Argentina – the land of truly amazing STEAKS!

Gorgeous lunch spot on route to the border

The border crossing into Argentina was the longest yet at nearly 4 hours, with bag searches and delays while staff had their lunch breaks. I annoyingly managed to get sunburnt whilst waiting in the queue! We did, however, take advantage of the roadside snack stalls and had gorgeous freshly squeezed orange juice and delicious chicken empanadas. Le Roux and I started a bit of trend as the others saw our snacks and rushed off to get some too!


We all noticed a difference as soon as we crossed the border into Argentina – the roads were flat and tarred, and there were proper petrol stations with decent toilets and lots of snacks to choose from, as well as far less rubbish. Argentina was making a good impression so far!

After such a long delay at the border, we arrived very late at our campsite near Salta and had to put our tents up in the dark, before heading out for our very first Argentinean steak dinner at about 10pm. It was worth the late trek into town though as it was so tender and delicious that I devoured every morsel of the huge steak.

Having spoken to a number of people along the way, we’d heard great things about the horse riding in Salta, so we headed out the next morning to a ranch. The day started very well with an unexpected treat of morning tea with scones and bread pudding, before we saddled up. The horses were very well trained and lovely to ride, although we had to get used to the non-English schooling which meant using only one hand on the reins and much more subtle movements to control the horses. As the group was of mixed ability we didn’t get to do as much cantering as we would have liked, but it was a very pleasant ride.

The best part of the day was yet to come though, which was the amazing steak BBQ for lunch. Enrique, the owner and host, was such a character and he kept us all amused throughout with his banter. Lunch was a feast of salads, salsas, sautéed potatoes and home-made red wine to accompany the most amazing steak and chorizo sausages. We all came away from lunch very satisfied with enormous bellies!

The following day we went white water rafting and zip-lining about 3 hours south of Salta on a beautiful stretch of river with huge rocks either side. The rafting was great, with lots of birdlife and random horses along the river and some class 3 rapids to negotiate. We also saw some fossilised dinosaur prints on the rocks and what looked like wave marks from when the area was under the sea millions of years ago. We all managed to stay in the boat until the last stretch when our guide made us all get in and float the last bit – so cold!

After another lovely barbequed steak lunch, we headed up into the mountains in order to zip down them on the steel cables. In total we covered 3km on the zip wires and crossed the river 4 times which was awesome. Some of the group were pretty scared to start with, but everyone loved it by the end. Le Roux managed to burn his arm on the cable by posing for a picture along the way despite being told to hang on – boys will be boys!

Our expectations of the next campsite in Cafayate were high as we’d been told it had a big pool and a waterslide. However, on arrival it soon became clear that we were going to be disappointed. The big pool was empty and the plunge pool for the waterslide was filled with green slimy water and a lot of tadpoles. Our refreshing swim and afternoon pool party was not to be. To top it off, there was no grass, only dirt on which to pitch our tents and no hot water for showers – officially the worst campsite ever!! We made the best of it with some alcoholic watermelon granita and my team cooked bangers and mash for dinner which was very much appreciated by all as we’d been missing the tastes of home. Cafayate town itself was less disappointing than the campsite as it was home to an amazing ice-cream shop which had cabernet sauvignon and torrontes wine sorbets – delicious! We also found a shop that did huge steak sandwiches.

We stopped at Catamarca for a night on the way to Cordoba and the campsite was a definite improvement on the last one with hot powerful showers, although the huge pool was empty and there was still no grass. Frustratingly the Argentines don’t fill up their swimming pools until the height of summer, even though the weather by British standards was already hot!! We continued our food theme in Argentina of having steak every day as Adrian’s team cooked delicious steak fajitas for dinner. Unfortunately, my team was on washing up and I think he managed to use every pot in the kitchen!

Cordoba was a modern city and not particularly exciting. We wandered around for quite a while on the first night trying to find a decent steakhouse, which we did eventually find after asking a number of shopkeepers and being sent in various different directions! However, we ended up missing the celebration in the main square with a live band and tango dancers, which was a shame. We were sharing a room with Matt & Hannah in a lovely youth hostel in the centre of town which meant we got to witness the morning soap opera between them – so amusing! It was great to have a kitchen to use after having to eat out so much, so we cooked a delicious pasta dinner and as we’d made too much Lindsay benefited from our leftovers!

Next stop was Mendoza – Argentinean wine country. We’d all been looking forward to a day of bicycle wine tasting in Maipu and we weren’t disappointed. The weather was sunny and we cycled 12km, visiting the wine museum and 3 vineyards. None of the wines we tasted were amazing though and we’ve decided that Argentinean Malbec is not really to our taste. We did like a dry rose though so we bought one bottle for later consumption. It was probably a good job we didn’t find lots of lovely wines though as they were expensive and we couldn’t carry them anyway!

Mendoza to Santiago was our last bus ride on Doris, the big yellow truck. We therefore had to pack in as many games of cards as possible. In fact we’ve played so much on all the long bus journeys that I’ve had to buy a new pack as the numbers were fading. The border crossing from Argentina to Chile involved a very thorough customs check as Chile have strict rules on no meat, dairy, fruit or veg being brought in. This meant that we had to be inventive as to where to hide our chicken and salad sandwiches. Luckily we managed to get through with only some free raisins from one of the vineyards being confiscated from me as I’d forgotten they were in the snack bag! Although the border crossing took ages it was more efficient than the Bolivian/Argentinean one. We were starving, however, but we had to hang on until we were out of sight of the border post before we tucked into our contraband sandwiches!

That ended our first visit to Argentina but we’ll be back – the steak alone means we will be coming back, although a little break from it will be beneficial to the waistline!

Complete photo album:

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