforts Bolivians regularly do without; good food, fresh vegetables, good coffee, ice cream that tastes like ice cream. My weakness is good food and Argentina was always going to be good to come back to. Hoteliers look at you strangely here when you ask if they have hot water. It felt strange to be given a towel and a bar of soap again at check-in.

That said, the north of Argentina is a poor area of the country and there are more indigenous faces up here than in the central country. Argentina’s roads are stocked with cars well overdue for a demolition derby (although driving on the road is fairly similar to a demolition derby in itself). They race to their eventual demise at the top speed possible – this speed ranges from 60 to 140 km/h depending on the capability of the vehicle.

Salta is a classically beautiful city with a vast Plaza de Armas, a few spectacular churches and is bereft of skyscrapers. It is also very relaxed – the siesta up here can run from 12.30-5.00pm, or even longer. This made things a little tough for me to get the motorcycle to the mechanic but eventually I got back on the road. The real jewel of northern Argentina isn’t Salta or any of the cities but the small towns and the campesinos going about life much the same as they have been for hundreds of years. The people are not as stoic as the Bolivians and readily come over to say hello or talk about their towns. I met up with Jorge and Adrian of Argentina, and Lucas of Brazil. We joined forces heading south. We head north to San Antonio de los Cobres and join the Ruta 40, which runs all the way to Patagonia. We immediately climb to 4900 metres on the trip and then descend down the Valley to the winegrowing town of Cafayate

Jorge and Adrian disappear to sort out an asado, roasting beef over a coal barbecue for hours which is a ritual every Argentinian man seems to learn growing up, a bit like a carnivore’s bar mitzvah. They return with about a kilogram of beef per person and we get stuck into a few bottles of wine. Just a few days before they had roasted me up cow brain. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected, actually once you got over the texture it was delicious. Terrible for your cholesterol apparently.

And so I woke up, on the ground of my tent as my air mattress punctured many moons ago, hungover but feeling well, next to a vineyard. After enjoying this state of affairs for a few hours, I realized I was running a few days behind my rag-tag schedule and hit the road for Mendoza, leaving my friends for a rough afternoon of vineyard tours while I set off on the windswept Ruta 40.

The cold was the worst villain, and it got into my hands something wicked. The south was in the grip of an impressive cold snap, and I wasn’t well enough rugged up. I stopped in at San Juan for the night, 200 km short of Mendoza for a hot shower and a good night’s sleep.

Mendoza itself is a beautiful town and well worth the pilgrimage even if it means putting plastic bags over your hands to get there. I have to admit that I did very little but in the hostel there were a few Argentinians in addition to a Colombian girl and an Ecuadorian guy so we had something to talk about and of course could kick the locals outside to roast up more beef while I tried to chat up the girl. Just a note on the meat, the common meat is certainly not up to the standard of New Zealand meat. It is however pretty good and about one fifth the price – you can get porterhouse steak here at around $7 per kilogram. So everyone goes nuts and the portions keep getting bigger. I pretty well lay around Mendoza and tried to keep the butchers in business. I will return but fear if I live there I may never escape and will eventually be found at 200 kilograms, slumped over a parilla grill in this part of Argentina. I also found the locals to be very friendly, receptive, and good fun.

I made a side trip to Santiago for a day to see an old girlfriend and her family who had been very good for me. It was good to see but strange being in a city I had lived in 5 years ago. Nothing much had changed in the city except the main clubbing area was no longer popular and now considered dangerous. The wealthy areas still had echoes of just another Los Angeles suburb and the best restaurants in town were depressingly still TGI Fridays and Ruby Tuesdays. But enough criticizing Chile, it is a great country in many respects, I just feel the landscapes and isolated beauty to be far more interesting than the capital.

I have also found myself attracted less to cities as my trip has gone on. Something about the mish-mash of so many people, families and cultures makes it hard to find a distinctive flavour and dilutes many regional effects or perhaps, they are just more distinctive in the countryside where people may be more simple but often more interesting. Contrasting with this, I have set Rio de Janiero as my goal and move towards Buenos Aires, a city I have good memories about from backpacking at age 20. Buenos Aires essentially was the start of a three week party which culminated in carnival in Brazil and my losing 3 kilograms and requiring 2 months sleep to recover. Its fair to say I was fairly excited.

Away from the Andes the landscape of Argentina is predominantly Pampas, cow-grazing plains. The route is fairly uninteresting from a driving point of view although I did pass a section of marshes populated by flamingoes. Approaching the city, night fell but I decided to make the last 150km in the dark.

I quickly reached a motorway which was lit and with heavy traffic so navigating was less of a concern than the damp road. BMWs and Volkswagens zoomed past to my left and I swung out around trucks. On the highway I try to ride in the fast lane, to maximise my vision lines and as most trouble seems to come from traffic merging across from slower lanes or entry points. In Argentina this is a recipe for a bonnet up my rear end so I sit one lane across. I came around a gentle corner and there was a car between my lane and the fast lane stopped. Another car had stopped about 30 metres further along. I squinted my eyes, not quite understanding what was going on. I figured there must have been a collision but still couldn’t figure out what to do. I had been slowing down but decided not to come to a complete stop. I had a vehicle to one side of me in the fast lane, I had space inside. I swerved around the first car and heard the car to my side skid – I had been concerned they would swerve into me in preference to the vehicle. There was no squeal of tires, just a steady slide and a heavy ‘crunch’ of metal. And then another ‘crunch’, and another, and another. A car in my lane connected with the vehicle spinning it down the road in revolutions with a bumper hanging down. The collisions continued, about 10 in total. In the wet it was unceremonious, fast and abrupt. I had stopped 50 metres from the collision and realised that I had just avoided some serious pain. People were walking around checking on each other and there were no shouts for urgent assistance so after a minute I caught my cool and moved on. I have only had one other very very close call to an accident on the trip and realized in both situations my decision making was not conscious but very much sub-conscious, where I made some precise moves and somehow found the safest ground. I don’t relate this story out of any sense of pride, more that on a motorcycle, you don’t have to be the one to make a mistake to turn into another victim. If you ride a motorcycle I highly recommend a good riding instructor. I have already decided to take a first aid course and an advanced riding course once I wrap up this trip. Twice, good habits seem to have saved me from serious injury, and countless times from more minor incidents.

Once in Buenos Aires, I found a bunk at Dakar Motos. Javier and Sandra have been providing a place to stay for travelers for many years and their shop has become a moto-traveller hot spot. The bike had an electrical problem outside the shop – what has eventually been diagnosed as the ignition coil. On my last legs financially, the bill will be a stretch but hopefully the last. It could have been worse had I had the problem 500 kilometres from the city. It gave me a quick chance to check the famous ‘doohickey’ and it was in good condition – thanks to Mike in San Diego’s aftermarket piece.

It has taken longer than expected to get through Argentina. The cold has surprised me, I think Brasil will be easier but I will be in more of a rush. I hope to be on the road again Saturday in Uruguay.

Buenos Aires is a brash city. I haven’t been partying much but have been to a few bars. I listened to some tango singers in a classic historic bar which has avoided the tourist circuit but haven’t found any dancing which is not tourist oriented. It’s not that the flash tango displays aren’t very slick, just that they don’t interest me. The singers in a boliche impressed me and the bar was crowded with young people – very rare these days with a folk music. I wanted more, the tango that people live, that people put on worn out turntables on a Sunday afternoon and the bars they have been drinking in for the last 40 years. I haven’t yet found it. I did however find a free opera, not in the Teatro Colon which I was in 5 years ago and is truly spectacular, but a side room. However the discovery that I like opera when it is done well was a surprise. The standard was brilliant and the city provides these events free to those who wish to turn up.

I went to the Museum of Fine Arts and saw an exhibition of a golden era of Argentine artists in the early 20th century which was excellent. I saw a Rembrandt and think I could appreciate some of what made it distinct. So I have been getting a little culture in Argentina. About overdue many would say!

Posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 4:47 pm in Josh's Journal.
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