Lots of people told
us that after Ecuador, Bolivia & Peru we would find Argentina boring but it's not true. True the countryside is not as
consistently spectacular (Mancchu Picchu - you know how when you go to see a
film that everyone has raved about & you are always disappointed? MP takes
your breath away no matter how many times you've heard it's praises sung) as these countries
admittedly, but it does have some lovely parts. Unfortunately there are many
long, boring stretches consisting of dry sand, dry bushes, dry rivers, and dry
wind! Many streams & rivers are marked on our map & we'd secretly dream of a refreshing bath under
shady trees but it's always a fantasy - we're presented instead with a bone dry, little
river. When you sit 6 hours on a bike, you have sometimes weird thoughts.
Eg A rainy day
would be nice! (can you imagine that?) Or you start to count the number of
dashes of the painted centreline on the road, or the dead dogs, cows and
horses. The thing about Argentina is the people. They truly make this country
beautiful. Although we have met wonderful people everywhere, Argentina seems to stock a far larger percentage
really wonderful people than anywhere else.
We're in San Juan at the moment. We're going rather slowly at the moment as
there are a lot of wineries in La Rioja, Chilecito, Villa Union & San Juan!
We were supposed to leave this morning but then Richard got personal invites to visit 3 important
wineries here, we have an appointment with a reporter later today & our
host has just told me that the TV people are coming around to see us a lunch
time. Oh Fame!
We also just
received an email from some friends of ours who live in Essex - they said that they went to Honduras in April & saw a picture of us in the in the
tourist mag that they put in the hotel bedrooms!
