Latinalicious: The South America Diaries (6 page)

I know I’ve already mentioned this, but I swear I have never encountered this many snorers in my entire life. It’s getting ridiculous now. Last night I was kept awake by the insufferable attempts made by a man called Juan to suck the very ceiling from our dorm room in his sleep. In and out he breathed, every intake an industrial vacuum. Had Juan been outside and not enclosed in a four-bed dormitory in an imaginatively titled hostel/inn called Hostel Inn, I firmly believe he could have sucked a jet plane from its flight path and brought it to land on his face.

As I type, I’m on an overnight
cama
(sleep) class bus back from Iguazu Falls. My seat is an actual bed. I am practically horizontal under my blanket with my head on my soft pillow, trying not to punch the balding head of the man in front. He is also snoring. I’ve had two mini bottles of bad 2010 Malbec courtesy of some mild begging in bad Spanish and I still can’t blur the edges of my discomfort. I’m considering buckling up because, at the rate he’s going, unless I strap myself in tight I’m gonna be sucked into the vortex that is his huge gaping mouth by the time we’ve even come close to getting back to Buenos Aires.

Anyway, because I clearly won’t be able to sleep now, in spite of paying almost $100 for a higher class bus seat in order to do so, I will tell you instead about Iguazu Falls — the reason I boarded this bus full of air-thieves in the first place.

This place where lands collide with water, between Argentina and Brazil, humbled me into silence when I first saw it. It’s a jaw-dropping natural masterpiece, a moving oil painting running off its canvas onto a gallery floor of the lushest green. It was well worth a seventeen-hour bus ride from Buenos Aires just to witness, and
maybe
even worth enduring these bouts of snoring (I said maybe).

The space in the earth into which Iguazu Falls gushes its eternal flow is one you get the feeling each country may have tried to claim, had the sheer magnitude of this chasm not humbled them into sharing. Standing on the right bank you’re in Brazilian territory, which is home to twenty per cent of the falls; on the left bank, Argentina hosts the other eighty; and across it all there exist a number of waterfalls between sixty to eighty-two metres in height.

The first sight of them from the Argentinean side, as I rounded a corner with my new Milhouse friend Ash, left me reeling — not unlike the time I first saw Niagara Falls, when I was twenty-one. I shed a tear back then, which I blamed on the spray smashing into my face as I leaned over the railings in New York State.

That was back when all we had to do in the here and now was stare and feel the force and embrace the wonder — before the urge to video or ‘check in’ on Foursquare or send a tweet started distracting us from actually living these magical moments for ourselves.

With Niagara Falls, it might also have been the sheer magnitude of it, the way the world slid into perspective as my tiny insignificant self floundered in the shadow of its fury, or it might have been the fact that I was deluded, having driven eight hours from New York City in a minivan with eight girls eating Cheez Doodles and listening to Britney Spears, but either way, I’ll never forget that feeling of nature overwhelming me completely.

Iguazu Falls is even more impressive.

Upon first glimpse, these falls pin you to the spot like an ant under a giant shoe. The spray grazes your face with cold, tiny bullets that sting and make you crave getting closer, the way you would to a guru or some other magnificent wise man with a secret to share. It’s like witnessing the world’s end from a distance: that moment so often depicted in movies, where stars collide and tectonic plates shift and the planet splits in two, right in the middle of the ocean, taking everything and everyone with it right down into the depths of the Earth’s core. A beautiful disaster.

Iguazu Falls is so powerful it can take your hairstyle away, as well as your breath.

Ash and I stood there on various viewing points, beholding the gurgling froth of it, particularly in a narrow chasm named Garganta del Diablo — the Devil’s Throat. Round and round and round the water swirled, as though being stirred by an invisible witch with a giant spoon, as a mist between thirty and 150 metres tall threatened to hide us and soak our hair.

This relentless disgorging and gushing and rushing of the river made me wonder at the meaning of it all. When you think about it, Iguazu Falls both exists and doesn’t at the same time. In that moment of existence, when it’s in your face and screaming and you can feel the watery fists from it pounding, breaking rocks and the occasional tourist’s camera, it is also something else, somewhere else. The water is constantly moving. You think, where does it all go, in the end? Where does it all go? And you know the answer. It goes right back to where it started from — into the ocean, where it evaporates up into the clouds, and falls back down onto the land as rain, to eventually find itself here again. There is no end.

It’s a long ride from Buenos Aires and back. Ash and I took advantage of a package arranged by Milhouse, which included two nights in the Hostel Inn (that boasts a swimming pool, which we didn’t use because it was too cold). The two main towns on either side, Puerto Iguazu in Argentina and Foz do Iguacu in Brazil, offer a host of reasonably priced accommodation, although food everywhere is expensive. In the national park (where the Falls are), we paid over the odds for a couple of empanadas and some coffee, and it costs foreigners three times as much as it costs Argentineans to get into the park in the first place. But suck it up because Iguazu Falls is definitely worth it.

It’s also worth taking the boat ride under the falls. You’ll get soaked but this is when you really feel Iguazu’s ineffable power. The other tour on offer, a so-called eco-tour along the river, is a bit rubbish, to be honest. You’re basically just being rowed in a canoe as a bored-sounding man points out a few flowers. He pointed to a caiman but I couldn’t see it. Hmm. Skip that (which makes for a cheaper ticket) and spend more time walking around, and get to the park early to avoid being squished like a sardine and getting an Asian V-sign in all your photos. There really is nothing worse. Of course, you can see Iguazu Falls if you’re heading to Brazil too (though you’ll pay even more for that!), but at the moment my plans to get there for the Rio Carnival in February are only vague and I didn’t want to miss out on seeing the falls altogether. No one should miss this.

No matter what happens in your life, big or small, good or bad, Iguazu Falls will still be there, tumbling into infinity, and nothing we can ever do will stop it. There are some things in this world more powerful than all of us can ever hope to be, you know? Unfortunately, snorers on buses are one of them.

02/09

My friend Autumn arrived from Sydney the other day with a suitcase and a disproportionately large plastic bag. When I asked what was inside the bag she said, ‘Koala bears!’

Autumn has brought with her to Buenos Aires thirty large, stuffed koala bears, which we are to distribute throughout our travels over these next couple of months together. As she’s a photographer, we’re to document the giving of these bears in a series of photos on our blogs to mark our journey. It’s a lovely thought. I’m not yet quite sure how we’re supposed to get them all onto buses, though.

We have a lot of ground to cover, including much of Patagonia and a cruise through Tierra del Fuego — a wildlife-riddled archipelago off the southernmost tip of South America, which few people ever get to see. We are literally travelling to the end of planet earth. With a bag of stuffed toys. It’s a true test of friendship, if ever there was one.

The first challenge was getting the koala bears from one end of Palermo to the other. We stayed for two nights at a ridiculously chic hotel called Home, which was a well-deserved treat after Milhouse (although hanging with Dror and the transvestites
was
fun) and saw us staying up all night gossiping over bottles of Malbec and playing the
Evita
soundtrack on loop.

The Evita Peron Museum, which we felt obliged to visit, turned out to be one of the most entertaining, yet most baffling museums I’ve ever been to, thanks to an audio guide that insisted we run about the place in no particular order, looking for exhibits that weren’t where they were supposed to be. Make sure you’ve got nothing else on your agenda for the day, if you’re planning to do it — it’s going to take you some time.

Anyway, Home was the kind of hotel we could have stayed in for a week, with its amazingly presented food items, such as scrambled eggs in tiny jars, and a whirlpool tub in the bedroom. It’s the kind of Home I’ll clearly never have, actually, but it’s good to dream. After that, we had an invitation to join some friends I’d met out and about at a place called Jardin Escondido, which happens to be the summer home of the esteemed movie director, Francis Ford Coppola (ooh-er!). He rents it out, apparently, to those looking for a quiet hideaway in Buenos Aires.

Knocking on the door with our cases and bag of koala bears, we were welcomed inside by our friends and a couple of super friendly Argentineans called Fernando and Germán, who showed us to our rooms.

I let Autumn have the room Francis Ford Coppola sleeps in because I’m nice like that and also because I was slightly wary of finding a horse’s head in the bed (well, you never know when he might slip a little movie prop in a random place, just for kicks), but the whole house was sinfully sexy, with absolutely no severed heads anywhere. I particularly liked the stash of Francis Ford Coppola movies by the giant TV and Francis Ford Coppola books on the coffee table … just in case he forgets what he’s achieved when he stays.

Think oak bookshelves, leather couches, the sweet smell of incense and expensive candles, cow-skin carpets and vases brimming over with pretty blooms. It’s a gorgeous place, one that made me realise why the man has made so many good movies … if all his homes are like this, he must be permanently inspired, although it must have been a momentary urge for something more obtuse than a scented candle in his room that led to the horse’s head thing.

Fernando and Germán informed us that we’d all be having an
asado
on our first night, so after an afternoon spent visiting the zoo (which turned out to be shut — error), the beautiful old La Recoleta Cemetery, then the brightly coloured, slightly dodgy tourist trap that is La Boca (one of the poorest
barrio
s in Buenos Aires built by Italian immigrants along the old port), we headed back to Coppola’s toting bottles of red wine. Oh, by the way, do not buy any
choripans
in La Boca: we practically vomited ours back up again as we struggled to eat the cheap meat while watching overzealous performers dance the tango. It’s definitely more a photographic opportunity than a dining destination.

Germán cooked everything on a huge grill in the garden as we all drank vodka cocktails. His brother arrived, too, and I seized the opportunity to practise my Spanish on both of them. It’s getting a little better now, I think, thanks to my classes. And when the meat offerings were ready, we all sat around the dining room table for a ridiculously long time, tucking into ribs, steaks and chicken.

After that, bellies full and burping, we went to a tango hall. Naturally.

La Catedral was filled with locals stepping and swirling to sexy beats and the
milonga
(the event itself) was basically held in a dark, cavernous room with old bicycles and stuff hanging from the ceiling. It was one of those nights you only have when you’re least expecting it. You know the sort that takes you by surprise and makes you wish you’d shaved your legs and washed your hair and put on something other than a tatty bra and unwashed skirt?

I have to say, Germán’s brother turned out to be incredibly nice. I got the chance to learn the tango with him and Autumn got the chance to take some documentary photos of the scene, which probably won’t make it onto any blogs with the koalas. Neither will the drunken videos we made back at Francis’s house, displaying my new tango skills, or lack thereof, on his immaculate cow-skin carpet.

After such a great time in Buenos Aires, and thanks to suffering a formidable hangover, the last thing Autumn and I feel like doing now is taking an overnight bus to Mendoza. But there’s more wine to drink up there when we’re finally over the wine we drank last night and we’re meeting a fun-sounding girl called Kendra who’s set to show us the sights.

Of course, as we left Jardin Escondido we handed out a few koalas to the lovely people who helped make Buenos Aires so special, so we only have to take twenty-seven across the country now.

04/09

We were about fifteen minutes into our tour of the beautiful Hacienda del Plata in the wine district Luján de Cuyo. A handsome sixty-two-year-old winemaker called Pablo Gonzalez, with skin like the sun and an outfit consisting entirely of denim, was explaining how he and his team tenderly tie the vines with natural twine to the trellis wires.

It was a glorious, sunny day, with the icy white Andes standing tall against a clear blue sky. Autumn was running around taking photos. It was just us, our wonderful host Kendra and this radiant winemaker standing in the midst of rows and rows and rows of beautiful, budding Malbec grapes. So really, the last thing I needed to do was purge the entire contents of my stomach on the ground.

I held my breath, thinking maybe it would help. Maybe if I didn’t breathe, my body would be tricked into thinking I was dead and the vomit I knew was building up inside me would never be evicted.

As Pablo crouched before his precious vines and explained how his family has been running this winery in some form or another at the base of the mountains since the eighteenth century, I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone had ever been sick all over the harvest and ruined it. From the way he was talking, I was pretty sure that even the slightest bit of puke could potentially sour the irresistible mysticism of the Andes, which Pablo explained is captured in his wines.

Eventually I could take it no more. I made my exit as fast as a vampire newborn, through the vines and across the gravel path with my hand pressed firmly over my mouth. I made it to the toilet only milliseconds after Pablo’s son, Juan Pablo, poked his head out of a nearby door. I dread to think what he heard coming from the bathroom as my breakfast, as well as last night’s dinner, made its grand reappearance.

I didn’t make it back to the vines. Instead, I was driven shame-faced back to Club Tapiz, the homely haven and ex-winery we’re staying at, where I’m now sitting huddled by the fire, feeling sorry for myself and trying not to be sick again.

As I type, Autumn is still out with Kendra enjoying the first day of our planned four-day tour of everything that’s awesome about Mendoza. As I sit here half buried in cushions, miserably wondering why a stomach bug is attacking me now when there’s precious Malbec to drink and men-of-the-land to talk to me about vines (Juan Pablo was hot, well … what I saw of his confused face as I dashed past him on my way to vomit), Autumn is off meeting more denim-clad ex-gauchos at wineries with fancy names and even fancier wines. Carmelo Patti, Renacer, Monte Quieto, Terrazas de los Andes … the exotic list goes on without me.

We first met Kendra last night at a bar and restaurant called The Vines of Mendoza. She works for a company called Uncorking Argentina, which basically provides wine-dummies like us with a personal guide for the city. This means we’re getting taken to all the best places while we’re here and hopefully won’t be left floundering in rubbish tourist traps. It was a no-brainer for Autumn and me because we’re on a pretty tight schedule, seeing as we have to make it all the way down to Punta Arenas in Chile to board our Patagonian cruise ship in less than three weeks.

Having taken the overnight super
cama
class Andesmar bus from Buenos Aires (which included individual flat screen televisions with movie selection, wi-fi, flat beds and unlimited champagne all for 590 pesos one-way), we were both pretty knackered. Note: just because you’re lying on a flat bed doesn’t mean the bus doesn’t bump up and down all night, keeping you awake. It doesn’t mean men won’t snore, either.

But Kendra had organised a tasting and a classy dinner with a renowned Argentinean head chef named Pablo Ranea at the restaurant Azafrán, and the second we met her bubbly American self, tiredness was banished, wine slurping commenced and we knew we were in for a fun few days. Autumn and I requested wine, wine, wine, wine, food and some horse riding, and a bit more wine for our tour, which is what has been arranged. I did not specify a stomach bug, but perhaps this is just karma paying me back for when Farzana was sick over the side of the boat in the Galápagos and I just drank beer and read my Kindle and edited photos of myself lying with sea lions.

Kendra moved to Mendoza from the US after college and, quite simply, fell in love with wine. She’s been here for the past three years and seems to know everyone — from famous winemakers, to photographers, to restaurant owners, chefs and —
everyone
. As we chatted and our host from The Vines of Mendoza prepared our very first wine tasting, Kendra impressed us by switching with enviable ease from English to fluent Spanish. We learned a lot as we swigged and didn’t spit (perhaps the first in a few errors that led to my tummy troubles today).

I’ve always been fascinated with wine, but the Argentinean girl pouring our drinks around the tasting table explained how she, too, became so fascinated with it that she quit her college studies in law and switched to a winemaking course instead. She’s working in the bar while she studies, like many of the students who’ve moved to the area out of a passion for learning more about … their passion.

‘Winemaking is really a simple process that anyone can learn,’ she told us as she swirled and then sniffed her own glass. ‘But good winemaking is an art. You need to learn as you go by tasting other people’s success stories, as well as their mistakes.’

She invited us to taste a late-harvest white wine with a strong blue cheese, which was incredible. I always thought red wine was best with strong cheese, but apparently not. Apparently, red wine is best with chocolate, and white wine is the bevvy of choice for cheese.

‘You don’t need a moment to drink good wine because the wine is making the moment!’ our knowledgeable host informed us as we sipped more of the wine and the cheese came to life on our tongues.

I thought this was exceptionally well demonstrated, and well said, especially as her English was by no means perfect, but the fact that even non-English speakers can speak so eloquently about wine and be understood by all is a testament to the passion of the people of Mendoza in general. As I’m learning here in South America, passion can be understood in any language. The girls I’ve met in Mendoza speak about wine in the same way that the boys of Ecuador speak about girls.

Kendra explained how she feels the passion of winemaking in Mendoza far more than she’s felt it anywhere in her home country. ‘In Argentina, drinking wine is an event to be cherished and shared,’ she told us as we swirled and sniffed and swigged yet another fine Malbec Reserve from the highly regarded winemaker Michel Rolland, who’s so famous that a bottle with his signature on it immediately doubles in value. ‘It’s the same as eating here. Eating is a time when people come together to engage, not a means to an end like it is in a lot of other places.’

I like that eating isn’t just seen as a means to an end here. Thinking about it, whereas McDonald’s, Burger King and Subway are still everywhere you look in these parts, you don’t really see the abundance of fast food spin-offs here like you do in other countries. Cafes and local restaurants that have been in business for years are still drawing huge crowds. Argentineans are creatures of habit, but those habits seem to involve visiting their much-loved regular haunts in the name of comfort, familiarity and sharing as much with the staff as they do with their own friends and family.

At the restaurant Azafrán, which is known as one of Argentina’s best restaurants, Pablo Ranea, who’s been whipping up his creations here since 2006, came out to personally say hi, because, like I said, Kendra knows everyone in Mendoza and Mendocinians are immensely proud of their food.

Pablo proceeded to serve us some of the most incredible empanadas — make that
the
most incredible empanadas — I have ever had, all filled with chunky steak meat and oozing gravy, encased in perfect pastry half-moons. Oh my God. If one of these empanadas was a man, I would marry it. The restaurant is pretty pricey but trust me, even if you just order the empanadas, you will die a happy bunny.

Anyway, Autumn, Kendra and I sat there for a while making noises like ‘mmmm’ and ‘ohmygodthisissooogood’, and were then joined by a fascinating American man called Jon Staenberg, a venture capital expert from Seattle who has a fifty-acre vineyard here in Mendoza called Hand of God. As we chatted over yet more wine, which was paired by the sommelier to a range of dishes such as cheese-crusted
bife de lomo
, or the most amazing fillet steak, if you’re no meat expert, Jon told us all about how his intriguingly named business came to be.

I naturally assumed he and his college friend-turned-business partner ran this winery from a religious ranch somewhere with crucifixes on every wall, the fruits of their labour being a rich, blood-red wine they then bottle with love and spiritual wellbeing. But no. Hand of God, he told me, was named after the controversial World Cup goal scored by Argentinean soccer hero Diego Maradona in 1986. There’s a lot I have to learn about soccer. And wine, for that matter.

Did you know there are companies that specialise entirely in fixing wine-tasting rooms with different lights? I had no idea how much thought goes into these things until Kendra and these equally passionate wine aficionados started telling us. Lights in tasting rooms are supposed to be of a particular colour and brightness, and all walls should ideally be white, because different colours can trigger different emotions and stop you thinking about the wine.

Green, for example, is supposed to make you think of meat. I’m still not entirely sure why — the only thing I can think of is that animals eat grass. Blue apparently makes you think of citrus and can magically conjure notes in your mind that aren’t even in your wine.

When Autumn and I had our tour of Club Tapiz, we were shown a darkroom that’s pitch black. It reminded me of a time I went speed-dating in the dark (not a wise move on anyone’s part for a number of reasons), but that aside, this particular room works in a similar way to the bright lights and white walls: when you taste your wine in complete darkness, you’re unaffected by anything else, allowing your senses to work out more about the nose, body and flavours of the wine. How clever is that?

I think Autumn has just returned, and judging from her message on my Facebook wall, I did indeed miss a wonderful day of fun among the wineries. Hmph. The fire is dying down and thankfully so are my stomach cramps, and as I haven’t puked in a few hours, maybe the bug has vacated my system. I hope so. There’s so much more to learn and digest in this city, it’s almost criminal not to be able to keep it down.

10/09