Valle Fertil

Our first impression of Argentina was not the best, as everything felt very expensive in Mendoza, accomodation in a 7bed dorm was $25NZ...we were going to do a wine tour on bikes, which sounded lovely, but ended up figuring out itwould have cost us 1/4 of our weekly budget so had to skip it... However, as we loaded our pack on our backs and headed out of the city to a wee sleepy town of San Augustin del Valle Fertil, I think I can speak for both of us when I say we fell in love with the place. As we stepped out of the bus from Mendoza, it felt like we were stepping into another world. Time moved at its own pace at this little township, there was no hurry, nothing was a problem, people sat around talking to each other outside shops and wee cafe´s, everyone walking past was greeting each other - just a picture perfect place... We ended up camping for the first night, and Brett has already shared a few tips for anyone wanting follow on the same line of travel. I´d say I´m a pretty good camper, and nothing that much has really phases me - but this was camping the wild style, and I think it might have been enough of an experience of camping in South America...if it wasn´t for the toads covering the floors of the bathrooms, or the dogs howling outside our tents all night the experience might have been ´tranquilo´like the camp owner assured us...haha but what an experience, let alone to find out the next day why no-one else was camping - the drieness of the time of year draws poisoneous spiders along w the toads towards any source of water (read camp toilets)... but all´s well that end´s well..;)
Miraculously however, despite all the wildness, we managed to sleep in - our tour to Ischigualasto - Valle de la Luna was leaving at 8am, and we only opened our sleepy eyes 10min prior...luckily the slow pace of the town and casual nature of people meant our guide Alejandro didn´t mind waiting for us gringos to get our gear ready (he had waited for us at the supermarket for about half an hour the day before, as he kindly offered us a free ride to the camp groun a wee bit out of town and we asked to have a quick stop to get some food...) - and off we went towards the magical land of the moon in a bumpy minibus w latin music blasting out of the speakers.
Valle de la Luna was something out of this world, a huge area of indescribable landscape which continued as far into the horizonas you could see...amazing rock formations, complete silence that almost hurt your ears and huge red rock mountains climbing toward the sky. The temperature was far above 40·C - an intense heat like nothing I have experienced before, Alejandro informed us that the night temperature can fall way below the zero as well - all of this along w wind and rain (that doesnt fall often) contributing to the formation of the valley.
On our return we decided to stay in a lodging rather than camp another night the wild style, and eneded up staying at a lovely, somewhat rustic hospedaje de los Olivos - a family run accomodation. There we used the kitcthen alongside the grandmother who I could hardly understand, the somewhat grumpy grandfather who howered around but chose to ignore us, the children running around and curiously watching our every move and the two brothers in charge of running the hospedaje always either busy fixing something or sitting outside drinking mate and smoking cigarettes.
On Sunday, me and Brett went on a horse ride around the town and got shown rock paintings and ancient ruins of the local indigineous peoples houses. We were also lucky enough to be provided a mate break w our guide Pedro and his family who came to meet us along the trek. Lovely people, genuinly interested in where we came from, what NZ was like etc. I have spend a lot of time practicing my broken spanish, but feel like its getting better. People just want to chat and are so lovely, it really does pay to know a bit of Spanish travelling around here. We were almost sad to leave this beautiful little place w its people, gravel roads, and one set of traffick lights - but it was time to move along to new experiences....