Last Tango in Buenos Aires

Fiesta at La Estancia de Cafayate

Saturday night was Noche de Brujas for most but party time in Cafayate. An unusual occurence - in fact NEVER before have over a hundred Americans descended on the town at the same time - an event deemed worthy of coverage by journos from the NY Times, Daily Telegraph and Mail on Sunday. (Since when do journos get to stay at the most expensive hotel in town, or even the continent - Patios is over $500US a  night - for an 800 word piece. What recession?)

They weren't however writing about the impact of the group on the town's infrastructure nor on my social life, but on the property and financial appeal for investors. The Estancia de Cafayate is on the outskirts of town, a little way down Ruta 40 and then a long way down a drive through vineyards to the estate. The property is beautifully surrounded on all sides by mountains, the vineyards and then the Bob Cupp designed golf course. I know nothing about golf and don't care to but apparently he is up there. The million dollar clubhouse looks like - a million bucks, it is all incredibly lovely but currently it is the sole construction on the estate. For the last two years people have been buying plots of land but as yet no houses have been built.

Cafayate is a two or three day journey from the real world. As one woman said to me - Are we going to leave Napa and our subscription to the ballet to come down here? But financial guru Doug Casey told his followers to buy for profit and so they did. Now the town is holding its breath to see whether the Estancia will bring good things in the form of paved streets maybe. People are expecting a massive boom for 'the Palm Springs' of Argentina.

The wine flowed from the hands of bow-tied waiters. Large bottles of Johnnie Black lined the bar. White leater sofas edged the grass dance floor under thousands of fairy lights. It was all really magical and if I was an investing person I would have been seduced by the magic of the mountains.

Way after midnight the locals, the journos and a few of the Americans left standing took the courtesy bus back into the pueblo and went to Nanta - a club with good music - the unico in Cafayate. The young man who had raved all night at the Estancia causing everyone to comment 'I want what he's on' promptly passed out. The journos went into a huddle to plan their next luxury working holiday and I danced, as I alway do. I had been escorted by the young man who had been trailing me for a few hours and then the stalkers arrived. One of my psych books informs me that men have a psychological imprint on their brains from cavemen times that prevents him from stealing another man's woman on pain of being clubbed to death. Well maybe we haven't yet reached the paleolithic era in Argentina.

I was surrounded by men who all were intent on sleeping with me even though the young Tucamano had been staking his claim for a while, they weren't bothered. I was fending off two when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked down to see the son of a bodega owner who asked me why I had never returned after my tasting. I explained. He asked me again. And again. They will keep asking the same question until they get the answer they want. He told me he was taking me to dinner the next day.

Later I was outside with the claimant and the bodega boy came and stood by the table. And just stood there glaring at me. Finally I said 'Que' and he glared some more but said nothing, possibly wondering whether the claimant was in possession of a large club. He waddled off down the road trailed by a dejected fat woman. This country is never going to change until woman stop accepting this kind of falta de respeto. Who stands there silently while her boyfriend aggresively hits on someone else?

The claimant and I went back inside. A woman was throwing me daggers as though it was my fault that one of the stalkers was using her in an attempt to get my attention. I had noticed her start a little whispering campaign earlier. Ladies - Other women are not the enemy! We need to stop right now letting men use us by inciting our sense of competition with each other. We are not stuck in the cave.

An exceptionally cute pibe passed close to me. 'You are surrounded tonight' he whispered (right under the claimant's nose) 'but when you are free I would like to get to know you more.' I have seen him around town. He told me he was 21. I told him I don't like being trapped in the age box. He looked me up and down and put me at 31. Hey - it was dark. 

Eventually the claimant walked me around the corner to my house. I wouldn't unlock the gate. He couldn't understand how I had such a large house by myself - surely I must have a man! He was becoming beligerent because he wanted what he decided he should have and wasn't interested in my point of view. This behaviour always puts me on the edge of madness. I do not want to go to bed with men I have met a few hours before - No matter how much Torrontes or Caipirinhas I have laid down. They won't listen. They start bullying and telling you that you are wrong. How can my decisions about who to share my body with be wrong?

My hairdresser here tells me you have to not be friendly or chatty with an Argentine because they will think that's a cue for more. A Cordobesa tells me that it's my fault for smiling at them when they talk to me. Is this why the Argentine woman is so icy? There is a grave lack of joie de vivre for a South American country. Maybe I should move to Brazil.

Pachamama Festival

Blessings to the Mother Earth. Today marks the start of Pachamama Festival, an Incan rite lasting the month of August, celebrating the gifts from the land and making sacrifice for a good harvest.

Pachamama is celebrated in pueblos all over the

North West where the indigenous rituals are still rigorously observed. Sahumerios are on sale all over Salta City – small packages of sulphur, herbs and incense burned to rid the home of negative spirits, purify and invite in love, money and abundance. By nightfall the city is covered with a smoke thick enough to stir memories of the burning of the soja in the campo last year. It’s a serious occasion though – the Jujuyena woman who explained the tradition to me had tears of emotion in her eyes.

The ritual begins with prayers and offerings but always ends raucously with folkloric music and dancing. There is an all-day celebration on Balcarce, that is mostly geared to tourists but is still fun, as is the one next Saturday on the Plaza. To really appreciate the profound spirituality of this sacred rite, an extended journey must be made (as is customary) into the Calchaqui Valley or to the tiny pueblo at Tolar Grande high in the Altiplano.

Ice Cold Salta

Cafayate has just suffered the coldest days on record - frozen pipes, ice on the streets, the lot and all this when I have just run out of a gas and have and empty tank that is supposed to last three months within two weeks.

Order a new one - another 180 pesos except that the owner of Killa, the hotel that supplies gas tanks to the pueblo, tells me no way the tank is empty. I need a plumber. Oh depression. There are only two plumbers in the pueblo and they are either work-averse or way too busy, depending on the cycle of the moon. No - depending on the time of the month. If they have worked enough to cover expenses well then, may as well stay in bed.

I am used to plumbers and all workmen, drawing a dubious inhalation and saying they couldnt possibly get there before a week next wednesday. In cafayate, they say yes definitely, they will be there right away. It's just that 'right away' could signify 'mas tarde' or 'manana' or 'el ano que viene' - i.e. Never.  The expats here fume about workmen, calling it a heinous form of lying but it isn't really lying. It's a cultural difference in that Argentines would rather be polite than honest. Like the men who tell they love you forever, it's just what they think you want to hear.

With the advice of my friend Jose, I stop calling the plumber's wife and we drive to his Hansel and Gretel house on the edge of the pueblo and physically remove him from the premises.You don't phone workers here - they always just smile hugely and nod and tell you yes. They don't trust phones in Cafayate - or at least they won't subvert the truth once they can see the whites of your eyes. But I have had three different plumbers en casa over the last month and none of them have spotted the problem of the wonky regulator that the German hotel manager who came with the gas tank noticed in about two seconds.

Groceries

Cafayate is cheap. It is not so third world that it needs to be this cheap. You can have a week’s fresh groceries for a tenner and all the wine you can neck down from the bodegas at the end of the road. Canned goods are more expensive as they have to be trucked in from afar.

Living in the middle of town there are supermarkets all around – what we would know as a seven elevens but without all the goods. A whole aisle of shelves can be stretched out with a few plastic washing up bowls and coloured plastic buckets. Cleaning is important here. Every day a thin film of sandy dust covers everything in the house. In the dry season of winter, it will be a thick film of red sand, turning the white porcelain of the bathroom suite into a dust bowl. Every day women are outside hosing down the pavement in front of their houses in an attempt to stop dust tracking into the house. It’s an ongoing battle against an enemy that slinks back in overnight or is whipped back in by a ten minute wind shower.

I go shopping at the market and choose between who has the nicest greenest vegetables that day. Everything is piled up unpackaged. The broccoli has been recently hacked low down from its stalk with all its blue leaves still attached. All my vegetables, fruit and salad is placed into one bag and a price totted up. I’m not going to quibble – it comes to less than a pound. I buy chicken in the same shop. The butcher smiles as I explain in Spanish that I want it boneless and skinless. Here they would eat the lot and give the rest to the dog. They wrap six eggs in a row inside two sheets of newspaper. I could buy chicken at the house two doors down. It would somehow seem like justice to eat the cock that wakes me up early every day – not the sort of cock one wants in the morning – but I can’t face eating something I know even if only aurally. So I avoid the place.

Cafayate Corso - Carneval

It was full on party week last week in Cafayate, Salta. Not only was there a corso along calle Rioja three nights running but there was the Serenata - a week long folk music festival - the most important in the North.

 

The street was packed with people and parillas and kids running around spraying espuma into your face. They have an unpleasant habit of blasting it straight in the eye.

 

It was amazingly well-organised for such a small city and some of the costumes and dancing displayed a huge amount of work.

 

After seeing corsos inside big buildings like the sambadromo, in Rio, designed for the purpose, it was fun to be part of the community on the street in Cafayate.

Tafi del Valle - Nada Que Ver

I had been told - mostly by Tucumanos - that Tafi del Valle in the Tucuman Province was every bit as lovely as Salta and that it was a shame that it wasn't on the circuito turistico in the way that the two provinces oop North are.

After a number of glorious days in Cafayate, where the BD drove around the Plaza watching me drinking coffee but not having sufficient pelotas to stop and speak to me nor offer an explanation for his tonteria, I went on to Tucuman alone. Or rather in a remise with a sweet driver and a couple from Capital. It worked out perfectly as the buses from Cafayate to Tafi leave at a deeply inconvenient horario - taking the excursion meant I saw Quilmes and Pachamama and Tafi AND my luggage was removed door to door.

Quilmes - much hyped ruins along the ancient Inca trail - taken over last year by indigents and only recently recovered. Interesting in principal, but as everybody told me when I asked 'Why isn't Tucuman popular with tourists?' - Nada Que Ver. Quilmes is a rather dull series of garden walls climbing a steep dry hill. You seriously need some imagination to get excited about the place. Nothing like the Pucara in Tilcara, Jujuy, which is a real village with an Inca church at the top and a stupendous view down the Quebrada forever.

Next - the Pachamama Museum at Amaicha. A really ingeniously decorated space, using Inca motifs, just as you would expect from the artist who owns it. Inside there is some interesting geographical information about how the gorges were formed and some dioramas of Inca tribal life. And then a number of rooms dedicated to the owner's painting and weaving. Very clever businessmen some artists are.

The drive of another 100km to Tafi is pretty enough if you like Wales in Autumn - not something I would come to the end of the World to see. And then you drop down into Tafi from a height of 3042m above sea level through a rolling green environment of sheep huts that soon turns into summer homes for rich Tucumanos escaping the 40 degree heat of the city. For S.M. de Tucuman is an infierno of a capital and Tafi is, well, cold. The temperature dropped so much when the afternoon drizzles set in that I had to put on every cover-up I had brought and then go shopping for a wool wrap.

I hated Tafi personally. It's in a basin surrounded by green mountains which makes it cooler but also means every breath you take is full of pollution. The cars are as pervasive as the wild dogs and lunatics. In a city of 8000 inhabitants, two-thirds as many as Cafayate, there is about a tenth of the charm. There is no pretty central plaza with iglesia. The wild dogs outnumber the cars and I was forced to observe chocques between the two. Then, finally attempting to relax at a sidewalk cafe, the local loony grabbed my half eaten empanada from the plate and rammed it into his mouth, not before returning to grab the limon slice from the plate and squeeze it all over the pastry. Apparently it's a regular occurrence here and the locals simply shrugged their shoulders.

It was delightful to get on the bus to Tucuman, that is until it stopped at every pueblo and parada in the valley and pandemonium broke out - just without the chickens. There is a great section of road on the way to the capital as you climb out of the pozo of Tafi over the mountain and down to Tucuman. The hills are cloched in trees and ferns tighter than a skinhead's beanie as the road snakes along clinging to the precipice. The photos were taken through a grubby window as people hurled themselves back and forth at every bend on the cornisa, screaming at the driver for a non-existent seat or their money back. Never has a bus station looked so calm.

 

 

SALTA - TILCARA

Hours wasted trying to rent a 4x4 in Salta city : 3.6

Maybe there is only one truck available and they share it between the zillions of car rental agencies, hence the wacky price of 610 pesos/day. However, there was not a single one to be had for at least ten days. So we took to the hills in a Renault CLIO - not to be recommended unless you are fortunate enough to be driven by my sweetie or Lewis Hamilton. On second thought, even Lewis couldn't manage the twisting mountain roads of dust, gravel and rocks.

Cars also not cheap to rent - about 170 pesos/day plus franquisia of 4000 pesos (12000 for 4x4). As there is no insurance on rental cars in NW Argentina due to scary roads - they simply apply the franquisia to your charge card and if you damage the car - YOU PAY. The woman at Avis (Swedish with Argentine-ex. Apparently the men of the NW are the most macho of the machos) said that they regularly have to send out rescue teams to stranded drivers with damaged cars who thought they could manage the mountain roads.

Stopped first at that delightful tourist trap - the Hill of the Seven Colours - mercifully totally devoid of tourists as the sweetie knows what time the convoys arrive and hence avoided them.

From Purmamarca we drove over the mountain pass at 4170 Metres, with our constantly present coca leaves, to the phenomenal Salinas Grandes. This was an otherwordly environment of 15k hectares of solid salt lake, blazing sun and whistling wind, peopled by extras from Star Wars, totally covered against the sun, eyes barely visible through slits in their hoods.

What a beautifully desolate experience and hotter than hell whilst looking so icy. Yet more slaves toiling in this arid environment for a few pesos more. I could feel my skin shrivelling every moment I stood there.

SALTA - CAFAYATE

Marooned again in the North West of the country with thousands, pero thousands of tourists. Salta looks a bit like Disneyworld on the Plaza especially when the Gauchos come out on their horses and there are even more thousands of tourists snapping away as though facing the imminent extinction of the man in baggy pants.

Tourists like Cafayate and it is certainly OK if you like Red Rock Canyons but I find the endless train of buses and proscribed photo pitstops really wearing. Fortunately Raul knows that when he gets everyone back on the bus, he needs to drive 1/2k up the road to get me.

Now we're talking travelling...

What they really need in Salta is a strong Trade Union for the Tour Guides because it's a bloody crime how these guys slave. You the tourist paying upwards of 150 pesos for the day trip to Cafayate, you the tourist squeezed into a combi Merc with 12 other tourists, the guide getting up at 5 and getting home at 9 after dropping you all off at your cozy hotels before taking the bus back and getting the names for tomorrow, doing this SEVEN days a week and earning 400 PESOS. Do The Math. Then do what's right and protest when you purchase your overpriced tickets to Cafayate/Cachi/Humahuaca.

This kid has it easy by comparison.

Its a thorny issue but these guys don't even get a weekend/a day off and when a two day break is requested, it is ruined by the constant calls of the Jefe telling them to get back (or else). PROTEST. Sorry - but I am the Grand-daughter of a Trade Union Leader.