Across the Andes by Blog

So many images are conjured up when you hear the word Tango. Mine has always been the beautiful tango scene with Al Pacino from the movie ‘Scent of A Woman’ when he says “no mistakes in the tango Donna, not like life. Simple, that’s what makes tango so great, if you make a mistake and get all tangled up, you just tango on.”
Continue reading →

For those like Ben and I who were swept up by the musical Evita many years ago (way before Madonna revived it) you will be familiar with the song on the album “Helloooo Buenos Aires”. The minute we set foot into Argentina we have been constantly ear wigged by songs from this show. Now you can imagine our wave of excitement, waking up to an overcast day pulling back the bus curtains to see the freeway rising over the concrete sprawling outer suburbs of BA. Continue reading →

Mendoza was a crossroads for us – our initial plan was to head from here to Buenos Aires via Rosario and Cordoba, but the thought of more mid-sized cities didn’t really excite us. We had read of a place called Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) further North, and although we hadn’t met anyone who had been there, with a name like that who could resist?
Continue reading →

Until now, our path had been fairly easy to choose as the south of Argentina is sparsely populated with a lot of arid Pampas (plains), so most travellers simply follow the Andes north. However after Bariloche, the country widens considerably and so do the options. We considered catching one of Argentinas last remaining trains east to the coast, mostly out of a desire for a change from bus travel. The main attraction of that area are the whales and penguins, but it wasn’t whale season and we had already seen penguins in Punta Arenas, so we decided against it. As we are partial to a drop or two of wine, our best option was to follow the mountains and head to Mendoza, the main wine producing area of Argentina. Even when our original plan was to catch the bus from Santiago to Buenos Aires, we had intended to stop in Mendoza on the way. Plans changed and we headed south instead, so now was our chance to visit some excellent wineries.
Continue reading →