Wednesday 2 November 2011

Argentina, the land of wine, meat and more meat - first destination: Tilcara

7-13 October

+ We didn't spend much time in Chile but we were planning to come back. We again took the bus and prepared for a border crossing. We had heard that the Chile-Argentina (and vice-versa) borders are the most smoothest ones in all Latinamerica. Well, it was the hardest one since we started our trip. We queued up for more than 2 hours and had to have our luggage checked. They don't search for drugs, they search for food!!! They have very strict laws regarding vegetable and animal products to avoid the spread of bacterias.

+ After crossing the impressive Andes, we arrived in the North of Argentina, in the beautiful Quebrada de Humahuaca. We didn't really know in which town/village to stay but just wanted to visit the region (one of the highlights of Lonely Planet). The chosen place for our holidays within our holidays was Tilcara. The place is surely Argentina with its Asados (Barbacues), wine and sympathetic people but it felt more like Bolivia when we looked at the local people. Most of them Indigenous or Mestizos. 





+ So we chose Tilcara randomly  and searched for a nice hostel. We found one of the best hostels of our entire trip with a wonderful garden, amazing views, BBQ, awesome kitchen and the best: the people! We arrived in a weekend when the Monday was a holiday so we met a lot of Argentinians traveling as well and staying in our hostel. We did lots of friends and massive quantities of food. We prepared barbacues and nice dinners each day, went to the local market and enjoyed the calm atmosphere of a small village in the mountains. We liked so much that we stayed one week Those days had a very simple, easy life with nothing spectacular to do, but that was just what was good about it. The daily highlight was the discussion between the Argentinians about what to cook that night; a discussion that could seriously take about an hour or more.  Then, we would go all together to the local market to buy the food. The cooking was the Argentinia way too: to start at around 8.00 pm and finally to eat around midnight.





















+ Of course, we also went for a looong walk to see the surroundings.
















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