Santiago and Around

Dear all:

Since we last spoke, I have arrived in a new country: the spindly Republic of Chile, and spent a day and a half in the capital, Santiago which I was very surprised by in that I found it most pleasant. In truth, I only really wanted to go to Chile so I could drive through the Andes and get another stamp in my passport. Stamps are pretty. I had heard that Chile was expensive, apparently very European and all the friends I have met so far are having fun together in Bolivia, or something, maybe they're not there yet, but they will be at some point. So in a somewhat Napoleon Dynamite fashion I thought to myself 'Fine! I'll go to frikkin' Chile. Gosh!'

But Santiago was a really cool capital, maybe because it is so European and just like London and they let nerds like me into the National Library to geek out about books they can't even touch let alone understand. There's just something about shelves, you know? There was also, to my delight, steps that I was allowed to climb up to look at the whole city. I hadn't climbed steps for some time and was suffering slightly from withdrawal symptoms, so I dragged myself up them, sweating and panting (in a good way) to survey my domain of high rise buildings and MOUNTAINS. Then I went to the Fine Arts Museum, which wasn't weird and feverish like Cordoba, but had lots of fun things in it including a 'Living Art' exhibition where lots of art students were just doing their thing in the main courtyard bit. And as I watched those crazy art students, I thought of Chandni. Hey Chandni. Then I had lunch in the café and felt like one of those rich women who look at art and then eat off the menu in the café that has heavy ornate metal tables. Yes.

After indulging my antisocial, loner streak and talking to NO-ONE in my hip and trendy hostel but a lovely French lady, I decided I'd like to move on, so I ask my host, Santiago, what he recommended, and he said 'Well, what are you in the mood for?' and I responded: 'Steps, please.' And he said, 'Ah, I have just the thing for you, madam, you wear a size 7, am I correct...' and off we go into Emma's head again... I am picturing an elderly man in a waistcoat with silver hair and a tape measure round his neck...

So, yes. Off I went to Valparaiso, quite excited as Lucy had also written it down as a must see in The Book of Many Numbers and Organisation and Budget but alas, when I arrived, I looked at it and thought, what?! I have been duped. Coming from fancy, glitzy Santiago and swish, sophisticated Argentina, my first impression of Valparaiso was a scruffy, ugly port town. Could it be possible that I was, in fact, travelling in a developing country? No. Impossible. I won't stand for it. I travel to see exactly the same things as I have at home, but for cheaper, thank you very much. However, I pulled the stick out of my arse and met my host, Valparaiso, who said: 'I hear you like steps?' And I was filled with joy!

Now there are four important things to do whilst in Valparaiso: walk up steps OR take tiny, Victorian lift things, and then walk down steps OR hills, and I have done ALL of these things. I had a beautiful, expensive lunch on the top of a hill, not because I could afford it, but because the restaurant was so pretty and had a View and it called to me, then I got snap happy and took lots of photos of all the kooky, interesting, kitsch houses that are built almost on top of each other in all different colours and different styles and then just as I had bought salad and strawberries and thought I could no longer stand the heat, I saw MORE steps and was drawn to them and climbed some more and walked along a little balcony/bridge type thing and I felt bohemian and awesome and wanted to run around in a flat cap and bare feet and a grubby piece of material tied around my neck.

Also, this place is something to do with Pablo Neruda, but I am ashamed to say I know not one thing about him. Let's wikipedia him... ah. He was a poet. I should probably read him. If only I understood Spanish. My Christmas list full of English translations will be written up upon my return. Tomorrow I shall go to Viña del Mar to lie in the sun and do nothing, and then

Esquel, El Bolsón, Mendoza

So, remember how much fun I had in Mendoza last time I was here? So much fun that man, I just had to come back again...

No, in truth, what really happened was THE STORY OF EMMA FALLING IN THE WATER: I travelled from Puerto Madryn to Esquel (Welsh colony) and discovered I couldn't go to the National Park nearby until Saturday - I arrived on a Wednesday - so for two days I decided to go a little north to El Bolsón and do some walking around there, lovely. The weather was pretty apalling, but I thought stuff it, I've only got two days, once I'm wet, I'm wet, I'll be fine. So off I go on my walk. And there are three bad things that can happen to you on a Rainy Walk: wetcoldwind, footinbog and triponlog. Luckily, I avoided wetcoldwind, and was in surprisingly good spirits even after footinbog and triponlog-fallonface.

Marcos at the information centre told me I could walk all the way to the Chilean border in a day, so off I went, getting a lift across the delta from a friendly boat man, and then following the helpful yellow rocks, all very easy. The forests around there apparently inspired the Disney film 'Bambi' and you can really see why - tall pines, dense forest, April showers, huge beautiful lake, gushing streams. Very beautiful.

My half way marker for the trip was the gendarmerie, so I popped in to show them my passport and asked them if I could eat my packed lunch inside, and they were very hospitable, and told me that I wouldn't make it all the way to Chile and back, but since I had my sleeping bag, I could stay in the cabin they had out back. Half of me thinks: awesome adventure, the other half thinks: 5 men, 1 girl, middle of nowhere, but after telling them all about my husband in Afghanistan, I think they are friendly enough and I agree.

So off I go on my walk again, and everything is grand until on the way back, I have a classic Emma-is-an-idiot moment where I slip on my bum crossing a river and everything gets soaked. At some point during this river-slipping-bum incident, I lose my camera to the lake and everything is ruined. So I go crying back to the gendarmes: 'I am cold, everything is wet, what do I do? Boo hoo etc.' and they looked after me and gave me tea and a dry set of clothes.

However, when the three older gendarmes come back from their fishing trip, the radio tells us that there are three Argentinian boys stuck on the other side of the river, which has now swollen, so we have to get in the boat and go and rescue them and their dog - very exciting. And we all hang out with the gendarmes over night and drink maté and talk about football.

Then the next morning we are all taken home across the lake in the speedboat, but because these boys were in a bit of trouble, the LOCAL PRESS are there, and a 16 year old has been taken out of school to translate my traumatic story. I try and make it sound as interesting and dramatic as possible i.e. not 'I fell on my bum and everything got wet and I lost my camera', rather 'rapids and eels and Loch Ness Monsters and huge bridges and at one point mermaids' and then I got taken back to El Bolsón in a police vehicle and that was the end of the adventure, other than it snowed and there were no buses and I was stuck in El Bolsón whilst all my stuff was in Esquel.

Then, feeling cold and wet I decided walking, lakes and mountains were not for me, so I got into contact with Una and Kate, lovely, lovely girls from Ireland, who told me they'd be in Mendoza, so I took a 24 HOUR bus journey (my whole life), met Janet and Matt from Massachusettes and then drank a lot of red wine on a tandem bike (awesome), met the legendary Mr. Hugo, bought a new camera, allowed Mendoza to redeem itself and have just been to a very, very strange bar with some odd fish in it and had an argument with a snob about state vs. private education.

Off to Chile tomorrow, hopefully if I can get a bus ticket.

Sorry for lack of photos of footinbog and triponlog, the lake has stolen them all. I'll hopefully be able to get some tandem photos up soon... and until then, I hope these pics of the trip from Argentina to Santiago through the Andes will make up for no fallonface.

Puerto Madryn Mark II

Sorry to overload everyone with blogtime but today has been also very exciting and being a bear of very little brain, if I don't write then I will forget.

So, as I said, I have been adopted by Argentinian divorcee Veronika who, to be honest, I may strangle, if she does not show signs of comprehending 'time to oneself', and today was the day for scuba diving, so off we went to the diving place and chatted to a very nice looking Frederico who got us into our wetsuits (a sexier thing, you will not see in all your life) and then gave us our lesson: bite the regulater, seal with lips, breathe deeply, you are able to cough, spit, vomit down the regulator, just as long as you don't take it out of your mouth, this is the sign for 'ok', 'I'm cold', 'my ears hurt', 'I'm scared I'm going to die, please help me' and remember to pop your ears when the instructor tells you to.

Then we drive off in his truck along the coast until a little man called Julio bobbed up in his boat and we jumped in and sailed to THE PLATFORM where Julio, who was convinced I understood everything he was saying (didn´t), manhandled me into all the equipment, and let me tell you, you need to stand in a very compromising position to get the weighted belt onto you (don't worry, I saw him do it to a grown man before he did it to me, so I figured all was kosher, unless he and this man were very, very good friends). So, wetsuit: check, gimp hat: check, flippers: check, weighted belt to help me drown faster: check, really heavy oxygen that will apparently float in water (I think: yeah right, whatever): check, super hot goggles: check, Doctor Zoidberg gloves: check. Then I, who knows absolutely nothing about scuba diving, jumps into this FREEZING water - look on the map, we are near Antarctica down here - and I remember an English boy telling me yesterday 'Ah, a cold water dive, that'll be cool, not a lot of people do them'. Why? Because it is COLD!

But no, really, you don't feel it after a while, I am just being dramatic for literary effect. So, Mathias, my instructor once again explains everything in Spanish, but by this time I have a regulator in my mouth which I must never, under any circumstances, remove, so I just stare at him with panicked eyes that I hope say PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH, WE ARE ABOUT TO GO UNDER A LOT OF WATER, but he does not see them because I have goggles on. So orrff we go, down, down, down the rope, popping our ears a total of four times on the way. Then Matthias takes my hand and we go for a magical journey under the sea and I feel like Ariel and any minute now, Sebastian will pop up and we will have a crazy underwater feria.

In the real world (i.e. not in my mind), I saw such beautiful things: luminous green anemonas and pink ones and silvery grey ones and - I'm not sure if this would be allowed in places like Australia where everything is protected in a serious way - but I was allowed to touch them so they got embarrassed and retracted themselves, then we saw lots of big fish who got curious of us and one stared at me for a really long time and we achieved zen together, then we picked up some starfish and a sea urchin and then Matthias showed me how to smash open a mussel to feed the fish! How cool is that!

Then we came back to the surface and I gracefully stumbled all over the platform trying to get out of the water and get my stuff off and then we went back to the beach on the boat and had soupa with Matthias and ran through the water like Pamela Anderson (did I mention how sexy these wet suits are)?

Okay, so that is all. I will try to leave a gap before I next throw stories at you.

Lots of love!

Puerto Madryn

Hello!

Apologies for the last blog: excessive alcohol and lack of sleep resulted in little wit or particular excitement. However, a 22 hour bus journey has fixed this and I am now ready to write of my stunning adventure in Peninsula Valdes, Puerto Madryn...

So I arrived, checked in and was immediately adopted by an Argentinian divorcee amed Veronika who has decided we are to be bff for the next few days. She told me to book myself on her whale watching tour so obediently, I did. Then the next day we get picked up by a minibus and we begin our tour. First stop is El Doradillo, a collection of beaches where southern white whales can be spotted with their babies. Almost immediately we spotted one and to be honest, I was set for the day. Remember that book 'Whale's Song' that has me in it as a little girl? I was living out that book in my head. So we watched the whale do its thing for a bit and I tried to take some photos, but then I realised that I can't experience life through a camera lense and gave up and just watched in awe and wonderment.

Next stop was a seaside town called Puerto Piramides where you take the boat to go whale watching. Cue dweeby photos in life jackets next to big models of whales. Off we trot onto the boat and out we go into the gulf and again, almost immediately a whale appears and delights us, but a little far off, then when it gets bored of us, we turn the boat around and are just in time to catch one in the distance doing a full on jump out of the water like in the dramatic nature programmes that make you want to be a marine biologist when you're small. So that was AWESOME and I would have gone home happy, BUT THEN (the order of events now gets a little hazy as I was overexcited) a young whale decides to come right up to the boat and hang out for a bit and I got a really great photo of him under the water. Then we watched a female stick her tail up in the air for a really long time. The guide explained why only females do this, but I wasn't listening.

Then, best of the best of the best, this massive whale comes right up to the boat, sticks his whole head out of the water to have a look at us and then swims underneath the boat and hangs out with us for a big doing that Loch Ness Monster kind of motion - back, head, tail, back, head tail - and then we went back, which is probably for the best because I was exhausted from the excitement.

But the day wasn't over, oh no. We then went to watch a colony of elephant seals, the alpha male of which has between 80-90 females in his crew (who knew you'd be reaading David Attenborough's blog today) and they are the fattest things I've ever seen. When they move, you can actually see them ripple, like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer's fat dances. Anyway, check this out (do not read if you are easily offended), so when elephant seals mate, the male flubbers up to the female and CRUSHES her so she will submit, and then rolls over and spoons to actually do the deed otherwise he would actally kill her because of his enormous weight. Just imagine. That is what the wives of fat people feel like.

So then we saw penguins, and whatever, penguins are over rated, sorry. Then we came home and Veronika decided we simply must do something tomorrow, so we booked a scuba diving trip and at some point I will stop spending money, find an internet cafe where I can upload photos, sleep and relax a bit, maybe even read my book.

Also, check this out: I have been speaking Spanish ALL DAY and Veronika thinks I'm really good and people keep being really surprised when I say I've only been learning for seven weeks. Result.

Also, officially half way through my trip now - scary!

Buenos Aires

Hola!

I am just about to finish my five day visit to Buenos Aires and I have had a really great time! I definitely picked the right hostel to stay in and have met so many fun people, mostly Brits, Irish, Americans and Aussies and have therefore had the chance to experience the BA nightlife in a social, and most importantly, secure, way. Unfortunately, Buenos Aires prices are actually quite similar to London, so I will now be living on fresh air for a week.

Despite nights out that finish at around 5-7am, I have still managed to get out of bed at a reasonable hour and do lots and lots of sightseeing. So, in order to use a colon in my blog to make it grammatically sophisticated and to achieve an A* grade at GCSE, I have visited, taken photos of and read helpful tourist plaques in the following places: the Casa Rosada where Evita did her famous balcony speech, the cathedral in the same square (I think I might start skipping cathedrals with their paper maché Jesuses as they all look the same and I never remember their name) San Martin's tomb, the National Congress building, the Obelisque, San Telmo - the antiques district, Palermo - the boutique shop and good bar district, the childhood home of Jorge Luis Borges (MASSIVELY EXCITING!), La Boca - the immigrant district where they have the famous coloured houses, Evita's grave, the Fine Arts Museum where they had a Jackson Pollock, Picasso, Rothko, and lots of Monets which I was surprised and impressed by, Café Tortini, the oldest café in the country, or something, where I had tea with two lovely Irish girls, Una and Kate, and I even managed to squeeze in a tango lesson at the National Academy of Tango next door with a very nice young man named Philip, also from Ireland.

So I have had a very good, if somewhat exhausting time, but with no spectacularly entertaining stories to tell, which is probably a good thing because my interpretation of entertaining is when things go wrong and funny things happen as a result.

I'm off to Puerto Madryn tonight to do some whale watching, so I'm very excited about that. Also, the internet is being ridiculous so photos will have to follow later...

Cordoba

Hola!

I have just spent a very fun few days in Cordoba, Argentina's second biggest town with a large student population and thus a very good nightlife. I arrived on Thursday morning and checked out the town, highlights of which included a 350 year old school that you can just wander into whilst class is in session, some great Jesuit architechure, a big gothic cathedral and some really nice cafes and restaurants. Unfortunately the main square and cathedral knew I was coming and searched in their wardrobes for their best scaffolding which they wore proudly, trying to impress me. I, however, am not impressed by fancy clothes.

Gah! Almost forgot to mention the weirdest art gallery I have ever been to. Beautiful space featuring paintings from your nightmares when you have a really high fever. South American art is straaange.

On my second day here I decided to do an organised trek to a National Park called Quebrada del Condorito, but Nancy on the hostel reception said it was very easy to do independently. Off I went then, trying not to be put off by failures of independent activity in Mendoza, and arrived very happily at the park after a 2 hour bus ride through some incredible hills, a little reminiscent of the Peak District, but bigger and drier. The walk itself was quite relaxed, despite being quite high up, and the surrounding hills were beautiful and there was absolutely no one else around, which was awesome until I stumbled across the above sign which, as far as my Spanish will allow me to understand says: Pumas and Snakes with the ability to KILL YOU live here and as this is a National Park, we allow them to roam freely. 'What to do if you see a Puma': wave your arms around, don't run away, collect all children into your arms (as children, to Pumas look very similar to rabbits and other small snack-sized morsels). 'Advice': don't walk on your own. Crap. And for Snakes: if a snake bites you, leg it immediately to the security post, an hour a half away, before you pass out from the poison. That's all I understood. Every day the need to understand Spanish is becoming more a question of life and death than common courtesy.

The whole point of doing this beautiful walk is to see the condors at the end. It is common knowledge that I have a particular interest in condors and other ugly birds of prey so I was very excited to see them so close up, but unfortunately little camera with rubbish zoom didn't catch any of them very well, but I saw lots of swooping and diving and circling and one even fanned its wings at me from where he sat upon a rock. Very nice.

Whilst waiting for the bus home a real live coolest thing ever gaucho talked to me (to tell me I had just missed the bus) and I stared at him for a really long time before he got picked up by his other gaucho friends, but I was too scared to ask for a photo. P.S. Gauchos are like cowboys and are THE symbol of Argentina and Borges writes about them and there's a big famous one called Martin Fierro so this was very awesome. Two Argentinian girls spoke to me and decided they liked me and then another Argentinian couple offered us a lift back to civilization which saved me my bus fare which was also very good.

At the hostel I made more friends, hoorah, and we had a big asado organised by the hostel staff and drank lots of red wine and then went out to dance, which was very good. Then the next day, it appeared that only me and a friend I had made, Daniel, were hardcore enough to get up and go to Oktoberfest in a small village of Villa General Belgrano, population about 6,000 people, in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. Now this village is cool. It was founded by a group of Germans in the 30s who have basically rebuilt Bavaria in the middle of Argentina. I didn't get any photos (busy thinking of beer), but all the houses are alpine chalets and it is very surreal to drive there from colonial Argentina. Apparently this Oktoberfest is the third biggest outside of Munich and I have never been to one before so I wasn't sure what to expect, but for those who are also ignorant, everybody genuinely dresses up in leiderhosen - grown men included - wears funny hats, has a parade, lots of music and you have to buy a mug and some people get a strap to attach their mug to them and then you get your mug filled up with beer from lots of different stalls and you drink beer all day. How cool is that?! I am going to Oktoberfest every year from now on.

Daniel and I made friends with some Americans, Canadians and French from a university in Buenos Aires and drank lots of beer and then it chucked it down with rain, which was fun to begin with cos the Argentinians took the tops off the tables and two men held onto them and the game was to stand and stay on the table top whilst they bounce you around on it. Good game. I did it and did not fall on my arse. Result.

Then we came home, ate pizza and went to bed and today is an administration day (Sunday) and tonight I go to Buenos Aires, so I have to figure out an itinerary and also try to figure out exaclty how much money I spent on beer yesterday...

FYI

Just to say: sorry if that last post was depressing, boring or bored-sounding. I wasn't miserable, I was hungover on absinthe (despite no hallucinations). I made real friends and we had a really good time and emotional farewell and promise to meet each other in Bolivia (like Butch Cassidy and Sundance) and I spent all of Wednesday sitting by a swimming pool in the sunshine reading 'Basketball Diaries' which is less horrific than Lizzie says the film is, and then Kathrin, Elisabeth and I went and ate 1/4 litre of ice-cream (American Cream, Forest Fruits and Chocolate). So for everyone thinking 'poor Emma is having a terrible time, let's offer comforting words', I appreciate your words, but my current frame of mind does not necessitate them. Next post shall be full of excitement and superlatives and no cynical, Eyore humour. And photos, once I find my clockwork key x

Mendoza

So. I arrived in Mendoza on Saturday night and immediately the Powers That Be began to indicate that this town and I were not going to get along.

Firstly, I arrived on a Saturday night, which is an error because on Sundays NOTHING HAPPENS in Argentina, unless you have a big Latin American family with whom you can spend the whole day eating meat and drinking red wine in the park. Also, the door of my dorm was answered by an old man of Dutch/Swedish/Belgian origin in a t-shirt and y-fronts. Then the next morning everyone in my dorm left and I had no one to make friends with, which is a big problem because there are certain things I really don't feel comfortable doing on my own, and riding around on a bike after 4 glasses of good red wine is one of them. Incidently, this is the only reason to come to Mendoza.

I then find out that the good looking guy on reception only works on the weekend. I desperately try to make the most of this Sunday by visiting a crafts fair and buying a moonstone necklace: $15? I think: bargain. No, no, Emma needs to work on her numbers. $50. I hand the money over, too embarrassed to explain to the lady that this is outside of today's budget. I now have a beautiful moonstone necklace. I go to the cinema and watch a really good Argentinian film I vaguely understand (Las Viudas de los Jueves - get it and watch it with subtitles and explain to me what's going on) and I think things are getting better. Then I got lost on the bus on the way home, but the bus driver looked after me. Nice bus driver. Then on the Monday I think, let's go on an adventure and I get on a bus that takes me into the middle of nowhere and back. Not that exciting.

At this point I think 'I should never have travelled alone, nothing is fun, I want to go home, boo hoo, everything is terrible, I might as well just book a flight now, this whole trip was a mistake'. Drama, drama, overexaggeration, melodramatics, etc.

The final straw, however, came when on the Tuesday morning, I missed another adventure bus, but luckily I had drunk a glass of red wine on the Monday night and then done some aggressive friend making - the kind you do in Fresher's Week - with two German girls, Kathrin and Elisabeth. When they came down for breakfast on Tuesday and heard my story entitled 'Emma does another stupid thing: volume III', they took pity on me and told me to try and get on their overpriced wine tour. So I did. And things began getting better, hoorah!

Off we all went in our minibus. First we went to a medium sized bodega, or winerie for all those who are not au fait with the Spanish language like I clearly am, and we learnt all about legs and colour and oak and strawberries and fermentation and destalking and late harvests and hail and French barrels, then we had lunch and we had MEAT from an asado, or barbeque (see above reference to those who are not Spanolingual, like me) with more red wine. Then we went to a boutique bodega, and learnt more about vines and grapes and, interestingly, olives, and the family history of the bodega - very interesting. Then the big bodega where they had two lines of wine: the expensive Zuccardi range, and the cheaper, Santa Julia range, which is nice to start with but doesn't last very long, is stored in cheaper barrels, is quick and easy to make and is comparatively inexpensive. Incidently, it is named after the owner's daughter, Julia, whose saintliness the guide questioned before listing all the less admirable qualities of the wine. Either he has been spurned by her, or he just doesn't like her very much.

Next on the tour was liquor and chocolate bodega where I got to try absinthe, real hallucinagenic, illegal-in-Europe absinthe. It is horrible. So Kathrin and I bought a bottle to drink back at the hostel. With this party planned, I then had to change my bus ticket to Cordoba and shuffle my hostels around, but it was all fine. Then we had a very nice night drinking absinthe which, disappointingly, had little to no effect. We were also joined by some very dull Germans who we tried to make more interesting, but it didn't work. Apparently you can't have more than 2 fun Germans in a room at one time or the world will IMPLODE.

I have over-itinerised my stay in Cordoba to avoid another town of SOLITUDE and BOREDOM so hopefully there will be lots of adventures to be had.

Photos above include absinthe, artistic photo of bottles and me with Kathrin and Elisabeth. Well done modern, hi-tech hostel computer.

Cafayate

Must. Blog. So many exciting things happening.

I know it's only a day since I last blogged, but I must ramble about the impressiveness of today.

So I committed the ultimate Lonely Planet sin and took an Organised Tour, from a Travel Agency (read: Satan to hippie LP travellers) and went to Cafayate via some massive gorge whose name I forget. Now. I forget the name because it was so massive and awesome and impressive and a little bit like a mixture between all the mountains squeezing their way up through the earth in Fantasia, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. To begin with all the mountains were big and covered with green things and there were all these interesting rock formations jutting out all over the place shouting YAH, WE'RE 90MILLION YEARS OLD! WHAT YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT? YOU WANNA MOVE US? NOT GONNA HAPPEN! Then after the llama that you get to take a photo with (will be added later, camera is currently in safe under-the-pillow-in-communal-dorm hiding place) everything turns into desert and the big tor rocks are all red and there are cacti and silver sand and it is most extreme and big and awesome and I stood on the side of the road going: COOL.

Then I ate goat. Which was a mistake. I advise everyone against it.

Lots of cool hip and funky people have arrived at my hostel and my room is now the room to be in with Argentinian Neurosurgeon, South African surfer/snowboarder and German literature/history of art student (who is very jealous of you, Courtney and your Sotheby's experience). Made an Austrian Phd student friend on my gorge tour and went for a drink with him this evening. Lots of intelligent conversation that I tried to contribute to convincingly: ah yes, the credit crunch was bad, very bad. And business administration? Yes. Fascinating. Tell me more, I know exactly what you mean.'

And that is all for now. Having a relaxing day tomorrow so the next blog probably won't be until I have drunk the Mendoza vineyards dry. But I will try to get some photos up of Cafayate awesomeness soon. Probably won't be getting any photos on facebook as promised because the internet here is lame. Or maybe it's facebook, I don't know x