Sth America-5- Mendoza, Difunta Correa

When we arrived in Barriloche we found that it was really hard to get accommodation, our timing was wrong!!! In Argentina only two places celebrate Passover - Buenos Aires and you guessed it Barriloche... nearly every hostel and hotel had been booked out by travelers from Israel, we found a room in a hostel called Backpackers Barriloche, a dorm room is about $25 peso per person (euro 6.25), the place didn’t look like too much but it was a place to drop the bags and look around. The town itself has a nice setting and is very pretty but this may sounds strange but its too clean, too many straight lines, we headed off to the national park information office to ask about the local park and the lady who worked there couldn’t have been more helpful, she was really good but in the end we decided that our legs and feet needed a break so not to go. The town itself is famous for its chocolate... and it is sooooo tasty!!!! We also had the best ice cream every here!!

Between Passover and the ceremonies for the Falkland war the area was swamped with people, so after one night we decided to take the scenic bus journey to the nearby town of san martin los andes. The bus passes through the famous seven-lake route which is breathtaking and which also passes by where we were thinking of hiking so we still felt like we got to see the area. The areas that we passed through screamed of idyllic holidays for wealthy people, from the yachts on the lakes, the expensive cars and the designer clothes... and no we didn’t stop!! The town of San Martin is very clean, you are nearly afraid to step on the pavement in case you break something; it’s a nice place for a day visit but not for us. We checked locally about other hikes we were interested in but you can’t get to them by public transport and as we don’t drive that would have meant over priced tours... so the next day we were on our way again...

We got to the bus station early and found that we were in time to get a bus to Neuquen and from there we could transfer to Mendoza.... so we left the lake district quicker then we expected but hey the wine district isn’t a bad place to escape to ....

As it was Easter week many places in Mendoza were already booked out so after dragging our backpacks in and out of hostels we found beds in a dorm (25 peso) in the Itaka hostel... the hostel itself is quite nice, there is a pool and bar in the back, table tennis by the side, badminton net, pool in the games around, card tables, and free internet (well one pc between a full house!!). The staff were also really nice a bit crazy! Only negative side was some of the guests!!! For a few nights we were sharing with three blonde girls from Sweden (could have been Denmark but they weren’t very communicative), I nicknamed them ´snow trio´ for the powder they left on the table in the room, the bit they didn’t get up there noses if you get my drift, they were horrible rude.... they had obviously being sharing the powder with other guests as a few times during the night people kept coming in looking for the girls and talking about doing lines, one night there was an English guy doing a line by the sink in the common area, so much for all the posters about illegal items etc... Anyway we stayed clear of the groups but it wasn’t a place to catch up on sleep or to recoup as our original plan, the music blares till 4/5am and people come and go all hours, I know, I know that’s hostels, well actually it hasn’t been like that everywhere we have been, its been the exception and not the norm... one night a very drunk guy came in and even tried to get into my bed, he was quickly removed from the room, aside from those people we did meet some nice people, Anna from the UK who had been traveling for a similar time as us, Tom from the UK who has been traveling the world as a contract English teacher ( yes we have the same cert as him!) who was going to start a contract soon in Santiago, Ida a funny girl from Israel who won 50 peso in the casino....... so its not all bad people, don’t get the wrong idea....

Okay the town itself is really nice, it is so hard to believe that we are in the desert, it is so green, the streets are lined with trees, the only tell tale sign is the irrigation channels gurgling through the streets and parks.... the parque general san martin was just up the road from our hostel, it is a large city park that is perfect for strolling around or even just sitting beside the lake watching the world go by or catching up on some reading. It reminds me a little bit of the Phoenix Park in Dublin, there’s even a zoo in it... like a lot of Argentina the streets by day are quiet but in the evening and night time the place comes a live, the plaza independencia is a bustling centre of activity, when we were there we saw two very funny comedians, a puppet show which we didn’t understand all of it but we heard references to George bush, the crowd seemed to find it very funny, sometimes it would nice to have better Spanish but we’re getting there ! There was also singers, a panpipe band, jugglers and many artisan stalls selling jewelry, clothes, scarves and little statues of elves (you wouldn’t believe how popular they are in Argentina and they’re not all cute, some look possessed)...the area we’re staying is av aristides villanueva, its the main area for restaurants and bars, its got a great atmosphere at night,

On one of the days we took the local 172 bus (1.40 peso) out to the Maipu area to sample the local wines and visit the wineries, we headed out to bodega la rural as it is one of the biggest wineries and has a wine museum, the tours that day were only in Spanish, though on other days they are in English, well you live and learn etc....

the wine at the end was nice but we’ve had better in the restaurants, after all the tour is free you don’t expect the good stuff , the tour itself is very short and a bit disappointing... though we did notice that they have a very familiar way of presenting some of their historic tools to the public, one room reminded us very much of a barn in the donkey farm in Epe... oh and Ard you would have loved all the tractors, there were some really old ones...

On Easter Sunday we took the bus out to the difunta correa shrine at vallecito, the return bus journey is 29 peso per person and well worth it ! The story goes that during the civil war in the 1840s Deolinda Correa followed her husbands troops on foot, carrying her young child, she was eventually found dead of hunger and exhaustion but the baby was still alive and nursing on the dead woman’s breast, it was seen as a miracle and is believed by many people in Argentina, people have written to Rome to ask her to be ordained a saint but it hasn’t happened so instead she is a soul. On many of the roads in Argentina her shrines can be seen surrounded by bottles of water to quench her thirst, some of her biggest supporters are truckers, one of the biggest days to visit is Easter when 50,000 people visit... to be honest i expected to find it cheesey but its strangely moving, the first person we meet on the bus is an older lady who has made clothes and a swan to ´gift´to the difunta, many people on the bus have photos and plaques to leave, when we get on the bus we´re asked if we´ve brought anything, emmmm our water...anyway in the town there are many little stone buildings the size of a boxroom filled with offerings to the diffunta for deeds done, one room is dedicated to wedding dresses with thanks from women who say that without the difunta they wouldn´t be married, theres a room filled with uniforms- mostly military and looking at the ages of the photos and id´s in the room they are from the falklands war mostly, there is a room dedicated to sports and bets won (loads of monet by the looks of it), there is a frame with two photos and a piece of long braided hard - the photo contains a girl with long hair and then with short hard, she was offering her hair up as an offering, the one i found the most moving and disturbing was actually three photos bound by a black ribbon with gold trim, the first photo appears to be taken in the early eighties and is a baby in an incubator with breathing tubes and see through skin, the next picture shows the baby slight older, maybe a few months but looking peaceful in a pale wooden coffin with blue slik lining, the final picture shows a second baby looking very healthy , happy and grinning, the baby has the same features as the other child so the baby is related , possibly a brother, and from the style of photo you can tell it was taken possibly 10-14 years later, i don´t the real story but i´m presuming they´re thanking the difunta for the chance to have the first child and then taking him peacfully and then for finally allowing them to have another...... i left that room very solumn and in thought, but then everyone did, after checking out all the rooms we headed up the steps to have a look at the shrine which is supposed to be in the place were she died, every so often you would have to step a side in the queue to let people pass, no these people weren´t skipping the queue in a hurry , they had crawled from the bottom step up many , many step on their hands and knees, many holding children and even one man with a very obviously new born baby, they were crawling up to offer thanks and kiss the statue at the top, it was quite moving but also scary, what if they dropped a child, ....

So anyway on the Monday we got the bus to San Juan, we didn’t really do much here but catch up on our sleep and relax,

After a few days we headed to Cordoba, the city has some nice colonial buildings but to be honest it just feels like a city, lots of smog, cars and people, we visited a few cathedrals, one which has a roof that looks like its an upside down ship, we also visited an under ground Jesuit crypt - this was weird, imagine an old brick tunnel with a cross, spiritual music and of course nude life drawings adorning the walls! Yes it’s an addition - weird places to visit!! We went to a fantastic Italian restaurant called le mama, the pasta is so good.... the hostel itself was nice, Cordoba backpackers (6 bed dorm 20 peso per person, 4 bed dorm 22 peso, or a private twin room was 27 peso),
The people were really nice and the bar had funky music,

Here we met up with the English couple that we had met before in Tierra del fuego, Chris and Helen, they’re really nice, they gave up work and sold their house etc to travel and its now 20 months later ... after catching up the four of us decided to club together and hire a car for a few days to explore the surrounding areas off the beaten track...

and as promised before, here is the link for Arjans blog.....

http://bardamu.travellerspoint.com