23: Planet of the Asados – The Year of Living Differently – Chile …

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Planet of the Asados

VINA DEL MAR, CHILE to MENDOZA, ARGENTINA – 2 February, 2003
I took the day bus to Mendoza because the view across the Andes from Chile to Argentina was reputedly excellent. I sometimes had problems sleeping in night buses. But I had apparently NO PROBLEM sleeping in day buses. Go figure.

So, while I tried my utmost best to keep my eyes open to appreciate the view, I dozed off constantly throughout the ride.

Still, from my vague sporadic memory, I could recall, at first, layers of hazy mountains in various shades of grey, lined up one layer after another against the horizon. Then, the valley narrowed and the mountains were all around us, very brown, very dry. In the distance, snow remained on the higher continuous Andes mountains. We made a slow climb up one mountain and at one point, I counted at least 20 hair-pin turns. It was a little unnerving looking down the steep mountain and be able to trace the ribbony road.

We soon crossed into Argentina and the spectacular Quebrada de Los Horcones, as this valley was known, continued to amaze us with its colours and peaks. But my eye-lids turned to lead soon after and I could not recall much until we cleared the mountains and passed through plains and plains of vineyards. Mendoza had a reputation for its wine production. We had arrived.

A change of country, a change of currency, a change of ‘language’.

In Chile, to convert Chilean pesos into Singaporean value, I had to (more or less) divide everything by 350, which involved a healthy multiplication table of 350, borrowing from here, carrying forward there… a lot of brain cells died in Chile. In Argentina, I simply had to (more or less) divide by two. What a relief.

In Chile, I had to drop my ’sh’ pronunciation in all the words with ‘y’ and ‘ll’ and changed them to a ‘j’ sound (they did not pronounce it with a ‘y’ sound either).

Also, the Argentinians use ‘vos’ in place of ‘tu’ for ‘YOU’. Apparently, only the Argentinians (and maybe the Uruguayians) use ‘vos’. It does not exist in any Spanish language books or dictionary.

The conjugation for ‘vos’ is different from ‘tu’ for its present tense. But for the other tenses, like past tense, future tense, etc… it was the same as ‘tu’. It was as if after struggling through the present tense to create something different (just for the sake of it), the inventors of ‘vos’ decided to take a break and enjoy some mate and then, they suffered a major case of the Mañana Syndrome and never got back to figuring out the rest of the tenses for ‘vos’.

And NOW, back in Argentina, I had to ’sh’ more often and use ‘vos’ and its respective conjugated present tense. I was pausing more often and tongue-twisting over everything again.

MENDOZA, ARGENTINA – 3 February, 2003
My room-mates, an Argentinian named Claudio and an Israeli named Yair, were heading to the bodegas (wine yards and factories) to see how wine was produced. They asked if I wanted to join them.

Claudio added he had his own wheels. Oh, vamos. Como no? (Oh, let’s go. Why not?) And it was not just any car… it was a 1938 Chevrolet, in regal maroon shade and with its original horn (a deep resounding ‘MOOO’ sound).

We struggled to drive out of Mendoza city. We passed by the same streets a few times as Claudio made wrong turns here and there. Maybe he did it on purpose, for everywhere, nearly everyone’s eyeballs were glued to his car.

Men driving in the opposite direction or at a right angle to us, kept their eyes on us, risking lives and limbs. Cyclists stopped by Claudio’s side and made inquiries about the model. Street window-cleaners insisted on the honour of wiping the windscreens although they had just been cleaned at the last junction. Later at the bodegas, tourists wanted to pose for a picture. The car was a ‘chico’-magnet (chico = guys).

We visited three bodegas. One had a long history and a huge ancient wine-yard but only 10% was still functioning. The next was very exclusive, Bodega Artesania, where they claimed to do everything as personal as possible, hand-picking the grapes, hand-labelling each bottle. Only two restaurants in Buenos Aires served their wine. One could only buy them from this bodega, nowhere else. The third was very modern, with high-technology and metallic pipes all over. All were different and thanks to Yair’s translation (he spoke superb Spanish) to English for me, interesting.

We twirled, sniffed and spread fermented grapes over our taste buds (evenly). Hmmm, looks like wine, smells like wine, tastes like wine… I wonder…

There was an ‘asado’ at my hostel, i.e we ate barbecued cows that night. Yes!! How I had missed Argentina. The excellent juicy ‘bifes’… I had indeed suffered in Chile.

Good meat, good music, good Mendoza wine. This is the life.

MENDOZA, ARGENTINA – 4 February, 2003
The girl at the tourist office had told Yair there were two buses to Puente del Inca, 6am and 10:15am.

But another girl at the tourist office had told me there were five buses, 6am, 10:15am, 1:20pm, etc…

We had, of course, overslept and missed the morning buses and now confused about the different information we were given, we called the telephone number the girl at the tourist office had given me. We were told there were buses at 6am, 10:15am and 1:20pm. Nothing more.

We thought, how misinformed we were.

Alright. We decided to go together and catch the 1:20pm bus. But upon arrival at the terminal, we were told there were only two buses, 6am and 10:15am. What the!!!???

We realised, HOW MISINFORMED WE WERE.

We had no choice but to return to the hostel and undo all the ‘goodbyes’ we did earlier.

I thus spent the entire day today exploring Mendoza. Mendoza is much smaller, quieter and less polluted than Buenos Aires, with merely 700,000 inhabitants. Despite the more-than-35-degrees-Celcius heat, it could be pleasant to walk around at certain places, for many had trees that somehow grew in such a way that those on opposite sides meet at the top, forming a wonderful shade under the foliage. They called these, the tree-lined avenues.

The reason why Mendoza was quieter was also due to the ’siesta time’. Nearly all the shops closed from 1pm to 5pm. Very inconvenient.

I visited a hairdresser to maintain my slick urban look. It was interesting to compare the various experiences I had had with hairdressers in different countries.

In China, before I knew it, the lady massaged my head, chopped my back, wrung my arms as part of the massage package that came with the price. Very good massages. And then, the hairdresser proceeded to do an atrocious haircut.

In Germany, the hairdresser flipped through Hair-Stylist magazines to look for pictures to show me how I wanted my back and sides to be like. After ascertaining them, she fled to a screen behind. A long pause followed. Later, another lady came to attend to me, her head shaking. Hmmm… apparently, the first hairdresser was so nervous, uptight and traumatised that I spoke no German, she did not dare cut my hair.

In Brazil, the guy had looked me up and down and asked, “Fala Portuguese? (Speak Portuguese?)” “Nao (No)”, I had replied. Without bating an eyelid, he nonchalantly proceeded to explain how he would cut my hair, with his hands rustling my hair and stuff (like how they did in Vidal Sassoon ads), and ending with a thumbs-up, “Tudo bom? (Everything OK?)” “Tudo bom! (Everything OK!)”. How laid-back Brazilians are.

And now, as my hair was being cut, I got to chatting with the hairdresser and then, the owner of the saloon. By the time the cut was over, the two shampoo girls had joined in and all four wanted me to write my Chinese name for them to see, asked me why we eat rice everyday and how to say ‘kiss’ (so typical of Argentinians) in Chinese. Before I left, we exchanged kissies-on-the-right-cheek, hugged and wished one another eternal happiness.

MENDOZA to PUENTE DEL INCA, ARGENTINA – 5 February, 2003
Today, having bought our tickets yesterday, we managed to drag ourselves out of the bed in the morning. We dragged Claudio along too.

We sat on the first row, so instead of the usual view-by-the-side thingie, we had an amazing view-in-front. This was the same route coming from Chile and as I had missed out on the scenery earlier, my eyes remained peeled the entire trip this time. It was a gorgeous journey. GORGEOUS (if I may add, with capital G, O, R, G, etc…)!!!!

The Puente del Inca was a natural bridge formed from the calcium of the underground water. Years ago, a hotel had built thermal baths under the bridge. An earthquake or avalanche (I am not sure) destroyed the hotel and the abandoned thermal baths remained somewhat in ruins now. Underground water still sprouted in the baths. The rocks around were yellow and white.

Someone had once told me the Puente del Inca was not that impressive. Hey, I disagreed. Sure, it was perhaps not as impressive as his ingrown toe-nail, but I loved it here. Claudio was also a photo-buff and we spent a long time exploring the baths and under the bridge slowly, snapping away.

Later, we followed the abandoned rail-track towards Chile and murdered many frames with, what we hoped to be, artistic and creative shots of the railway tracks, dilapidated tunnels, using shadow and light.

We came upon a bridge. The pedestrian walkway had long eroded away. We decided to walk on the metal tracks slowly to cross it. Stand By Me flashbacks. Halfway through, we yelled, “Tren!! Tren! (Train!)” and giggled away. No one would believe we were both in our late twenties.

At midnight, despite the cold wind (altitude of Puente del Inca was 2700+m), we made our way out to the natural thermal pool near the natural bridge.

OK, with the wind blowing away, we had to be mentally STRONG to strip down quickly to our swimwear and plunge in. There was a pool which had somewhat warm water and a ‘jacuzzi’ which was continuously bubbling out warmer water.

What I did not get to do in Villarrica, I got to do it here. And with stars, no… the entire Milky Way in the sky too. This IS the life!

We stayed in there for a long time, dozing off at times, contemplating the Milky Way, wrinkling ourselves into prunes and soaking in the smell of rotten eggs.

We must have been in there for an hour and a half before Yair said we should be heading back. “Vamos a salir.” (Let’s leave) was repeated for the next two and a half hours. We just COULDN’T make ourselves leave the pool. We had to be mentally MUCH STRONGER. It would be TOO COLD to get up and dry ourselves.

Soon, more people joined us in the pool and it became difficult to leave.

Finally, at 3am or so, I decided to DO IT. I bravely took a deep breath, dashed out, nearly died of hypothermia trying to dry myself and shivered back to the hostel.

PUENTE DEL INCA to MENDOZA, ARGENTINA – 6 February, 2003
As it turned out, Claudio only left the bath at 5am. And Yair, who had been the first to suggest leaving, actually stayed in there with the other late-comers until 7:30am this morning when the sun popped up. He was in the thermal pool for more than eight hours! He was now a walking, wrinkled, stinky rotten egg.

Claudio took the earlier bus back to Mendoza. Yair said he heard there was a laguna nearby and I followed him there. Just a little further from where Claudio and I had stopped yesterday, we spotted Aconcagua. I was looking for a laguna and instead, I came upon Aconcagua! What a wonderful, wonderful surprise!

Sheesh, if we had known yesterday, we would have walked further and Claudio would not have left without seeing Aconcagua. You see, Aconcagua is the highest peak in America at 6900+m.

We were joined later by more hostel-mates, one, a Norwegian guy in his 50s. He was a mountaineer, with 18 4000+m peaks under his belt. He had arrived with a climbing team but LANCHILE had lost his bag with the climbing gear. So, his friends left to climb the peak while he remained here, waiting for his luggage to show up. And it did not appear to be showing up at all for no one at LANCHILE seemed to care.

MENDOZA to LA RIOJA, ARGENTINA – 7 February, 2003
Yair had explained to me that he did not believe my theory about the Argentinian postage cost, i.e. that if 20g cost US$1.50, 2kg would cost US$150, for postage costs did not follow linear proportions.

Half-believing him, I had gone and bought a bunch of souvenirs last night. Yep, when you are making a list and checking it twice, it really means the trip is coming to an end soon.

At the post office, the lady motor-mouthed rapidly something to me. I heard ‘Aduana’ (Customs), ‘revisar’ (check) and ‘caja’ (box). My short-term memory only retained ‘caja’ and realised I had to find a box myself. If I bought one of those postal boxes from the post office, it would be MORE expensive.

I remembered many guys going through garbage bags along the streets collecting boxes. Should I do the same? Or should I go to one of these guys to try and buy one off them? I had just decided to head back to the hostel to see if anyone had a box when I spotted a box under a tree. I looked. It was empty and the right size. Box was mine.

But, back at the post office, the lady re-explained that I had to go to the Customs to have them check the items before I could seal up the box for postage. Oh…. Unfortunately, the Customs office was closed now and would be opened on Monday morning. It was Friday today.

Oh dear, how inconvenient this was turning out to be. I lugged the box to La Rioja.

On the luxurious overnight bus to La Rioja, the steward served dinner to us. I had forgotten this sort of service existed in Argentina. The last time I took such a bus was more than three months ago heading to Buenos Aires. I grumbled to the guy next to me that what a shame, I had already eaten dinner. In response, he smiled and did a very typical Argentinian hand gesture to me.

The gesture: With the right hand facing up, place all fingers together. Hold the fingers at an angle and rock to and fro a few times.

Oh, how I had missed this since Buenos Aires! This gesture can be used to mean anything… from ‘You look like crap, everything OK?’ to ‘Hey, hey, what you are talking about? I disagree with that…’ to ‘What? Explain that again?’ to ‘Oh, it is the most gorgeous place in the world! Precioso!’ to ‘Hahaa, what a toad you are.’

For my case now, it would be the last meaning.

LA RIOJA to LOS MOLINOS, ARGENTINA – 8 February, 2003
My objective of coming to La Rioja was to visit Parque Nacional de Talampaya nearby. I had read somewhere that it was advisable NOT to head out there during summer. This was summer. Hmmm, I made inquiries at the tourist office.

The lady told me it was 45-50 degrees Celcius a few days ago in town. So, she reckoned it would be 60 degrees Celcius in the desert. Oh nooooo…. I would NOT be heading there.

However, she tried to interest me to go to Los Molinos, a small town two hours away, which would have a festival tonight. Fine.

This was the first time in a long, long time there was cable-TV in my hotel room and the remote control belonged to me and me only. I stayed in bed and channel-surfed the entire afternoon. 52 channels and there was nothing on TV.

I caught the bus to Los Molinos that evening. The small town was fenced up with garbage bags so that anyone entering the main plaza would have to fork out 7 pesos. The stage was set up at the plaza with many tables and chairs. I really had no clue what sort of festival this was. Because of Mexico, I had expected the festival to be full of folk-loric music and lots and lots of wonderful, colourful traditional dances.

Well, there were only two dances but they were put up by children, a little hurried and inexperienced. The next two hours though, had brilliant bands playing folk-loric music which I enjoyed thoroughly.

LOS MOLINOS to LA RIOJA, ARGENTINA – 9 February, 2003
OK, let’s face it. Two, three hours of folk-loric music was fine. But, EIGHT hours of it was a bit of an overkill to the untrained ears, don’t you think? I had not slept well on the bus last night and so, I found myself sleeping in the middle of the loud, booming party.

The locals were having great fun, though. They sang along to every folk song and danced. They bought flour and foam-spray and it was a free-for-all fight as everyone tossed or sprayed everyone else. Two kids next to me eyed me for a while. I braced myself and indeed, they sprayed me entirely with foam.

Finally, FINALLY, the party ended at day-break. Enough of folk-loric music! I was very relieved to catch my bus back to La Rioja for a much-needed sleep.

LA RIOJA to TUCUMAN, ARGENTINA – 10 February, 2003
The Customs office of La Rioja was way out of town, along one of the highways. I made my way there by taxi. There, I realised that the officers wanted the box to be wrapped up with brown paper after checking and that I had to provide the brown paper. Where can I buy brown paper? Back at the centre.

Argh. For a moment, I wanted to give up and lug all this stuff until I crossed back into Chile. Then, I thought I would stick it through, just to see how low it could go.

Back to the centre and back to the Customs office with brown paper. The guy asked me to go ahead and wrap the box. But… but… don’t you want to CHECK the contents first? That was the POINT of bringing the box all the way to Customs for inspection before wrapping, wasn’t it?

The guy gave me an ‘oh yeah’ look, gave the contents a cursory glace, barely lifting the plastic bags to check the inside. OK, now wrap it.

I cursed the day I decided to post things home from Argentina.

I arrived at Tucuman late at night and had my first diarrhoea since China.

TUCUMAN to TAFI DEL VALLE, ARGENTINA – 11 February, 2003
The route from Tucuman to Tafi del Valle was amazing. As we climbed up the mountains, the surrounding vegetation looked like tropical forests. The entire mountains were packed with trees and the trees were fully grown with climbers and ferns. Impressive. The bus made turns after turns towards the cloud level. Sit on the left side.

Once we burst out of the clouds, the vegetation changed to grassy mountains, spotted with pine forests. Tafi del Valle looked very agreeable to me. It was no longer desert weather, it was alpine weather.

The tremors in my stomach and the very windy road made me feel queasy upon arrival. I had a headache too which I attributed to ‘altitude sickness’. Strange, this was 2050m. When I was at Puente del Inca, it was 2700m and I did not feel weird then. Maybe the difference in altitude between Tucuman and Tafi was greater. I decided to take it really easy today.

The view around this pretty town in the valley was wonderful. We were surrounded by green mountains all over, half immersed in clouds. In the distance, we could see a lake. There were llamas too. Tourists could rent horses to visit the area but the locals were using horses for transportation as well. Tafi was very tranquil and beautiful. I really liked it here. I soon got to chatting with a couple of cheeky old men who wanted me to stay in Argentina and get married. Get married with whom? The toothless one offered to be my groom at once. Right.

TAFI DEL VALLE, ARGENTINA – 12 February, 2003
I had been crapping everything I ate. I took some medication and gingerly had some empanadas at a restaurant. I chatted to the owner of the restaurant, Julio. He suggested to me that later at 5pm, if I wanted, I could join him and his family for a drive to the neighbouring town El Mollar and he would drive me to the top of a mountain for a great viewing spot to take pictures of the valley. That sounded fantastic. I agreed to it at once.

I took a walk along the rocky river bed but soon, found that I was too sick and still had not enough energy today. I was still crapping, by the way. I decided to head back to my hotel to sleep.

By 5pm, I met up with Julio, his wife Gracilia and his son Cecil. We got into this car but the weather had turned very rainy by then and it was not possible to go to any viewing spot for photos. Julio was very nice, he kept apologizing about the missed opportunity to me. How sweet. Gracilia then suggested that we drive to another town, Amaicha del Valle, more than 50km away, to have an ‘asado’ with her sister’s family.

Amaicha del Valle, although also a charming town in the valley, had a climate entirely different from Tafi. It was dry there. It rained perhaps five days a year, I was told by Cecil. We climbed up more curvy roads and hit the highest point of El Infiernillo 3045m. Beyond that, the vegetation indeed took a change. Now, instead of pine forests, we could see scores of candelabra cactuses, 2m to 4m tall. Many seemed to be giving us the third finger. It was a near-desert climate here. How strange!

So, despite my weak stomach conditions, I soon found myself gnawing at various cow parts at the house of Gracilia’s sister. I met many relatives too.

They showed me the backroom where they made bread and wine. There was a cow’s belly, where the four stomaches used to be, tied to four poles. Inside the belly, they would put grapes and then, they would step on them – the first step towards wine-making. How delightful! I had heard this explanation in Mendoza but they had said this was the ‘old’ practice for everything was mechanised now. I had just found a place that still did it the ‘old’ way.

Again, I must say I was very lucky to have met such a wonderful family, entirely by chance.

TAFI DEL VALLE, ARGENTINA – 13 February, 2003
I stayed another day here in Tafi. Just to gain more strength.

I visited the nearby town El Mollar which had a Parque Nacional Menhires with stone menhirs, some with carvings. Not very impressive and not well-maintained too as many of the stones were, sadly, vandalised by the amorous Argentinians proclaiming this love and that.

Hitched a ride back to Tafi and visited Julio again. Now, he wanted to invite me to another asado with his cousin tonight. He had been very kind to me and I was very touched. Cecil’s eyes lit up when I agreed to the invitation.

Asados asados. Only the Argentinians know how to make a real asado. I subsisted on more meat today. But I swear I would NOT be having another asado for a long time.

By the end of the dinner, the family put some folk-loric music on and the assorted aunts, uncles, this cousin and that, started doing folk-loric dances, with handkerchiefs and arms held high, curved like a candalabra. I joined in at one dance, to some applause and much delight as the ‘ambassador from China’, as I was known to them, with some clumsy foot-work.

But I drew the line at Cumbia. The horrible Cumbia. This is happy-peppy music with repetitive POM-pom-POM-pom bass tunes, highly excitable electronic tunes and LEVEL INFINITY KITSCH. It is HORRIBLE. Unfortunately, the Andean folks love it.

Questions?
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