Vous connaissez la loi de Murphy?

Apres nos aventures au Perou/Bolivie et la nuit blanche passee dans la classe "popular" du train nous menant a Villazon (frontiere Bolivie-Argentine), nous avions bien besoin d'un peu de tranquilite et de repos... 

Malheureusement, c'etait sans compter sur la puissance de cette bonne vieille "loi de la frustration" de Murphy.... En effet, dans le taxi nous conduisant a Salta, nous avons oublie notre petite pochette contenant nos principales cartes de credit. Nous etions donc presque sans argent et a l'aube du week- end. Petit Espoir, il nous restait nos 2 cartes VISA mais malheureusement le systeme argentin n'etant pas compatible avec le malaysien, toutes les ATM des banques de Salta nous renvoyaient systematiquement le meme message "This card can not be used in this ATM". Enfin, nous avions suffisamment d'argent pour notre excursion de 2 jours dans les vallees Calchaquies au sud de Salta et nous rendre a la banque a notre retour a Salta pour solutionner ce probleme.

Parlons de l'excursion maintenant: Nous avons decide de louer une voiture (volkswagen GOLF heu pardon GOL qui devait etre "brand new" d'apres le prospectus de l'agence) avec Rose et Debbie (que nous venions de rencontrer a notre auberge a Salta). Le but etait de limiter les frais et de pouvoir s'arreter suivant nos envies sur le chemin et admirer le paysage.

Pops qui prend la photo de ses "Droles de dames" dans leur brand new GOL!
 

L'itineraire du premier jour nous amenait a Cafayate en passant par quelques petits villages charmants. Les paysages etaient grandioses mais la route en terre battue et parsemee de cailloux et rochers provenant d'eboulements etait tres difficile. Et ce qui devait arriver arriva. Debbie, qui venait de prendre le volant apres pops, a percute un gros caillou abimant la jante et le pneu de notre tuture. Heureusement, nous avions un pneu de rechange dans le coffre. Et pops, mecano de longue date, a pris la direction des operations pour effectuer le changement en 2 temps 3 mouvements.

Pops et Debbie dans le feu de l'action!


Apres, 10 heures de route et 320 KM parcourrus nous arrivions enfin a notre hotel creves mais heureux de pouvoir deguster un petit vin blanc local (Cafayate est reconnu pour ces vins blancs consideres parmi les meilleurs d'Argentine)avec de la charcuterie dans la piscine de l'Auberge!!!



Le lendemain matin, apres le petit dejeuner, nous avions prevu de faire la visite de quelques Bodega avant de reprendre la route pour Salta par l'autre chemin de bonne qualite cette fois. Et la surprise, la voiture ne demarre plus. C'est la batterie.
Bon, on appelle l 'agence qui nous dit que le garagiste sera la dans 5 minutes. Apres 1h 1/2 d'attente sans nouvelle de ce cher monsieur on decide d'aller manger. On veut des empanadas. Quoi de plus naturel que de se rendre a "La casa de las Empanadas" qui est? fermee!! Bon,il y a un autre resto pas loin et les empanadas pas cheres. Malheureusement, quand le serveur arrive apres 10 minutes. Plus d'empanadas.. Finalement, on trouve un endroit et a notre retour la voiture etait..... reparee. Est-ce que notre ami Murphy aurait enfin decide de nous foutre la paix?  Juste le temps de se faire une petite degustation a la maison Nanni, de prendre quelques photos des vignes avec les montagnes en toile de fond et puis c'est reparti en direction de Salta.
Les 2 premieres heures de route dans la "Quebra de las Conchas" etaient vraiment merveilleuses.





La suite de la route fut un peu plus monotone et plus ressemblante a un sprint pour rendre la voiture avant la fermeture...

Bien que nous ayions eu notre lot de frustration durant ces 2 jours nous avions la tete pleine de beaux paysages!!!

Revenons maintenant a notre petit episode bancaire: Le lendemain matin de l'excursion apres le petit dejeuner. Nous prenons nos cartes et nos passeports et nous nous rendons a HSBC convaincus que dans les 10 minutes nous aurions de nouveau de quoi remplir notre portefeuille. C'etait sans compter sur les problemes de communication internes de la "The world local bank". Nous ne rencontrons pas dans les details mais imaginez vous Mimi en train de faire l'intermediaire pendant 3 heures entre l'employe malais qui ne parle pas espagnol et l'agence de Salta ou personne ne parle l'anglais. Detonnant!! Finalement, nous devons partir bredouille car notre bus pour Mendoza nous attend. Heureusement, le lendemain apres 2 nouvelles heures d'attente a Mendoza, nous pouvions enfin palper des Pesos dans nos mains.


DO YOU KNOW MURPHY'S LAW? Demonstration:
After our adventures in Peru/Bolivia and a sleepless night in the "Popular" class of the Bolivian train, we reached Argentina where we were hoping to get some rest and tranquility...  

Unfortunately, that was assuming Murphy's frustration law would not hit us like it did... In the cab from Jujuy to Salta, we forgot a little purse that had 3 of our cards (1 debit and 2 credit), which means we were with almost no money and a weekend coming down our way... We still had 2 other cards but it seems the Argentine system is not compatible with our Malaysian HSBC cards... the message "This card can not be used in this ATM" just kept on teasing us as we tried more than 10 ATMs throughout different banks. Luckily, we still have enough USD and EUR to change to last for a 2 days excursion until the banks opened again.

So let's talk about the excursion: we had decided to rent a car (a volkswagen GOLF which here is called a "GOL") together with Rose, the Frenchie from our Salar tour et Debbie, the Aussie from our hostel in Salta. This meant we could have a self-made tour for much less than taking an organized tour and we were aching to drive and take a non-commercial vehicle after the numerous buses and trains we had taken. Another advantage is that we could decide when and where to stop!

Pops taking a picture of the 3 ladies near the "brand new" GOL which had no suspension left...
 

Our itinerary was to go from Salta to Cafayate by taking a road driving through cute little villages. The landscapes were beautiful but the dirt road was filled with stones and uneven tracks.. and what had to happen, happened: Debbie took a big stone and that hit our front wheel badly.

Pops and Debbie changing the wheel:


After 10 hours of drive, we made it through the 320 km of dirt road and arrived at the hotel tired, but happy to jump in the hostel's pool and have a bottle of Saltanien white wine and a plate of cheese, cold cuts and olives (6 EUR for a big plate!)

After a long, great night of sleep and a great breakfast, we wanted to tour a couple of wineries for a bit of tasting, then have a good lunch, maybe a bit of a nap and hit the road again. But our good old friend Murphy was back: the car was not starting anymore. The battery was so old, it died (we forgot to mention there was this smell of Sulphur in the car the day before.. after a while, we looked and the battery really looked ugly and stinky... so it was half a surprise). We call the agency and they, very professionally, take things in hands and tell us a mechanic is going to be there in 5 minutes for the repair. about 90 minutes later, we give up and go for lunch while leaving the key to the hostel.

We were craving for some empanadas... and headed down to the famous "casa de las empanadas" (house of empanadas) which... was closed (Thank you Murphy, you proved your law, now can you please go away?!!) Fortunately, there is another place nearby, the menu features empanadas for half the price of other restaurants, we are real happy, the waiter comes after 10 min: "oh no, our empanadas are finished today" !!!!!?@!@?!@"??!@

Finally, we do end up finding a place (more expensive but well, a craving is a craving!) and we get back to the car who was? repaired! Would Murphy have found someone else to tease?
  we just have enough time for a small wine tasting and a couple of pictures in wineries before we hit the road again. The first 2 hours through the "Quebra de las conchas" are beautiful.



The rest of the trip was pretty normal, with a final little sprint to the agency to handover the car before closure and negotiate the rate for the wheel minus inconvenience caused by dead battery.

Let's get back to our banking problems: the next day, we head down to the world's local bank thinking a good 10 minutes will get us out of our money troubles. That's underestimating the local natures of the world's local bank. During 3 hours, tossing around between Salta, Buenos Aires and Malaysia, Mimi as a translator was starting to loose hair... We had to end up asking them to just figure it out because we had a bus to catch and that we'd go to HSBC in Mendoza the next day to complete the procedure, which only took another 2 hours and we finally could touch some pesos again... We should be good until we return to Malaysia...