Tandems, wine and dulche de leche

Hola de Cordoba where we have just arrived in on the overnight noisy and hot bus from Mendoza and been served yet another breakfast of Dulche de leche biscuits - how this nation is not full of overly obese people I do not know, clearly they are hiding thier fat cells somewhere!!! For those of you who haent had the pleaseure of tasting Dulche de leche it compares to a very nice version of the toffee part of banoffi -and they serve it everywhere here. Breakfast in most hostels consists of pastries with a tub of it beside them and an al you can eat buffet restaurant we went to the other night dangerously had a whole dulche de leche dessert section, cake, tart and just a bowl of it. I have made a conscious decidion not to eat any more of it and no more pastries - but its hard to knock back free food!!

I last blogged from San Pedro de Atacam in Chile, we spent a couple of days there and chilled out got hte laundry done and attempted to go for a run. Got some funny looks from people who decided we mist have been triathletes training at altitude! Why else would ther be nitcases attempting to run on these roads! It was another one of those runs where no talking is possible and all concentration is focused on getting the breaths in but we managed half an hour this time which was the longest at altitude!! Opted out of sandboarding as anyone who came back from it said it was slow, impossible to turn and you get covered in sand - didnt sound like fun enough to spend the money on! The moring we were to leave San Pedro I went into the internet cafe to quickly check my mail. next thing there was a bit of commotion as Jo siad the woman from where we bought out tickets had taken her nad Alis tickets and was trying to give them back 40 dollars we had used to pay for one of the tickets. As the designated translator I was sent in to see what the problem was. As I was saying before its pretty impossible to pass off a dollar bill here if it has any sort of cut in it,and I mean any like a mm cut is not accepeted so I couldnt believe when she tried to hand me back 40 dollars that she claimed Ali had given her 2 days before and that she said she couldnt change because they were ripped and we would have to replace themor we couldnt get the bus tickets back.

These notes were ripped not just a little bit but almost a cm and covered in ink - she had gone over the notes we payed her with 2 days before meticuously and already made us change a couple of them then so there was noway these were our notes. I told her this straight off and she as having none of it. The bus was leaving in less than 15 minutes and we still hadnt got our tickets back and had to walk to the bus station. There was no way we were going to miss this bus having waited 2 days for it so it was time for my best argumentative Spanish to come out -bassically all grammar went out the window and I started shouting at her. I gave my best translation of "youre just trying to con us cus were tourists" and "this is so unfair , please call the police". However none of this worked and soon she was in tears and shouting at me that she couldnt feed or educate her 6 year old daughter because she couldnt change these 40 dollars that werent even ours in the first place!! So to cut al ong story short I tried the crying tactic and as bus departure time approached closer I realised she was not going to budge so short of robbing hte tickets back off here we had to find another option. Hence we had to take the dodgy notes back (totally not ours in the first placce) and give her the equivalent in chilean pesos (luckily the town ATM had decided to work). Soon enough we were on the bus and on our way to Salta. I eyes up the 5 nuns up front who were tucking into some dulche de leche shortbread version cookies and decided I needed one of these - from that bus journey on this variety of them has been christened "nun´s biscuits"!!

We arrived in Salta safely after a bit of a scary border check where we were all piled into a warehouse and ordered around by some men in masks who made us put our bags through a van that had sniffer dogs in it. Some por English tourists got a bit of a scare when their bags were hauled back off and searched as the dogs had smelled something - turned out to be some flavoured condoms in a shoe!!! Salta was a pretty enough town, nice architecture and some nice restaurants, quite a Spanishy feel to it. Here I decided as we hadnt seen proper sun for a while I should get some highlights. So I spent the day going around every hairdressers with the piece of paper form my hairdresser at home with what she uses. I was repeatedly told that this type of colour and mexhe was not used here as their hair was too dark. In the end I decided Id go into a salon shop and see if I could buy the stuff myslef and do a DIY. However hte woman told me in there that although they dont have that particular type of meche etc that one of the hairdressers should be able to still do the highlights using somehting else so off I went in search of a decent looking hairdressers.

Found one who told me yes she could do it and it would take about an hour and would cost less than 25 euro - this sounded too good to be true but I decided to go for it. So Jo and Ali settled down onto the couch with their mags and I sat in the chair watched by 4 hairdressers as they decided what to do with me - at this stag I was already a bit nervous of what he end result might be! Soon I was taken upstairs to a private section and she reappeared with a bowl of stuff that resembled bleach adn some dodgy looing meche sheets. By the time shed applied all the meche I could have run a half marathon (only a slight exaggeration!!) At this stage I was worried what colour the stuff was going to be that had been on my hair at the bottom as she was still putting in the ones at the top. As I had only asked her to do the top roots and bit of the bottom I realised my hairdresers Spanish might not be up to scratch!!

After another half hour of waiting and her telling me what a state my hair was in and that the dye probably wouldnt take cus it was so dry and broken she finally took me down to the basin and started to wash it out. Jo and Ali stood over the basin in anticipation and I got more nervous!! Although after a minute of her pokling around and Jo reassurng me that it wasnt green but it didnt really look any different she told me that it wasnt taking and that clearly Id told her the wrong volume of bleach. I assured her this is what my hairdreser uses and that it doesnt normally take this long. Again she gave me the speech about my hair being in too bad condition to take ( is this true Mum??!) So off she went to her little store cupboard where she sat in the dark and texted while I was left a the basin to stew a little longer and get even more nervous!

The dye had now been on about 2 hours and she didnt seem in any hurry to take it off. I was running through all the options in my head of what I could do to rescue it if it turned out white or green. Eventually she came back , washed it out and declared it hadnt taken. I couldnt see anything as there was no mirror and Jo and Ali had gone to the supermarket so I had no backup to tell me what it looked like. Before I could get up top check she had whipped up something else and was lashing it into my hair all over the roots and not using any meche. I think at this stage I may have turned white with worry. I asked her what it was and how long she was goign to leave it on. She said it was creama dn it would be on for 3 to 5 minutes. I couldnt understand what type of cream it was but couldnt do anything about it now!

5 minutes later thankfully she washed it out and brought me over to the mirror. To my delight it was not green or bright white but did have a slight orange tinge to it and was a solid colour at my roots rather than the subtle highlighted look! I resigned myslef to having to live with it and a half hour later walked out of the salon with a Farrah Fosset style blowdry which was quite stylish for the 12 hour bus ride I had ahead of me!! Our bus ride was quite entertaingin , fully reclining leather seats, a hot meal, 2 DVDs and a game of bingo with a bottle of wine for the winner! Not all bus rideas are like this in case you think were livin it up!!


Back to the dulche de leche and pastry saga we found a gym the other day and lI ifted weights for the first time in 2 months - hence I can hardly walk from doing a measly set of squats!! Weve found it quite hard to maintain a fitness regime being on the move all the time and being in cities and being faced with pots of dulche de leche! However anytime theres a park we go for a run so were not being completely lazy bums! Our first night in Mendoza ended on a bit of a sour note as I managed to lose -have my iphone stolen. Returned from the restaurant and as soon as got out of taxi realised it was gone. Restaurant claimed it wasnt there so reckon must have fallen out in taxi but when rang it it had been turned off so between Jos ipod beign stolen and now my iphone we are musicless and wifiless which is very annoying., but we are both safe and thats the important thing!

Keeping in line with the new eagerness to get fit again we hired bikes to visit the wineries- thought wed burn it off as we drank it! The wineries here happen to be off quite a busy road where cars make no exception for cyclists - especially not ones whove been wine tasting all day and make no attempt to slow down, in fact I think they speed up and drive even closer to you just to scare you a little. However we managed to stay in one piece even when we did the return journey on a tandem. Got off to a bit of a shaky start but soon got into a rhythm usign the haon, do, tri count down to get us started and stopping in unison. Riding a tandem is trickier than youd think at first!

The wineries were good fun, not as idyllic looking as the ones we went to in Napa or any Ive seen in Europe but they make look nicer in harvesting season as the vines were all quite bare at this time of the year. They do tough hae the added bonus stop along the way of a chocolate , liquor tasting stop where you get to hae some free handmade chocolates and taste - you guessed it a shot of dulche de leche!! There are also numerous other yummy drinks to taste including thier version of baileys, chocolate and mint, chocolate and almonds, chocolate nad rum and the list goes on! If you hire the bikes from Mr.Hugo - a very amusign local man with several bijes in his back gardena dn s giant Scooby Doo teddy bear your tour ends up back at his plae where he plys you with more wine and then puts you on the bus back and pays for your fare - we promised him wed tell all our frineds to come to Mr.Hugo when they came to Mendoza!! Mendoza itslef is a pretty enough town and would probably appreciate it more if we had the money to avail of some of the fine dining there is available.

Yesterday I headed for the mountains, a 3ish hour bus ride away and having assessed the slightly dodgy slopes and lack of good looking helmets and only a handful of boarders in sight I opted for the ski option and spent the day wearing the most uncomfortable ski boots ever (and that was having tried 5 different pairs on before decidign on these!) Spent he first half hour wishing I had my board as I realised Id forgotten how to ski! The next 2 hours I had a bit of fun although skiing on your own is pretty lonely! Took a 45 minute lunch-sun bathing rest as it was very hot and then had the agonising pain of trying to buckle my boots back on. Lasted another hour and then couldnt put up with the pain anymore of the boots and the aftermath of the previous days squats was starting to kick in! Back on the bus for 3ish hours back and then had an hour to grab some food before boarding another bus to here! Have just resisted another hostel breakfast of pastries and went for the slighly healthier version of bread with a drop of dulche de leche! Here for a couple of days then Rosario then Buenos Aires. Will be back soon with the latest update. Love to all xo

P.S. Sorry if this is a bit wobbly and waffly , didnt get a great nights sleep on the bus!