Things I discovered in Argentina and started to love…

[J.] During the time we spent in Argentina so far, we discovered drinks, food and other things that we did not know of before. And I really started to like them a lot. So I thought it might be nice to share them with you, and maybe you might come across them at your grocery store and just give them a try as well. They are certainly worth at least one try and maybe, you stick with them for longer as well? I certainly will!!

1) Mate Tea. For whatever reason, the Argentinian coffee is not really a coffee I enjoy. It tastes different and I don’t like it. Even when freshly prepared in a nice coffee shop, the coffee still tastes weird and even locals have told me that they don’t fancy their own coffee. So, in order to get my daily amount of caffeine and also because it is such a national infusion, I gave the mate tea a try. It was not love at first sight, I found the tea to taste a bit like dried grass, but once I got used to it, this tea became the first thing for me to prepare in the morning. I really like it. And I also like the way the tea is traditionally prepared, not as I was used to in either tea bags or in a big tea pot, but rather with a metal straw from a shared hollow calabash gourd.

2) Fernet con Coca. To our surprise, Fernet is very popular in Argentina! Apparently, it was introduced by Italians during a European immigration wave to Argentina. We were served our first Fernet with Coke cocktail by our hosts in Buenos Aires. I did not grow overly fond of this cocktail when I first tried it, but while finishing the bottle of Fernet over the next days, I got hooked. The bitter taste of the Fernet in combination with the sweetness of Cola is delicious and refreshing. We normally mix one measure of Fernet with two to three measures of Cola and add some ice cubes. Give it a try!! 

3) Dulce de Leche: Heaven-like, if you have a sweet tooth. Dulce de leche is a super-sweet, brown and gooey paste which is prepared by slowly heating sweetened milk which then changes flavour and colour in the process. I finished a little pot of this yesterday evening simply by eating it spoon by spoon straight out of its container… Okay, I might have add an urge for sweet things that evening, but still… Mmmmmmh!

I found a recipe for this sweet stuff on the webpage www.seriouseats.com (husband is a huge fan of this page for a longer time now; have a look at it if like cooking!), a webpage that provides great general insights into the processes of preparing food as well as recipes. The following link on this webpage discusses various ways of preparing dulce de leche, a normally quite time consuming process (http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/12/dulce-de-leche-caramel-sauce-recipe.html). I really cannot wait trying to prepare this sweet stuff by myself. Oh, and it will be batches and batches of it, for sure…!

4) Alfajores. In Argentina, these confections generally consist of two round, sweet biscuits made of wheat flour or corn starch joined together with dulce de leche; however, varieties (depending on the country) include different elements in the preparation of the biscuits, fillings and coatings. I could eat those alffajores for breakfast, lunch and dinner… Super yummy! Again, this was added to my list of things I have to try by myself, once proper kitchen equipment is available again (http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/08/dulces-alfajores-dulce-de-leche-sandwich-cookies-recipe.html). 

5) Malbec wine. Malbec is a purple grape variety used in making red wine. We have not come across this grape before and were surprised to find out when doing some research, that it is a grape originating in France. It is even known as one of the six grapes allowed in the blend of red Bordeaux wine (another fact I did not know; I always thought that Bordeaux wine also related to a specific grape and not only the region in France, but anyway…). The Malbec grape was introduced to Argentina over hundred years ago and is very popular here. Someone even told us that French people do not seem to like this wine… well, not sure about this, but I looked further into it. The Malbec grape appears to have been very popular in France once, but then lost ground to Carbernet Franc and Merlot because of its bigger sensitiveness to many different vine ailments.  

However, it’s delicious and we currently enjoy it on a regular basis. Actually, I am sipping on a glass of this wine just now. :)

In the meantime…

Our second and third day at the olive farm are over and we are still enjoying our time here a lot. The weather was lovely yesterday, with a lot of sunshine but at the same time not too hot. We harvested more olive trees and the work is somewhat meditative. You pick some olives, the thoughts start to wander and occasionally we share them with each other or I just talk to myself, the leaves and the countryside, haha! Our host Gisela joins us from time to time for two or three hours and gives us the opportunity to practise our Spanish which for most of the time reduces to trying to understand the meaning but we’ll get there eventually! *fingers*crossed*

Yesterday was also a national holiday in Argentina, referring to the May Revolution in 1810. This revolution was a week-long series of events that took place from May 18 to 25, in Buenos Aires. The result of this revolution was the establishment of a local government, the Primera Junta on May 25. It was the first successful revolution in South American’s independence process from Spain.

Because of this holiday, we were also invited to a big lunch which took around three hours of time! And we struggled getting to work again thereafter, slightly tipsy from the lovely wine we shared and some sparkling wine made from honey. Super delicioso! – Sweet, but a little bit amargo at the same time. However, our hosts were not worried or rushing us, they simply said that we should pick the olives ‘una por una’… :)

Today, we continued picking olives but it was cloudy and hence, much colder. The farmer’s dogs keep us company while we are out in the field: an older lady, a teenager and two pups. It so warms our hearts to see them happily greeting us every morning and accompanying us when we walk from the cottage out onto the field, resting next to the tree we are busy with or playing with each other and sometimes barking at other farmers that are passing by. On our way home for lunch or in the evening, they trot along with us again. It is so sweet to see how quickly they accepted us and they keep us entertained a lot… Dogs are just so cool <3

Cordoba and our first day at an olive farm in San Juan

[J.] We left Cordoba yesterday morning after spending four days in this city. And we really enjoyed walking around the streets, visiting various museums and restaurants. Cordoba feels completely different compared to Buenos Aires: much smaller, but still large enough and not as many skyscrapers so that the streets are filled with more daylight; and it also felt slightly cleaner, fresher in a way.

For whatever reason, it was difficult to find a proper supermarket in this city. Cordoba seems to be full of little grocery stores that offer more or less the same small amount of items. We were planning to buy various ingredients for cooking our own food, but in the end we decided to go out for dinner as we would have to stock up on a lot of basic ingredients and found it to be a mission to find those without knowing yet where to go for what kind of specific ingredient needed. However, it was worth the various restaurants we visited and we were always walking home with bellies full of amazing food.

We also used our time in Cordoba to stock up on sleeping bags. Our hosts-to-be at the olive farm in San Juan informed us in advance that we would need to bring blankets or sleeping bags for the time of our stay as they would not provide such. We heard about this necessity before from other farm we were in touch with as well… We decided to buy some sleeping bags as they are generally lighter and smaller in volume than blankets. It turned out to be a mission to find exactly those we wanted and we clearly got to know the streets and alleys of Cordoba way better over the course of it (walking back and forth comparing offers, always finding only one bag, not two as per our desires in each shop, wanting to pay with credit card which resulted in more than double the original price for paying cash, walking back and forth to find a bank to withdraw money, and so on), but in the end we succeeded. And after our first night in San Juan, the sleeping bags did not fail their first test. 

We went to San Juan by bus. It was a long nine-hour ride from Cordoba to San Juan, but although it was a long trip we enjoyed it a lot, watching the various landscapes passing us by. Especially further west, the landscape so reminded me of South Africa: Dry, small bushes and endless views with some high mountain ridges in the far distance. How much I would love to ride a motorbike along these empty dirt roads for days and days! Absolutely stunning…

We arrived in San Juan in the early evening yesterday. We did not know if we would get dinner at the farm, and therefore we walked a few meters down the road from the bus station to find a pizza place. We found a really nice one and had our fun with the waiters, us trying to express our orders in Spanish and him trying to guess what we mean… haha, but it worked out! Really glad that we took these Spanish lessons in Buenos Aires as English speaking people are not really common outside of the big cities it seems. Besides sharing one pizza, we also tried a “Lomo”, a lightly grilled sandwich with thin-sliced grilled meat and vegetables, really delicious! 

When we arrived at the farm, I was not too sure in the beginning about our hosts.  The husband did not smile once when greeting us and showing us our little home for the next two weeks. Nevertheless, he was really polite and the ice definitely broke when his wife arrived shortly after, a very warm person.  

Our home is a little cottage, with a basic kitchen but a lot of space. We do not have hot water, but two fireplaces (oh, how my heart warmed up immediately!!): One for the living area and one for heating up the shower. I had some problems getting the fireplace for the living room going without smoking the whole room yesterday, but this evening I got the perks of it. It seems that every fireplace has its own character and you just have to be patient enough to discover it… aaaah, how cosy and warm the room is now! 

We spent our first day harvesting olives for 7.5 hours. It never occurred to me that harvesting olives is such a time consuming exercise, easy in terms of the labour you have to do, but still! – It’s like cherry picking off the tree: you pick each olive on its on (more or less) and I definitely increased my respect for good quality olive oil and why it can be so expensive. We harvested approximately something around 100 kilograms today and we were told that it needs 10 to 15 kilogram for one litre of olive oil. Maybe we got those figures totally wrong but if true, the labour involved when harvesting olives (without considering further processing, or watering the plants) when not done mechanically really seems a lot!

Anyway, we enjoyed the whole sunny day and were accompanied by three of the dogs our hosts own. Aaaaah, it is so lovely to finally have some furry four-legged friends around us again. Creatures to scratch and ‘hug’ and just spent time with! We just so, so miss our two girls…

In the evening, we went grocery shopping to a close-by store for dinner and it was amazing to hear people we have not met before greeting us friendly on the streets and within the store as well. Life in a small town or in the countryside seems so different to the anonymous life in the city…

Well, needless to say that after a full day out in the sun and harvesting olives left us tired and exhausted in a really good way, with bodies that are eager to lie down on the mattress. Ooooh, sleeping bags, my dearest friends… here I come!

In the meantime…

1) For whatever reason, I lately got a bit lazy in taking pictures, so I do not have not too many available from Cordoba. Will try to get ahead of my game again pretty fast :)

2) It amazes me that besides the 15 kilograms each in our backpacks and the very basic temporary home we currently have here in San Juan, there is nothing else I would need right now. Of course, I miss family and friends. And yes, a warm shower off the tab would be nice. Yes, a couch to throw myself into is a tempting thought. And yes, an electric heater would maybe give us easier access to warmth and a heated home. However, I have everything I need right now, a tired body, a lovely dinner husband prepared, internet access to write a post about the past days, a fireplace that leaves me with rosy cheeks, and a whiskey on ice. Sometimes, a simple life can be so, so good…

Musical Interlude: Madvillain - All Caps

The beat is so butter
Peep the slow cutter
As he utter the calm flow

Our overnight bus trip from Buenos Aires to Cordoba

[J.] Yesterday evening, right after being back in Buenos Aires from our trip to the Iguazu Waterfalls, we went to the Terminal de Omnibus de Retiro. It seems that due to the lack of a detailed railway network, the best way to get from A to B in Argentina is by taking the bus, so that was what we opted for in order to get to Cordoba.
On our arrival at the bus terminal, I was stunned by its size: really huge compared to all bus terminals I have experienced before. We walked onto the first floor where all the different bus companies are located selling tickets. This first floor seemed to me like an endless alley of ticket stall after ticket stall... Husband had checked out the different vendors, offers and timetables earlier on the internet, so we quickly made our way through to the relevant stall (El Practico). We had heard that it is worth buying the tickets on the same evening as sometimes one can get an upgrade in seat categories for the price of a lower category because the chosen seat category is already sold out and indeed, we were lucky... Yeah! :)

Bus Terminal in Cordoba on our arrival at 6:30 in the morning

After buying our bus tickets, we still had a bit of time on our hands before the scheduled departure of our bus and because of our empty bellies, we decided to hit the only bigger pizza place within this terminal. The pizza we ordered turned out to be seriously heavy on toppings and added cheese, we did not really manage to finish one and still felt pretty stuffed! ( - And I initially wanted to order two to make sure we are not getting hungry during the 10hour bus ride that was lying ahead of us... Haha, if we would have known!)

While boarding the bus, I noticed that the two couples in front of us secretly tipped the guy who was loading the suitcases onto the bus. Their hand movements were so quick and so experienced, it was actually impressive to watch and easy to miss. Well, because of not having any experience with how such bus trips work and being really attached to our belongings at the same time, we tipped the guy as well. I am not sure if this would have actually been necessary, as a slip of paper with a unique number was attached to each bag and the owner was handed a copy of this. But well, you never know how busy things can get when the bus is unloaded... Anyway, I have been in no worry about our bags during the full length of the bus ride, even though we stopped more than a few times at various bus terminals along the way. And in the end, both our bags were back in our possession once we arrived in Cordoba...

But back to when we just had boarded the bus. Both, husband and I were just in the process of making ourselves comfortable in the seats, when someone started setting us up for dinner. What?! Husband and I were looking at each other like, well, maybe this is going to be a little snack like you get on short-distance flights. We were so wrong!! We were served a full dinner, bigger than you would ever get on any long-distance flight! Hot and cold beverages, soup, salad, quiche, other cold snacks, a hot course, dessert and little crackers. After just having had the richest and biggest pizza ever, I was looking at all of this and could not believe what I was looking at. I was so full already, I would not be able to have even one single bite! - Bleeeeh!
I must admit, that we started packing up parts of this meal as a save-over for the next morning. The food was looking too tempting to just waste the opportunity and return everything untouched... Ah, and in the end we were even served a glass of whiskey. Needless to say, that we bought a whole bottle of whiskey at the bus station just a few minutes ago and re-filled it secretly into one of our water bottles...

We spent the night very relaxed in the comfortable seats, and we more or less could really find some rest over the course of this trip. And we arrived in Cordoba with only a small time-delay compared to the scheduled arrival.

In the meantime...
1) Already looking forward to our next bus trip in about four days' time!
2) Without having seen much of Cordoba yet, this city has a lovely vibe... even though the sun fell a bit short on presenting herself today, but anyway. I liked the architecture of the buildings we passed on our way from the bus terminal to the apartment, there are quite a few green spaces around and everything looks nice and light... and our apartments is really lovely. So more to come, hopefully! :)

Iguazu Waterfalls, Argentina

[J.] Aaaah, time is flying again! I take that as proof that time is indeed not linear, but going with all different kinds of speed, slow, slower and super super fast :)













After 6 weeks in Buenos Aires, we started to settle in like one probably would when staying permanently in one place. We got to know the area around our apartment pretty well, we went to school every day, we connected more with people, I went to yoga classes on a regular basis, we even had a grocery shopping bag - haha!... So, taking the backpack out of the closet again and squeezing all our belongings into that bag did not feel like the most enthusiastic thing to do. I felt a bit torn between two thoughts; wanting to be on the road again but without the wanderlust kicking in and wanting to stay in that city for longer but then for real which is not really an option right now. So, I spent the last day in a weird mood...
But then, sometimes, you just have to walk to make your spirits jump into the right direction!

We were leaving BA the next day for the waterfalls in Iguazu, Argentina. The plane was scheduled for early morning, and we only had a few hours of sleep. I was also slightly nervous, because the taxi bookings did not go though and for whatever reason, my phone denied any calls that morning as well. Buses were not running so early in the morning and said to be quite unreliable as well. I had no clue of how to get to the airport. Standing outside on the streets of BA in the dark with a backpack waiting for a taxi to pass by coincidence did also not feel too appealing. But then I went for a smoke on the balcony of our apartment and saw two taxis passing by in short time. Okay! Catching a taxi should not be too much of a problem then!... and bingo, that's exactly how easy it was.

After arriving at the hotel in Iguazu, we did a quick orientation stroll around this little city, bought a bottle of wine and retreated to our room, reading up on our options to visit the waterfall, watching a series and catching up on the sleep from last night. And it felt so good to be on the road again. We had many opportunities to make use of our little Spanish vocabulary. It is really beautiful to see how people react to you if you make an effort to speak in their language. It really does not matter if you get the grammar right at all, they will correct you or hint the words they expect you to say. And it also feels good to be out of the city again and experiencing the other sides of Argentina...

The next day, we decided to visit the falls from the Brazilian side for three reasons: We would have to re-enter Argentina, and consequently extent our tourist visa (very much needed!), the view from the Bazilian side is said to give a better overall view of the falls and there is a company on the Brazilian side that offers helicopter rides above the falls... Oh, we so wanted to go on a helicopter ride!
And after a lot of miserable, cloudy and cold days in BA, the sun was shining!! We felt so lucky as they said that the difference between sunny and cloudy days when visiting the falls is huge...
We took a taxi to cross the border and I was stunned by the fact that the Brazilian authorities waved us through without even checking the passports! Wow... and exactly the same again on our return. I still don't know what to make out of it. I have heard about such things before when reading up on visa and entry requirements for Bolivia and Peru and there, it can become an issue there when leaving these countries again. But well...

Our first stop was at the company offering the helicopter rides. Okay, this is not exactly eco-friendly and it was really expensive too for what, like a 10 minute flight, but muuuaaaaaah! - It was such an experience. I am still thrilled... We never flew in a helicopter before and it is so much fun. It felt way saver then flying in a very small plane and how this helicopter can turn right and left in a blink is amazing. Watching the falls from the birds' perspective was truly outstanding. It offered a great overview of the falls and how big and stretched out they are. During that short time flying over the falls, I really had problems deciding whether I should take a video, photos or just watch... Bleeeeh!

 After the flight, we went to the falls and strolled along the river on a pathway, offering so many amazing views. The amount of water coming down felt immense and the mist created so many beautiful rainbows... I am tempted to compare these falls with the Victoria Falls, both are amazing as well as similar in size and the amount of water coming down. Listening to the roaring water falling down is again and again something that makes me feel so small. It was a really awesome day we had there...
 

In the meantime...
Waiting for the flight back to BA, from where we will catch a night bus to Cordoba. We will stay in this city only for a few days and will then continue travelling west in the direction of Mendoza. However, we will not stay in Mendoza itself but travel a bit further north to a small city called San Juan. There, we will stay with farmers for some time, helping them with the olive harvest and the production of olive oil. Exciting!! We are so, so looking forward to that...