It’s a terrible cliché but time certainly does fly when you’re having fun. It only seems like yesterday that stories of school fetes and council meetings were the order of the day. But that was more than a month ago, before our esteemed editor received two brown envelopes on his desk telling him we planned to quit our jobs as reporters and travel the world. Of course being irreplaceable he begged us to stay, but the lure of the globe was far too strong. After a hurried round of boozey leaving dos, slurred speeches and some thieving from the KM stationery cupboard we found ourselves in our first port of call, sun-scorched Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Maybe it was the pasty skin from living on the Medway Riviera or the thick winter clothes suitable for the freezing chill of Kent in winter but as soon as we left the air conditioned airport and stepped into the 40 degree heat we were subject to our first scam. Some eagle-eyed cab driver with a radar for pale skin and travellers’ rucksacks decided to charge three times the regular amount for the short cab ride to our hotel. It even made a minicab-ride home from a night out in Rochester seem cheap, but after a 28 hour flight - spread across two days - anything seemed worth paying to get to a hotel room with a shower.
If we had known the condition of the hotel room before we arrived I doubt we would have been so eager to get there in a hurry. A rickety bed sat on rough floor boards in a single room with a tiny wardrobe covered in graffiti. You could probably find better furniture in a Gillingham charity shop. Luckily the bustling streets, steak restaurants and Tango bars kept us from spending too long trapped between those four walls. For five days we wandered the city’s streets, roaming among the coloured houses of the Boca district, admiring the rose coloured government palace where Evita spoke to the people and the rows of castle-like tombs where she is buried. After eating a few too many cheese and beef stuffed empanadas we decided it was time to set off to a new destination, and where better to go than Argentina’s biggest wine producing town - Mendoza - in the foothills of the Andes.
Arriva take note - the Argentines certainly know how to do busses. Expectingto board a ramshackle old jalopy we couldn’t believe it when we climbed aboard a sleek looking coach to find sumptuous leather seats that folded into beds, a selection of the latest films to watch and a menu that strangely included a huge lasagne with ham, a dish of rice and cheese slices, and a tub of custard, washed down with near enough unlimited lemonade. It was almost a shame to arrive.
Mendoza is home to thousands of acres of prime vine-growing land. Picturesque family bodegas nestle among commercial wineries so large that grape-laden vines stretch from the foreground to the horizon.
Liking a drop or two we booked ourselves on to a wine tour. Thinking our phrasebook Spanish would suffice we booked on to a non-English speaking tour. It didn’t take us long to realise that we couldn’t understand a word the super fast talking guide was saying, or anything the other people in the group were saying. As the day wore on it was clear we were way out of our depth, until lunchtime at the Familia Zucchardi vineyard that was.
We knew it was going to be a good lunch when we were faced with three huge wine glasses each on the table. People began to sit down, weary after a morning wandering among vines. The Argentines sat at one end of the table, we at the other. Then the wine began to flow, two glasses of white before the starters of bread, olives and salad, another white with the starter. Then more wine as a second starter of deliciously spicy blood sausage was served. Then on to the red as the vegetarian nightmare of a main was served flame grilled steak, pork, and chicken. The vino continued to flow as we tucked into our stacks of meat and as it did our fellow guests came to life. There was one middle-aged guy in particular who decided it was time to bring us into the conversation. He started with a series of toasts to fellow guests. We were encouraged to join in each time, and received a drunken round of applause when we did. Then he began smashing glasses, his hands flailing about as he gesticulated wildly while telling very loud stories in Spanish. Each one seemed to end with a crash and a tinkle. When he realised we were English he decided it was time to toast the Queen, England, and us. This went on until our guide, who by this time was getting a bit miffed by the broken glass on the floor and the racket coming from our corner of the restaurant tried to drag him and the rest of us back on the homeward bound bus.
When we recovered from our hangovers a few days later, we decided it was probably best to leave this gout-inducing pueblo behind and cross the Andes mountains for the thin sliver of land on the pacific that is Chile. (Which consequently is also a rather good wine producing country.)