It has been a relaxing couple of days in Tafi de Valle. The fiesta ended early Monday morning. After restless sleep as the final six hours of amplified music played from the concert stage a couple hundred yards away we arose, ate, napped, walked, napped some more. Paula has posted what that day was like.

The town center had a feel of a Monday on a holiday weekend as families departed the cafes and shops, loading their cars and drving away. The town became quiet, and although there were still young people playing music in the streets, a calm was descenting on the town. The quiet was amplified when we realized we were the sole remaining guests at our hostel. Even the proprieter bundled up his family and departed, leaving us in the care of a caretaker.

Monday was a rainy day as was today. Although it seemed the Sun was trying to break through, the clouds would close up and the air would become misty. There were intermittent showers and in the evening the rain came steady and hard.

And it has gotten cold. The lows at night are in the 40s and highs barely get above 60. It is like an early fall.

Tomorrow we are taking a day trip to Cafayate for wine tasting and touring. Cafayate is slightly lower in elevation (Tafi is about 2000 meters) so it will be warmer. On Thursday we depart to Corrientes where we will be spending 4 nights for Carnaval. We were warned today that it will be hot and humid. I’m already looking forward to it.

I’ve not much to say about Tafi that Paula has not already said, but here are a few photos of the surrounding area.

This post is disjointed and rambling, but if I do not post it now, I will edit it to the tone of a business memo and you will be deprived of my overpowering wit.

I mentioned that the 50th annual Fiesta Nacional del Queso was underway when we arrived in Tafi del Valle this weekend. We had not expected a festival this weekend and had just assumed we would encounter normal weekend conditions. The first we heard about it was from our taxi driver who advised us that our hostel was on the outskirts of town, but it is close to the main celebrations of the Fiesta. We found out later that “close to” means within 250 yards.

Paula had read about this Festival and was under the impression it had already happened for the year. She was disappointed, but I could not, for the life of me, understand how to make a five day festival out of cheese. “How much can you celebrate cheese?” I asked. Hearing that there would be all sorts of cheese from cows, goats, llamas and alpacas did not do a lot to pique my interest.

As we walked to the hostel from our earlier quest for cash (see yesterday’s blog), we took a shortcut along a narrow, circuitous road. We encountered a flat bed truck driven by a man who was also seeking a shortcut, and the truck appeared to be a parade float. The driver advised us that there would be a parade outside the festival grounds at three o’clock. We are suckers for parades, though I have tempered some of my enthusiasm agreeing to go to parades only when it is not an election year. This fortuitous encounter seemed an invitation that could not be ignored, so we walked directly to the sports field and bought tickets.

We did not immediately enter the grounds, preferring to wait outside the gates along the appointed parade route. We noted a significant lack of evidence of anyone waiting for a parade. A woman told us the parade would be at 5 o’clock so we went to the hostel and freshened up. We returned to the fiesta grounds a bit after 5 and since there was still no evidence of a parade we entered the fiesta grounds to see what was available.

Touring the grounds it was clear that there was plenty of cheese of many varieties. As we were to find out later, substantial cash awards awaited many of the cheese makers. It soon became clear that the festival was only nominally about cheese.

The festival is a celebration the unique Argentine culture that emerged from the same economic and cultural conditions that gave it its cheeses. It is a celebration of the gauchos and the estancias. It is about horses, cattle, sheep, wine, music, dance, family and community. In the course to two evenings we witnessed, and in some ways shared, this celebration.

Immediately inside the gates we entered the area where the competitors in cheese making were set up.

It was difficult to get a good photo since the stalls were actually much more packed than the above image. After tasting a few items we went deeper into the park, past the amusement rides and came across an Argentine rodeo, where men dressed in traditional costume competed in riding and roping in front of an enthusiastic crowd. Around the perimeter, people sold beverages from coolers as young and old cheered the exploits on the field.

We enjoyed watching the show for quite a while and then decided to see what else was happening. That was when we noticed the parade was underway. It was a very slow moving parade, since each of the floats had a five minute demonstration for the judges at the grandstand. Each of the floats had active demonstrations of aspects of their heritage. Some were passing out food to the observers, including one float where an asadero was slicing generous servings of ribs right off the asador. We chatted with one woman who was planning to pass out servings of minced meat, pastry and other treats on behalf of a wedding party that was in the parade on horseback. We had met the newlyweds on the earlier portion of the route and were invited to a sip of a very flavorful spot of distilled spirits.

A few samples from the parade:

Nearly every float had a mujer vieja screeching a traditional song accompanied by an out of tune guitar and receiving wild applause. The emcee was enthusiastic, constantly calling on the crowd to show their appreciation, continuing to remind me about applesauce (aplausos).

As the parade neared its conclusion, the sound techs continued to set the stage for the main event for the evening –a music concert with local and national stars. Music is to start at 9 PM and as we waited we walked checked out the many asadores, wine and beer stands and other food stands.

As we surveyed the many options available, it was really clear that there was much more available than conceivably be consumed in the evening. We did our share, of course, but it did not seem there was, or would be, enough people in attendance to even make a dent.

That was before we understood the importance of the musical portion of the event. The concert began fairly close to 9, consisting of traditional music on traditional instruments. The performers were quite talented, and as the evening progressed the music, while retaining the traditional rhythms and cadence, took on a more contemporary feel. Around midnight the group we assumed were the headliners played a very powerful set. After about a half hour Paula and I began to succumb to the nearly 45 hours we had been on the move and decided to return to the hostel and get some sleep.

We were curious about why there were large lines at the ticket window when we left, with hundreds of people waiting for admission. Young mothers with baby carriages pushed their way through the growing crowd.

Our curiosity about why so many people were waiting to enter a concert so late in the evening was satisfied later. At 2 o’clock the music was still blaring into our window. As it was at 4 and 5 and 6. The concert ended about 630 AM Sunday morning. (for sake of brevity let me say the same thing occurred on Sunday night, though the music lasted until 730 AM this morning).

We returned to the fiesta Saturday night determined to last into the wee hours of the morning. Needless to say, we didn’t. In the effort we were amazed to find the attendence to reach levels we could not previously conceive. As we left the area about 1:30 the ticket windows were crowded and a line of mothers with baby carriages waited at the gates.

This is an update of the original post that published before it was finished.

We began to suspect the weekend is busy in Tafi del Valle when the buses leaving Tucuman were full. We did not expect, however that we were arriving just in time for the closing weekend of the 50th Fiesta Nacional de Queso. We actually had heard of this festival but expected it to be next weekend. And it would have been next weekend if February had 31 days as it ought to do.

We could not miss it now, if we tried, since the festivities are happening pretty much across the street from our hostel.

We had been planning this part of our trip to be in Salta province, but last week we decided we couldn’t really explain why we wanted to go to Salta and decided to make an intermediate stop on our way to Corrientes without going as far north as Salta. Travel blogs give very high marks to Tafi del Valle for quaintness, quietude and outdoor activity. By the time we decided to come here there were quite limited options for accomodations and the hostel we chose was almost the last one we could find on line.

There are good reasons, sometimes, for the last available room to be so situated. Being across the street from an outdoor concert venue could be one of them. This may sound like a complaint, and I guess it is. It is the end of a long day with a sound legacy of complaints.

We started our day on the previous day. We left our cozy retreat in Colanchanga in the morning, after touring Vlad’s motorcycle museum. This is neither a joke nor an overstatement. Vlad has become a unique authority on Argentine motorcycles, primarily by finding antique ones and restoring them into original condition. A section of his workshop displays the completed works, while current projects are in various stages of completion on the several work benches.

A short bus ride took us to Cordoba, the second largest city in Argentina. Along the way we received e-mails from our bus company that our next leg had been cancelled, requiring us to make alternate arrangements for our travel to Tucuman. Fortunately, intercity bus travel is the norm here so there was no problem arranging seats on a bus leaving an hour earlier than we planned.

We checked our back packs with the Guardia del Equipaje and walked to the city center and an abbreviated tour of the area. We had not anticipated the day would be the hottest day of the year in Cordoba, and shade from the sun was inadequate to relieving the discomfort from the heat. Regardless, we enjoyed the day, stopping into various museums and cathedrals.

This is the city cathedral located on Plaza San Martin.

I find it close to impossible to get a good representation of any cathedral’s interior space. This one is very rich and intricate in detail.

Here is the edifice as dusk descended on the city.

Else had told us the architect who designed their home had created a number of stone shadow installations around several of the buildings that reflect the edifices onto the ground. Here is an example, reflecting the arches of the city cathedral, taken from the cathedral entrance.

A short walk from the Plaza de San Martin we happened upon the Santuario del Corazon de Jesus de la Misericordia.

I could not find a setting on my camera to bring out the colors in this edifice, though here are a few attempts.

The interior is as ornate and colorful as the edifice, though here again I have not been successful capturing the grandeur of the building.

Part of our tour was disrupted by a power failure that went on for an uncomfortably long time. We had just entered a palace that is now a museum when we were required to leave due to the power failure. I was really disappointed, not only because it was a very interesting building but because the air conditioning system was very effective. At least until the power went out.

After a period of touring we decided it was time to get dinner and possibly a cold beer before heading to the bus station. We headed to the Guemas neighborhood that the woman at the tourist office said had the best selection of restaurants. We discovered after a long hot walk that nothing in that neighborhood opens until late evening, so we wandered the streets looking for any place that was open, particularly if it had air conditioning. It was during this time that I began to notice I was experiencing symptoms of heat illness. Fortunately we found a place in the shade with a strong cool breeze that was much more satisfying than a cold beverage.

I know at least one of you (whose initials are MM, by the way) who is thinking “what kind of idiot are you attempting to drink alcoholic beverages in such a situation?” I fully concur. We eventually found a salty pizza and some cold beer and could not afterwards releive my thirst, no matter how much water I drank.

As we were eating the Sun set and the temperature dropped considerably. Soon it was sprinkling rain and we got to the bus station just before the skies opened.

The overnight bus to Tucuman was uneventful and both Paula and I slept intermittently. In Tucuman we found the ticket office for the main regional bus company and were ticketed on the bus that would leave for Tafi del Valle in 30 minutes. There was no time for breakfast and coffee, though we each got a cup of something advertised as coffee, but we suspect it was a something else. Paula insinuating herself here – never get coffee at a place named, Dogsy.

Two hours later we arrived in Tafi del Valle. Those of you who know me well understand that I am quick to anger, particularly when tired, and usually choose to build a mansion to house all of my complaints. That was the main characteristic of my reaction to being in Tafe de Valle. The taxi driver did not know how to get to our hostel, and we could not help him since could not access cell phone or data service in the area. After a while he agreed to use his own cell phone if we would pay for the call, and then headed away from the village, taking us to the outskirts of town. At the hotel, the proprieter would not honor the rate we received with our reservation. Then we could not get any of our credit cards to work. Eventually we decided we would walk into town to the only ATM machine in the village and pay for the room in cash, meaning we would not be able to get the IVA removed and the room would end up being close to 40% more than we anticipated.

On the way into town we encountered heavy vehicle traffic and crowds of people on the street. It seems Tafi is a good location for people trying to escape the heat of the cities. I snapped at Paula for quite a while that we should just get on the bus to Cafayate. Instead we returned to the hostel, took naps and woke up in a better mood.

I am going to end this post right here, since the rest of the story about Tafi is long and detailed and my phone is slowing down, indicating that I will be getting error messages soon and this post will disappear.

We are on the patio in front of our cabin, watching the Moon rise over there hills to the east. This is our last evening in Colanchanga and it has been a good one.

Earlier in the evening Ludmilla, Else and Vlad’s daughter introduced us to taste of mate. It was an interesting sample, but I don’t think I’ll be changing out my coffee maker for a mate gourd any time soon.

Tomorrow we go to Córdoba and then to San Miguel De Tucuman on the overnight bus. Then we head to Tafi Del Valle, that we will use as a base to explore some of the Salta province, including Cafayate, for the next six days.

Tonight we have been able to explore the southern sky a bit, since the Moon rise is later than it has been. I think we’re got a cleared understanding of how to find due south using the Southern Cross as a guide.

It is strange seeing Orion in the north. Some time ago someone told us she thought the stars south of Orion’s belt represented the penis, not a sword. Tonight, seeing Orion’s sword extending upward, I can’t keep from wondering what the heck is on his mind.

I think we are refreshed enough to continue in our venture. After Tafi Del Valle we head to Corrientes for Carnival. We are looking forward to that very much.

It’s a great time to be traveling. The weather has been perfect so far.

We’ll be in touch.

Charlie

In the midst of a break I am thankful for the small things. The days are warm (hot) and sunny with occasional clouds. It is breezy with lots of opportunities for shade, so it is quite comfortable.

The days in Colanchanga have been quiet. Generally we take one or two short hikes. Paula makes her way to the lake or to a small pool near the cabin for a swim. We are settling in for a short experience of the slow pace of northern Argentina. I could get used to this.

Or maybe I’d find the urge to get out my power tools and make something to become overwhelming. Vlad had a handiman come over yesterday and they worked for a while building a rack for drying firewood. As they cut and welded the steel, I began to realize how much I missed welding. Working with wood is satisfying, but there is nothing more satisfying than making something from iron. I began to miss my tools and my projects.

But then I would not be working on projects if I was home. The snow has come to Albuquerque, and I see the reports of the closings and the road closures and I am thankful that I am here where it is warm and sunny. I would have resented taking the time and effort to escape winter if there was not a winter to have escaped. Selfish, I know, but I expect my snowbound friends will forgive me.

Paula makes sure she is in the water for a period every day. There is a small pool a short walk from here where one of the neighbors has built a swimming pool by damming a portion of the Rio Ceballos. Paula loves it. She swings from a rope and drops into the pool with a splash, then does it again. And again. And again. I wish I knew how to play like that.

Today we harvested walnuts from under the trees, clipped greens from the garden and Paula made a wonderful dish from the miscellaneous ingredients we could muster. Life is great. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

When we first arrived in Santiago I was overwhelmed by the crowds, wondering if I would be able tolerate a week there. By the time we left I was sorry to go. I enjoyed our time in Santiago and would like to have time to get to other areas of Chile.

The people were friendly and helpful and we found plenty of quiet spaces to relax.

We did not make it to the top of the highest tower in Santiago since we decided the the view would likely not top the view from the Santuario de Concepcion Imaculada. Plus it was 45USD per person.

We enjoyed walks through adjoining neighborhoods from our apartment. Many of the buildings were brightly decorated with murals.

In the neighborhood of Buena Vista we visited the home of Pablo Naruda, the celebrated poet. Photos were not allowed.

We stopped into a bar that maintained its ambiance from yesteryear.

Paula reported some graffiti that will be my current motto:

“The world is as it is, not as some son of a bitch named Einstein says it is.”

I wish I knew to attribute that quote.

Our days in Chile were full and enjoyable. The time sped by and it seems we did much more than I can recall in this internet cafe a week later.

That’s it for now.

Charlie

As we continued our walk in Valparaiso we decided that it was a good day for the beach. Since Valparaiso is a port city the few beaches are not really very pleasant. However a twenty minute bus ride takes one to Vina Del Mar, which has much better access to the ocean.

The agent at the information center advised us to get off the bus at the “flower clock” and walk a couple minutes to the beach.

Here is the flower clock.

And here is the beach near the flower clock.

Fortunately a young man on the bus give us alternate directions to the beach he prefers. It was close to 4 kilometers further into town. Here is the beach he recommended:

We were thankful for the advise from a stranger.

Overall our experience in Chile was a welcoming and to some degree an embrace.

It was in this spot that Paula was able to fulfill a wish to swim in both the Atlantic and the Pacific on the same trip.

Charlie

I was a few days into an intense period of pain due to a strained knee when we went to Valparaiso. As we entered the city on the regional bus my heart sank as I saw the hills, which are tall and plentiful. A stop in the visitor information office helped allay my concerns when we were directed to the many funiculars and ascensores that take people to upper elevations and miradores.

It was a Monday, and we have not yet learned that Mondays are part of the weekend in Argentina and Chile. Many places were not open and we had a good time walking the streets and appreciating the street art. I have to say that Valparaiso has been the most colorful place we have been. The many murals that adorn the buildings are colorful, artistic, whimsical and interesting in other ways.

I have not much more to say than we enjoyed the views from the Miradores and the street. Here are a few examples

Opera season at Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires begins a on March 12. We are returning home on the 14th, and bought our tickets for Rigoletto for the 13th. We are not sure if we have the proper clothes with us and may have to buy some.

We toured the theater while in BsAs. Our guide want a student of opera and gave impressive demonstrations of the acoustics. We knew we had to go for a performance but tickets did not go on sale until yesterday.

Here are a few photos of the theater.

It is a warm, partly cloudy day in Colachanga and we are taking another leisurely day, this time walking to a nearby lake. We we there late yesterday and the lake was crowded with canoes, kayaks, paddle boards and swimmers. Today is the start of the work week so the lake is much cleared out. Here are some before and after shots.

Yesterday

Today

This location is very nice, having the characteristics we discuss when we talk about leaving the US. It is remote yet close to a major city, mild climate, lots of water, and green.

One drawback is that there is no cell phone service and internet access is not particularly dependable. I am sending this from a cafe in the village since we cannot remain connected long enough to upload photos from our cabin.

In a way, having a period of relative isolation has been nice.

Here are a few photos of the surrounding area.

Now that we know we can access the internet here we will be a bit more diligent about posting.

Later

Charlie