Argentina Jan/Feb 2018

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We have been in very good health and spirits, and very happy to have avoided the Australian flu which everybody seems to have got in Europe.

 

Went in January for a week in Ongamira, in the hills north of Córdoba, a place we had been to twice before. They have about a eight rooms, but for 4 days we were the only guests there. Amber went riding for 2 hours twice a day, and never left the property, it is so big. She says it is her favourite place in the whole world. I happily wandered about, watching the 200 sheep trimming the grass lawns, the 5 llamas nibbling the bushes, once a fox playing with the balls on the Argentine bowls pitch, and reading A Dance to the Music of Time (there are 12 volumes!). Food was excellent, internet and power cuts were occasional, views were astounding, weather was beautiful, apart from 2 days of storms with hailstones the size of large marbles. The region is renowned for UFO nuts (Uritorco) and has been visited by Madonna, and no doubt Bono. When the Spaniards came in the 1500s, the local population were the Comechingones, with beards, pale skin and green eyes (Vikings?), but they all jumped off a cliff rather than be conquered.

 

Also went to Mainumbí for the weekend, to a friend’s estancia, or as the Anglos say a ‘camp’, 200 miles from Buenos Aires, still on the flat pampas. Beautiful big house, acres of gardens, English style, and wonderful relaxed hosts. There were 17 of us for dinner one night! And tennis...

 

Went to lunch at a favourite Italian pasta restaurant, and got caught up in an enormous demonstration on and around the 100m wide Avenida 9 de Julio, which we had to cross. There were 400,000 people there. The large demo there in December turned nasty, but this time people were told not to take any alcohol, and they couldn’t have been friendlier or more helpful as we cut across their marching ranks. Still not completely sure what it was all about...

 

This is our favourite lunchtime restaurant for a cheap ‘menu ejecutivo’. It just happens to have a grand prix Bugatti parked outside...

 

Amber went with our friend Mercedes, Facundo (a 12 year old boy she is mentoring), and Izzie, a great-niece of my ex-wife who was doing a grand South-American tour, to lunch at Tigre, which is on the Paraná river delta. You take a launch bus to the restaurant you chose. The water is not dirty, just muddy.

 

We often go half a block down to Plaza Dorrego for a glass of wine and to watch the tango dancers:

 

Nights are drawing in, and temperature is down to 24c. Time to get back. Arrive March 8.