My top tips for the malbec morning after....

How to survive a hangover in Argentina

Argentina’s best hangover cures

In a land with cheap booze, late night bars and no spirit measures, things can get a little rough around the edges by the end of the night most likely culminating in a banging resaca the following morning. Here are the top five ways to get around a hangover in Argentina, like a local.

Mate

‘Hair of the dog’ doesn’t really wash here however hooking yourself back onto your caffeinated life-support is perfectly acceptable. Grab your mate, fill it with the powerful herbs, hug your warm thermos close to your needy hungover body and drag on the bombilla (straw) to pull out all that caffeine goodness that will spring you back to life in no time.

Empanadas

Soft, warm and full of melted cheese – empanadas were made for hangovers. One of the staples of Argentine cuisine and so cheap that you can go for any or all of the flavours to suit your unpredictable, irrational whims.

Pancho

Panchos (hotdogs) are more popular than empanadas in some Argentine towns. The closer you get to Chile the more hotdog chains you will notice and in many cities this is the hangover cure de jour! Order a cheap suggestive-looking hotdog, slather it in sauce or whatever toppings you fancy and feel the booze blues slip away.

Siesta

After the enormous effort of getting up and eating, you are sure to have peaked and this is where one important cultural rule of Argentina really starts to make sense: siesta time. A couple hours of snooze in the afternoon is always welcome and it might even give you a second wind for the night ahead.

Cleaning your pavement

If you just can’t manage anything other than repetitive, menial tasks then a hangover is the perfect opportunity to get in with the locals and join your neighbours in the national obsession: cleaning your pavement. Take a broom, hosepipe and mop, put on your sunglasses, and slowly push the leaves back and forth, back and forth. Like a mother rocking her baby to sleep.

Grapepicking and harvest

The Vendimia celebrations are over, the weather is cooling down and the leaves are turning brown – for many of us this becomes a time to look to hibernation and relaxing after a busy Summer, but for the vineyards this is the busiest time of the year: harvest.

Paintings of deep burgundy and green and old photos of land workers plucking at the vines spring to mind when you think of the harvest and this romantic image is not too far from the truth. The vineyards are beautiful and the sun creates a sullen golden glow, but don’t let any Russell Crowe movie lead you to believe that wine making is effortless.

Hundreds of grape pickers flock to Mendoza to work the season pulling at the year’s bounty on the vines. They work long, hard hours and are usually poorly paid, earning an average of around two pesos per bucket of grapes. And these buckets are very big and very heavy.

However I, like many wine drinkers, still hold onto a fairytale fantasy of doing a day’s hard work in the field picking grapes and then sitting back satisfied in your contribution to what will surely turn out to be a great bottle of wine.

So I found myself dressed in my ‘farm’ clothes stood outside an unmarked door one dusty morning in Lujan de Cuyo, not really knowing what to expect but ready to get my hands dirty. It didn’t quite turn out like that.

Hacienda del Plata is a small, family-run vineyard with 14 hectares of land. But despite its quaint, laid back and romantic appearance the workers here don’t wait around. I arrived to find the pickers working rapidly in the fields, demonstrating masterfully how quickly one can clear a row of vines from all its glorious fruit.

This profession apparently starts in the womb so I was at a severe disadvantage in even attempting to compete with their nimble, quick working hands. To be honest, I couldn’t even lift a bucket half full of grapes and even meandering into the mud made me feel in the way and like a complete fraud. Bending over all afternoon to lop off grape bundles is no easy work, and a journalist plucking off a few grapes could never claim to have experienced working with the land. I would also be no good at it.

Pablo Gonzalez, the owner of Hacienda del Plata, recognised this. “This work is not for everyone – it is not easy,” he explained to me, politely pointing out the obvious. “These grape pickers have been picking for years and are skilled at what they do. They are no different to you or I, but this is what they do – it is their profession and they work hard at it.”

Pablo was right, I had perhaps taken it for granted that anyone could pick grapes all day, but this is really not the case. Perhaps you can enjoy an afternoon of an organised tourist activity in one of the vineyards here, gathering grapes at a relaxed pace for a few hours and then putting your feet up to enjoy a glass of wine and top notch lunch. But a few hours of work and boozing is not the harvest. The harvest is sweaty, tiring and utterly unglamorous.

Grape pickers spend a period of three months waiting for the few days or weeks in which the vineyard decides they want to pick the different grape varieties and then it is all hands to the dirt. A race ensues as the pickers get through the vines in the fastest, most efficient manner possible while being careful not to damage or miss any of the liquid gold. The truck is filled with tons of buckets and then the fruit gets shipped to the winery and the pickers off home. The reality is that it is a hard but honest day’s work. And you have to admire it.

These solid values of the grape pickers and land workers are the foundations of Hacienda del Plata. With vines over 80 years old, Hacienda del Plata has been producing grapes for almost a century and Pablo took over the vineyard from his father Carlos Enrique González to become the fourth generation owner. He believes the identity of the business today was borne out of the values of its land workers, something which his father taught him to respect.

“Hacienda del Plata focuses on the values of the people working on the land,” he said. “My father wrote about these ideals and qualities of the people - hard work, honesty and humility - and they are reflected in our wines.”
Pablo clearly takes inspiration from his father and holds dear his teachings to respect the pickers and ranchers for their contribution and value that they give to the land. He acknowledges that it is also their sweat and toil which makes a good wine.

“Working on the land is a great educator to respect people,” he says. “These grape pickers and workers do not have any expensive education etc but you learn to respect them as soon as you learn how hard it is to work on the land - this is what my father taught us.”

To add to his family’s legacy, Pablo started to make wine ten years ago in a bid to leave his own legacy – taking Hacienda del Plata in a new direction. Although the vineyard has a long history in vines, it is comparatively new to wines.

“The decision was more of a romantic vision than a business one,” he told me. “When I die I didn’t want to just leave grapes, I wanted to leave more. So I thought, why
not try making wine?”

Recruiting the help of experienced enologists, Pablo has spent the past decade learning how to make wine. “I like this activity, it is honest and noble,” he said. “I have discovered processes that I love in wine making: I love to see the wine transform, to see and smell the changes and taste the development.”
His eldest son, Juan Pablo, who moved back to the family home a couple years ago to join his father in his new wine venture, shares his father’s child-like, wide-eyed passion for experimentation.

“I consider myself lucky to have grown up here on a vineyard and it was always a childhood dream of mine to work in wine,” he said. “I really like to make wine, and now I am involved in every aspect of the wine – you see the process and you are in the process,” he explained.

Wine was however not what Juan started doing. He left home, like all of Pablo’s four children, to study something else and pursue his own career choice. For Juan this was Industrial Engineering.

However when Pablo started making wine, the temptation to join his father in the vineyard was too much for Juan. And now they both spend the rest of year in the bodega, trying and testing new methods in order to come up with something that they think is special. It doesn’t always work out, but when it does Juan says it is worth it: “The wine is like your baby and when it comes out well, it is a very proud and exciting moment.”

Pablo is also a proud and excited father. All four of Pablo’s children have come back home to work together in this new project, despite no such request from him. In fact Pablo, like his father, has always encouraged his children to follow their own desires and interests. When they all decided independently to work with him at Hacienda del Plata he was surprised.

“At first I was worried to work with family,” he admits, “but now I am very happy that I had the opportunity to do this and I can see how happy they all are here.”
As with most family businesses, the Gonzalez family has had its share of historical family feuds but this generation is adamant that they will work hard to stay together on everything.

“We are supporting each other and are all focused on the same direction,” says Juan. “We want to keep it as a family business and make it grow.”

Pablo’s eldest daughter Rosario has also returned to work in the family business and is living on their other small vineyard, Castro Barros, with her husband. They are expecting their first child this winter. For her, this is a chance to return to the idyllic lifestyle that living on a vineyard gave her as a child and to give her future family the same enjoyment.

“I had a lot of fun living here,” she reflects. “I love the life that wine gives you – it always creates great moments. Those moments of sharing the wine and enjoying each other’s company – that is what I love.”

It is clear that Hacienda del Plata is driven by the family’s passion and desire to enjoy the lifestyle of living and working on a vineyard. At the moment they produce around 60,000 bottles a year and the plan is to remain a boutique production and keep the core values and traditions at the heart of Hacienda del Plata.

“The vision for the future is to have a bodega that aims at high quality (but not high volume) wines and never forgets the beautiful part of this, which is the nature and the people,” added Pablo. “We don’t want to lose this, and for me this is the pure pleasure – to stand under my vines of 100 years knowing who and what has gone into them.”

As much as Pablo and his children enjoy the process in the barrels and drinking the final product, he admits that the real ‘wine making’ starts in the ground – exactly where Hacienda del Plata came from. “Seventy percent of a good wine is made in the vines,” he says.

Grape pickers and land workers don’t get any great esteem or Wine Advocate points for all their hard work on the vines but Pablo is keen to stress the value of the sweat and toil of those that work at grassroots level. This is their lifestyle and passion too. Many workers start at a young age in the field and stay there right into their later years. Their faces become sun drenched and weathered like the vines – a real portrait and testimony to their hard work.

“The most important thing is the years of work that have gone into the vines,” concludes Pablo. “The values and work of the people are alive in the wines.”
You know exactly what he means when you look out over the slumber, old vineyard and see dozens of pickers hard at work.


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Sommelier School

Everyone and their grandmother believe that they know something about wine, especially in Mendoza. Even I thought I did. But everyone and their grandmother also know that there is a large gulf between being an amateur wine lover and a sommelier.

I learnt the names of the main grape varieties in my teens, I learnt at University not to drink a wine when the cork smells funny and since arriving in Argentina six months ago I even know that you should gurgle the wine in your mouth before glugging it.

When I found out about the short courses taught at Escuela Argentina de Sommeliers (EAS), I enrolled on one in the hope that I could learn more about the world’s greatest juice in all its glory (I also figure it might bolster my credentials at any pretentious dinner party).

I started the eight-week course on Wednesday evening at the school in Hipólito Yrigoyen. Trainee sommeliers, restaurant workers and mendocinians who simply like wine formed the small group.

For our first lesson we were welcomed by Sommelier Bárbara Jones who gave us a short introduction on what we would be covering in the course and took us through a brief overview of Old World and New World wines. We touched on the important French heritage in wine and the interesting reason behind Mablec’s name (so called because in France it was a bad wine and in French, Malbec means a bad nose).

Bárbara then taught us the main three steps of wine tasting: the first impression (looks and smells), experience in the mouth (flavours, aromas, tannins, alcohol and acidity) and finally the finish (aftertaste and length).

After happily learning the theory in an approachable and unpatronising way, we moved onto the best part of the lesson: the practical.

Now I am not sure whether it is a ‘waste not, want not’ attitude or perhaps a minor alcohol addiction, but either way I am not accustomed to spitting out my wine. In fact, to me spitting out a good wine is almost sacrilege. However Bárbara informed us that spitting was the only way to go at EAS and so holding back from my British tendency to guzzle everything in front of me, I restrained and learnt the hardest lesson of the day - how to spit out delightful vino.

We worked our way through three whites and then three reds in a blind tasting, trying to pick up on different aromas and tastes. We could smell fruit and flowers and our teacher was encouraging about our (probably incorrect) guesses, but I think we are still very far off from detecting anise and leather. After revealing the wines, there was a chance for us to finish our tasting cups – this time we were allowed to swallow, joy!

I left happy, intrigued, eager for next week and thirsty for another glass of wine.

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My first football match

I am not sure if those Ancient Greeks, Romans or even the medieval European peasants who started kicking around a ball ever thought it would become such a big game. Perhaps they did. But I doubt very much that they envisioned the fireworks, riot squads and toilet paper apparently essential to a football match here in Mendoza.

I went to my first football match last Sunday. I have watched the game on television once or twice and I think anyone who is remotely conscious during the World Cup can just about understand the concept of getting the ball through a net to gain points. So the football itself was no surprise. It was everything around it that took me aback.

Before even embarking on the short walk to the stadium in Parque San Martin I had been warned by many that football was a dangerous game - not for those playing but for the spectators who may be pushed around, mugged or even smacked in the face.

A seething mass of police cars, officers on horses and flashing lights were enough to make me slightly concerned for the safety of my spectacles however we carried on following the sea of blue and white uniformed Godoy Cruz supporters.

Smelling the familiar whiff of Choripan, I bought the obligatory completo to placate my nervous stomach and followed everyone into the stadium. Although not before a police search on the way in.

Estadio Malvinas Argentinas (ahem, time to switch from my English accent and attempt an appalling Australian one) is bigger than I expected, seating just under 50,000 spectators and was built for the World Cup in 1978. Apart from that the stadium was not used for any big matches, as Mendoza did not have a team in the first league. That was until recently.

Godoy Cruz made its way up to the Argentine Football First Division in 2006 and since then Mendoza’s Stadium has been put back on the map. Last Sunday’s match, I was informed, was a bit of a milestone for Godoy Cruz. They had never reached so far in the First Division and so obviously there was palpable excitement in the air.

Supporters thundering big drums, tooting their trumpets and setting off bangers and fireworks made for a colourful tribal procession into the stadium. One half of the stadium was full (obviously the Godoy Cruz side) and on the other end there were only a handful of supporters for Buenos Aires’ Banfield team, who had been smuggled in through the other entrance and were camouflaged in civilian’s clothing to avoid any trouble after the match.

The football fans got busy putting out their banners and flags, while setting off more bangers and fireworks as kick-off approached. Four sets of riot squads moved out to guard the corners of the pitch and sniffer dogs sat hesitantly on the sidelines. Loud boos and whistles heralded the entrance of the opposition and then cheers, whoops and newspaper confetti were thrown as Godoy Cruz walked on - it felt like a pantomime that was only missing a dame.

After a huge build-up the football started. They played well and the goals and almost goals were exciting but to be honest I was more riveted by the action off the pitch, and I wasn’t the only one.

An onslaught of what looked like toilet paper was thrown at the pitch and Banfield’s goalie spent most of the first half tidying up. Water balloons were hurled at the riot squad (although I seriously doubt it was water…) and everyone started jumping and shouting all sorts of obscenities in Spanish.

We were winning so I am not sure why it was necessary to call anyone a ‘c*ncha de madre’ but everyone seemed to feel that way. I found myself stood in front of the loudest supporter of them all who felt impulsed in a tourettes-like manner to shout every obscenity under the sun down my neck every two minutes. Thank you for expanding my vocabulary.

During half time we all sat down to rest our feet and vocal lungs and then it was back up again to shout, jump and avoid all the dangerously low-flying fireworks and water bombs. Godoy Cruz won 2-0 and everyone left happy and peacefully, content that their bad language and toilet paper had nailed the game.

Actually, I bet the Romans would have loved it. I did.

Mendoza!

Arriving in Mendoza after a breath-taking, although slightly tiring, journey over the Andes we moved to our hosts house in Godoy Cruz. A young family with a couple of adorable children, we instantly clicked - so much so that we spent three weeks there!

We enjoyed the wine festival by getting involved in some festivities and of course trying lots of wine. After one particular wine fueled night we fell asleep and managed to sleep straight through the earthquake, apparently no-one else on the street did but we didn't feel a thing.
That morning we headed up to the mountains for a weekend of camping in the Andes. Finding an abandoned train station we all set up camp there and made a giant asado. After a surreal night we woke up to visit the areas of interest: the mountains, lakes, Chilean border and the Puente del Inca.
Puente del Inca is a beautiful natural bridge formed by mineral deposits and is surrounded by an extremely sulfurous river. People dump all sorts of things in the river to petrify them (bottles, toys and even shoes) and then sell these useless objects to tourists. Interesting.
It was a slightly unlucky trip resulting in a bumped hire car, broken digital camera and diarrhea but good fun all the same.
After a couple weeks sorting out teaching and writing work, we found a house to move into and are sharing with a nice mix of South Americans and Europeans. It feels like we have found home, well for a while at least.

Pichilemu, Chile

Next we headed to Pichilemu on the coast further up north by bus, stopping off for the hugest hot dog on the way.

The small coastal town was in full swing for the weekend as it is the best surf spot in the country and one of the most popular beach resorts for Chilean tourists.
It was more how you expect South America to be- dirt roads, donkeys, countless shrines, tacky funfairs and lots of exciting looking food.
We spent a week relaxing at friendly Jose's house, cooking with another family, enjoying enormous BBQs with plenty of rum and trying to understand the fantastically entertaining Chilean Spanish.
We visited the huge salt flats, punta de lobos surf spot and generally enjoyed soaking it all in.
A week later we hitchhiked to Santaigo (very common practice here) and spent the night in the city before heading over the Andes back to Argentina just in time to miss the earthquake.

Jumping out of aeroplanes

Pucon is a naturally blessed town surrounded by gushing rapids, snowcapped mountains and the omnipresent smoking Villarrica volcano. With an abundance of adrenaline pumping sports we knew it would be a fun (and expensive) stay.

We arrived late in the evening and headed to our hosts' log cabin. American skydiving instructors and rehabilitated rednecks Rob and Laura were a great couple to stay with and it didn't take more than a couple glasses of cheap Chilean Merlot to convince me to jump the next day.
Setting off to the airfield on a beautifully clear day, I hopped into the plane with Rob and a motion-sick Jim who had come along for the ride. It was a stunning journey up made even more thrilling by the empty and noisy space where a door should normally have been. As we climbed to over 9,500 ft it was time to wriggle around and hang my feet over the edge. Feeling your legs flail about is bad enough but the hardest part is resisting the urge to hold onto something or stay in the plane - fighting against your natural instincts to survive.
It was just one little push though and we were away, freefalling at around 120mph. Pretty exhilerating stuff.
After about a minute Rob pulled the parachute and everything slowed down. Like the moment when you stop shivering, everything was calm. It really feels like you are not moving when you are under the parachute and the world comes into view again. I started to notice mountains, lakes, trees, people's swimming pools and disorderly gardens.
Seven minutes descending to earth was not long enough. I would happily do it all over again.

Watch my video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwhQa26wSY4

We went white-water rafting, jumping off of large rocks into freezing rapids and drunk cool beer in steaming 40 degree volcanic thermal pools but nothing really beating jumping out of a plane.
Despite my adreneline hangover, we had a fantastic time in Pucon - a gorgeous place with far too many fun things to do.

And onto Chile

I did think Patagonia was completely stunning until we spent 36 hours on another bus trying to get out of it. The problem with Patagonia is that it is big and moonscape is only so interesting for so long. Oh, how a few hours of dead leg and compressed farts change things.

We spent a couple nights in Bariloche – a Swiss style city in the pine forests – hiking and enjoying the views. And then got back onto a bus on our way to Chile.

We crossed the Andes and high-tailed it to Pucon, an adventure paradise tucked up in the mountains among forests, rivers, lakes and a smoking volcano.

Coushsurfing with a couple of skydiving instructors I guess it was only inevitable that one of us would end up jumping out of a plane…

El Calafate

I think I fell in love. He’s pretty hard, cold and certainly a lot older than me but I couldn’t take my eyes off of this glacier. Completely awesome – there are no words to describe it but I will give it a go of course (I think that is the idea of a blog anyway).

We tried to sneak into the (loosely translated) Glaciers National Park before day break – yes, that is right, a national park full of glaciers, eat your heart out South Downs! So getting up at 4am we sped away in our hire car along the bumpy earth track by moonlight dodging hares on the way (apart from one, apologies Mr Hare).

Arriving nice and early we were disappointed to find that contrary to popular legend, the guard does indeed wait at all hours at the gate and there was no way to enter with the hire car. Pulling back away we tried to creep past the guard by foot pink panther style through the trees but frozen lakes, semi-darkness, an additional guard house and freezing temperatures made it more than a little difficult. Fortunately the park opened early and we were the first and only ones in! Getting up early does have its advantages occassionally.

Cruising along the winding 10km more of road we were relieved we hadn’t tried to walk it and started to get excited at the indicators of what was to come – lonely large chunks of ice drifting in the placid milky blue waters created quite a bit of anticipation.

And then there we were: running down the ramps in the semi-light like excited children; and then there it was…

staring straight back: the solid, cold, glistening high wall of blue and white ice stood firmly in its place smack bang in front of you, tearing through huge mountains either side on its way. Above the hard block you can see icy peaks sharply jutting out, piercing the sky. Beyond that thousands and thousands of peaks create a tangled, intricate ice cathedral. A few holes in the wall allow you a privileged peek into the deep caverns of the glacier, but hollow blue nothingness is all that you can see.

As the sun rose you could hear the glacier creak and groan, large chunks of ice plummeting to the water in thunderous grumbles and ear-piercing cracks of ice. Huge bulbs of ice rumbled under the floating glacier and forced their way out underneath thrusting themselves up to water level, creating an enormous splash. Floating iceburgs slowly bob in the water moving higher and higher until, overloaded on one side, they flip over exposing new rounded blue side which has spent years waiting for its chance to see the sunlight again. Completely phenomenal.

I sat entranced for hours just watching. Unable to lose it from my sight. After six hours, Jim finally tore me away kicking and screaming. I am still a little bit heartbroken...

Only half an hour down the road in the other direction we landed upon a beautiful estancia overlooking an utterly different landscape with dry, flat plains of purples, reds, yellows and browns set against the turquiose lake, snowcapped mountains and bright blue sky.

We stopped at the ranch to drink coffee with the gauchos and eat fantastic lamb empanadas while looking just as open-mouthed at the gorgeous colours of the landscape.

Patagonia was all I had imagined it to be and more.

End of the World

Landing in Ushuaia (the southernmost city in the world) is a pretty unique experience. The clouds part and all you see is water and a few islands, then appear the mountains of Chile and Argentina stalwartly staring at each other from either side of the plane windows, and all of a sudden you are starting to touch down - landing strip only now coming into sight.

Coming off the plane in our flipflops and shorts we felt instantly underdressed for the freezing weather and quickly tore apart the bags piling on every article of clothing that looked vaguely warm.
Ushuaia is an odd town, steadily growing on the great marketing implications of being the at the ‘fin del mundo’ (end of the world). Cruise ships pull up daily on their way to Antartica and tourists come to collect their ‘end of the world’ stamp in their passports (yes, I have mine).
Another very exciting reason to come to Ushuaia, which we only discovered on arrival, is the cheese! Finally somewhere that has taken its European heritage seriously. Gooey, almost smelly enough, brie and goats cheese quickly blew our budget but every dairilicious mouthful was worth it.
However far superior to the flat pack town and brie is the other worldly landscape and varied wildlife (including giant crab, yum!).
We climbed a glacier (in my longest trousers: zebra print pyjamas), visited a penguin colony via speed boat to their windy island (by now our host had taken pity on me and lent me some thermals), hypothisised about what the impossibly enormous bones could be from (we can only assume dinosaurs) and saw some amazing trees (making Salvador Dali’s look positively unimaginative in comparison).
Tierra del Fuego has a stunning landscape which is unlike anything else I had seen but it still didn't prepare us for our next stop...

Back to BA, via a 24 hour bus

We were back to BA after 24 heart-breaking hours on the hot, bumpy bus. The city was sweltering. To escape the 40 degree smog sauna we went to see the new 3D film Avatar... in 2D, oops! However the cinema was so hot (broken air-con) that almost everyone stormed out.

We die-hard Brits were left in the auditorium alone, so I stripped to my bikini to handle the heat. Believe me it felt reasonable at the time.

Half way through the film the security guard came poking around with his torch. Strangely enough he didn’t seem to mind the bikini and instead asked me to keep my bag and personal possessions closer to me. I guess in case we didn’t notice, from our seats high up in the empty cinema, any opportunistic thief sneaking in in his swimming trunks.

Anyway, a quick stop back in the city and then off (by aeroplane thankfully!) to the end of the world.

Florianopolis – Beach Living

Two weeks of surfing, sun and caipirinhas… not to make you jealous at all.

On arrival we couchsurfed with a friend then went to find an apartment with two other friends a few days later. In high season everyone living on the island moves into tents and rents out their houses for a tasty profit that will feed them for the rest of the year.

Sounds easy enough, although try telling an old lady that her cherished house isn’t quite hygenic enough and you would prefer a sea view… Much easier to view the ‘rentals’ where people build what is essentially a hotel on the side of their house – 5 or 6 identical looking tiny apartments which remain empty for 9 months of the year but fetch an extortionate rental during the Summer.

We happily found a cheap ‘granny annex’ style apartment at the back of friendly surfer Mario and his wife’s house. They even threw a cheap surf board into the deal – perfect.

Florianopolis is a gorgeous island with beautiful and wild beaches with translucent waters, a tropical lagoon, colourful rivers and lively people. Families all hang out by the river seeing what they can catch during the day and in the evening they move up stream to the lagoon and start on their prawn hunt with headtorches and buckets in tow. Eating or selling off their catch to one of the many fish restaurants. Prawns factor a big part on the menus and we couldn't leave without trying the 'secuencia de camarao': a sequence of prawn dishes cooked in any way you can imagine.

Typical Brazilian weather of flash floods and hot sun made us feel at home and we had a great stay.

And back to Brazil...

Caipirinhas were calling so I headed back over the border with Jim this time to Brazil. The rain sadly was there waiting for me again (why is Brazil so wet?) leaving us only one option… to eat.

Couchsurfing with friends Juliana and Daniel they suggested we head up to visit one of the old European settlements on the mountainside. Our plans were almost scuppered by floods making one road impassable covered in water and people outside the flooded beer factory collecting the vagabond floating cans.
However taking a tip from a watermelon dealer (as we stopped for some energy-fuelled sugar cane drink) Daniel navigated us there through another route where we arrived at the picture perfect town.
Created by German and Italian immigrants who evidently wished they were Swiss, Canela looked like it belonged on a box of chocolates rather than Brazil.
Oddly enough, it was still Christmas in Canela (despite the heat of mid-January) so we wandered around the Christmas stalls watching people ice-skate and listening to Christmas stories told by albinos dressed as Santa’s helpers.
As the rain poured again we headed to a restaurant for the real reason that we came… a Café Colonial. Cake, cheese, meat, jam, wine, all you can eat – need I say more?
Five pounds heavier we descended back down to Porto Alegre where we enjoyed the rest of our weekend of gluttony with charruscaria (BBQ), frozen acai, my beloved farofa and, of course, many caipirinhas. I love Brazil.

Punta del Este, Uruguay: The official line

And finally for Punta del Este...

Long sandy beaches, pretty plazas, designer shops and tantalisingly wealthy young things all sizzle in the summer sun of Punta del Este but come with a hefty price tag.

A beer at a bar in Punta can cost more than a night’s accommodation in any other South American country and during high season (December to March) prices are at a premium.

A black hole in the credit crunch universe, luxury apartments are still being built across the peninsular and with demand increasing the popularity of the city doesn’t look set to wane anytime soon.

Full of rich Argentineans, blinging Brazilians, moneyed Mexicans, wealthy Europeans and the occasional lost Uruguayan, Punta del Este is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the continent.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about but can’t afford the bar bill stay in neighbouring Maldonado, fill up on the cheap chivitos and enjoy the pretty beaches while splashing out on the odd party.

The city

Punta del Este sits on a peninsular where the Atlantic Ocean and Rio de la Plata meet. The river side on the west provides tranquil bathing beaches of Playa Mansa and the sea side on the east creates attractive surf and party beaches of Playa Brava and infamous Bikini Beach.

Filled in between the two coasts are trendy boutiques, over-priced restaurants, outrageous apartments and possibly the most beautiful McDonalds in the world.

Famed for its nightlife, most of the action in Punta happens in La Barra – a neighbourhood joined by an attractive bridge just off the peninsula. La Barra’s restaurants, bars and clubs pull in thousands of young people every night and make it popular with travellers who fancy an indulgent and expensive break from the usual cheap lager and table wine.

If you want to see Punta in its full ‘glory’ (and for free) visit the Conrad. This huge zoo-like hotel is full of minor celebrities, surgery sculpted oldies, tasteless tourists and serious gamblers who come for the fashion shows, free toilets and large casino. Sit wide-eyed in the Casino watching men hand over thousands of dollars for a few plastic chips while their wives (or otherwise) kick back mulling over a drink and their new diamond from neighbouring Tiffany’s.

Beyond the bling

There are however some real gems in Punta del Este. This is still Uruguay and rich culture and interesting architecture are just about visible under the big signs and multicoloured lights.

The large hand buried in the sand on Playa Brava is one of the most recognisable images of the city but nearby Casapueblo on Punta Ballena is one of the biggest architectural draws. This hotel/restaurant/gallery was designed by local artist Carlos Paez Vilaro and is a surrealist’s wet dream with curvy, white, labyrinthine hotel rooms dripping over the cliff side. The night view from Punta Ballena looking at the bright lights of Punta del Este is also worth the trip.

Back in the city the harbour is a nice spot to visit so long as you can handle boat envy. Luxury yachts and boats bobbing along at sunset make great photos but make sure you cast your eye over the dry land beside the harbour where local fisherman sell their catch at bargain prices.

For culture, the city hosts regular free exhibitions and artisan fairs (visit the cultural centre and Plaza Artigas).

Maldonado

To escape the inflated prices and see how the real locals live, visit Maldonado. A city tucked closely behind Punta with an attractive square (Plaza Maldonado), affordable bars and restaurants, a humble cathedral and full of normal looking people, Maldonado makes for a nice change.

It has a small town feel and hosts a big Sunday market and also South America’s most popular red light district.

A world away

Punta del Este comes as a complete shock travelling from any direction. It is a world away from some of its less developed neighbours and more closely resembles St Tropez than any other coast destination in Uruguay. It will cost you, but if you want a peek into South America’s playboy playground, Punta is worth every penny.