Around Argentina

In our travels, we’ve sometimes anchored in one place and roamed from there. Other times we’re on the road. Each has its benefit and drawbacks. This time we planned mostly a road trip. However, we ended up doing a combination of both.

We didn’t go to Iguaçu Falls in Brazil but stayed in Buenos Aires, then flew up to the north to Salta. Our plan was to stay for couple of days, then start the drive down the 1000 miles to wine country in Mendoza, seeing a number of sites along the way.

On our first full day in Salta, we drove further north to a mountain pass that went from forests to high desert in a matter of a few miles. The views were spectacular and the villages were very much like the adobe villages of the U.S. Southwest. But the road had several landslides due to the heavy rains. When we reached yet another landslide and they were rebuilding the road, we turned back. No sense getting stuck in the mud a hundred miles from Hertz Rental Car.

We were ready to drive south the next day when I came down with travel illness. Thank goodness for antibiotics and Imodium. We changed our plans in the morning deciding to stay in Salta for an extra day to rest, then go south the next day to Tucuman and take a bus to Mendoza skipping the long drive by car as well as a number of sights. We had hoped to see much more of the country, yet we didn’t realize how big Argentina was as well as how the weather would affect us.

The day we left Salta, it rained. By the time we got to Tucuman hours later, both of us were ready for the bus but not for Tucuman. The whole city looked as bad as some of the worst sections of Blue Hill Avenue in Boston. With the drizzle, gray skies and wandering packs of dogs looking for food, it was a depressing run-down place.

When I got sick, I thought riding the overnight bus would be less stressful than driving. What I didn’t expect was that Wendy would come down with the same thing.

It started at the airport when we dropped off the car. She was miserable. Wendy took a bunch of medications and hoped it would calm everything for the overnight bus ride.
While waiting for the bus the medications seemed to work, but she crossed her fingers as well.

Insurance comes in many ways and we needed some with the stress of illness and changes in plans. There was a statue of the Virgin Mary in a Plexiglas case; before they got on their respective buses, passengers would stop at the statue, bless themselves or just put their hand on the case. As we walked to our bus, I touched it too.

The bus ride was simple and rather comfortable. A dinner and a movie, but neither of us had any appetite for either.

As the bus drove through the night, we passed small towns where citizens were attending local fairs or Saturday night discos or just doing some late night milling around the town center eating barbeque, a.k.a. asado, from street vendors.

We arrived in Mendoza, an oasis in the middle of the desert at the foothills of the Andes, early on Sunday morning. Then we settled into first class America, the Park Hyatt Hotel, a place where they waited on us hand and foot. Sometimes, you need a little bit of home.