Argentina, a dream country with succulent meat and refined wine

En route to the Argentinian border, we were "enjoying" our last three hours of dirt road and dust eating before hitting the other side of the border. In Villazon, the border town on the Bolivian side, we had our last lunch which was actually pretty tasty. We had enjoyed Bolivia and had been surprised by the beauty and variety of its landscapes. We've had a good time, pursuing all these activities and never getting bored. But change is good too and we were looking forwar to discovering our next country. The border was only a few miles away and getting out of Bolivia was easy: passport stamped out, we rode the short distance to the Argentinian side.
First, immigration and to our good surprised, neither of us had to pay an entry fee. We had heard that since December 2009, US citizens had to pay en entry fee of $131 but apparently not when travelling by land. Awesome... Next, we gave back our vehicle importation papers back to the Bolivian official who was strangely on the Argentinian side. We then waited for a while until an Argentinian customs officer would enter our bikes and make sure we had insurance. We took this paper to another customs officer, who after briefly searching our bikes, told us we were good to go and enter Argentina. Pretty easy and fast. We also moved our watches an hour forward to enter the new time zone.

Oddly, it feels like we are already in France
The first sign that greated us after the border was a little scary: Ushuaia – 5.171 Km (3,221 miles). Ok, we were not there yet but at least our destination point was in the same country now. We can do it, this is of course if we can make it before it is too cold there. Motivated, we continued riding until it would get dark. Our ride ended up much shorter as anticipated as there was a road block at the exit of the town. There was a demonstration from the locals to ask the government to give them some land back so that they could work and get some income. There was maybe only 50 people and they were going to close the road until 8pm. We talked to the leader and try to convince him to let us go through but he said that even if he would, there would be other road blocks and also trucks accross the road further. He therefor recomended we don't cross the roadblock. We knew he was right and that it was not worth pushing so we went back to the town center of La Quiaca and found a hotel since we did not want to ride after dark. We would get back on the road the next morning.

After a quick breakfast of delicious pastry, we hit the road and were happy to see that no raod block was preventing us from covering some ground today. And we were so happy to be back on asphalt, enjoying the smoothness. After a couple of hours riding, we entered the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a colorful canyon with small traditional villages and herds of llamas bordering the road. It made our ride so much enjoyable to have these hills and colorful rocks to look at. What we noticed as well is that there was a lot of French cars and small trucks on the road: Peugeot, Renault and Citroen, all the big brands were there and with very recent models. Something we did not really expect in Argentina. At the end of the afternoon, we reached Salta, a pretty big colonial town. It is one of travellers' favorite town so we were looking forward to exploring it after settling in at our hostal.

Argentinian beef and wine, the road to culinary nirvana

Salta was indeed beautiful with its cathedral, churches and convent. These buildings were artistically illuminated at night so we saw both the day and night faces of the city. We had one important goal for the evening: going to a Parrilla where they would serve us a pile of (mostly beef) barbecued meet. The hotel had given us the best address in town, La Lenita, but as we walked by at around 7:30pm, it was all empty. Was it really that good if so empty? We continued walking and found at that all the restaurants were empty. Maybe Tuesday is not a big night? We went back to the La Lenita a little later and ordered their Parrilla for two with a bottle of their house red wine. We expected a lot of meet but not that much! It came on a big heated plate with coal underneath and as we tasted our first piece, our eyes opened wider with suprise. It was SO delicious: perfectly cooked and seasoned, tender and juicy. As we tried other pieces, and there was a lot of variety live ribs, steaks, blood sausage, regular sausage, sweetbread, intestins, chicken, pork ribs, each one was better than the previous. Combined with our bottle of wine, it was the best meal we had since maybe Alaska where we tried fresh Salmon. Beef from Argentina is famous and there is a good reason for that. Same with the wine. Trying both is entering a world of culinary delight, where vegetarians are losers... Actually, that meat would probably convert any into a meat eater, it is that good. We may do no good to our hearts but we will try to enjoy as much as we can the beef here.

We also found out later why the restaurant had been so empty. We asked our hotel manager and he started laughing. People here do not eat before 10-11pm in the evening. Usually, the day starts with a light breakfast, then a lunch around 2pm followed by a long siesta until 5pm. At that time, they eat a little snack and finally have dinner around 10pm. Not sure we can follow their timelines in the future but at least we will know that an empty restaurant is not necessary a bad sign early evening.

Entering Argentina was like a step in a complete different world. After economically poor and simple Bolivia, it was like getting back into a more civilized countries with all the comodities of the modern world. It had a lot of fimilarities with France: the demonstrations/strike on the road, the French cars and most importantly the succulent food and wine. Our first impression from this country was really positive and we were looking forward to exploring its big territory. After Salta, we continued our route south towards the wine country. As we were riding on the Ruta de Vino which would take us to Cafayate, our first wine stop, we again drove through amazing landscapes. This time it was the Quebrada de Cafayate, even more impressive than the provious one north of Salta. It was like driving on Mars: the colors were so rich and bright again, with interesting formations like the Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's throat), Los Castillos (the castles), El Sapo (the toad). We had to ride really carefully and slow since each turn was a temptation to take your eyes off the road and with the curves, not a good idea. As we were closer to Cafayate, the Quebrada opened to a big green valley where we could see the vineyards in the distance. We were now entering the wine country.