Friday, 11 January 2019
El Calafate, Argentina
300km, 3hr drive to El Calafate. Friend emailed to say the last time she was in El Calafate she nearly got blown off her feet such was the strength of the wind. She’s not wrong. I nearly lose a car door when wind slammed it open with such force I thought it had bent.
Police check point on exiting Rio Gallegos. British. I say. No need to show documents unlike cars in front and behind. First sign of Taurean charm today. Though not the last.
Nothing between Rio Gallegos and Esperanza. A small settlement with a fuel station, 145km from Rio Gallegos. Join the queue. Fill up whenever you can is the mantra. Argentina still has the good old fashioned fuel pump attendant.
Flat open countryside and fast open roads. Big blue sky with a few clouds. Plenty of natural gas stations dotted about the fields. Not sure if it’s gas extraction, storage or booster stations. The emergency phones are 10km apart. Bit of a trek if you break down.
Contemplating a suitable place to pull over for a leg stretch and a sandwich. Someone is looking over me today. Drive around a corner and see the most amazing vista. With a parking spot. Perfect place for lunch (see video) at the El Monito view point. On a plateau looking down into a wide open valley. The azure Lake Argentina to the left with the snow capped Andes in the background. Life is good.
Arrive El Calafate. Immediately like the place. Has a nice relaxed, holiday vibe. Hotel Quijote easily found and the young girl on reception speaks fluent English. She learnt it in Canada. Tell her that if I met her in England I’d think she was English. She blushes and is chuffed to bits. Consequently. She gives me a room upgrade. Taurean charm you see.
El Calafate’s bustling high street is full of shops, restaurants and tour companies selling trips to the glaciers about an hour away. Hence the reason for so many tourists. Good atmosphere here. Coffee served by an Argentinian Sinead O’Connor lookalike.
My favourite Iraqi colleague emails. I’ve only the one Iraqi colleague, though. Well, dear readers, we have a request. More information on food required. So. Tonight’s dinner is at La Zaina. Looks like a dilapidated shed from the outside but inside is full of old objects and a good vibe with friendly English speaking staff. Dinner is a choice of guanaco (llama like thing) or lamb stew. Now. You’re thinking of British lamb stew aren’t you. Bit of grey sauce, plenty of vegetables and a few morsels of gristly, greasy lamb. Well. As this is Argentina. It’s another meat fest. I have half a slab of lamb on my plate, covered in a Malbec jus. It is. Quite simply. The. Best. Lamb. I. Have. Ever. Had. Ever. Utterly tender and tasty. You only have to say boo and it just falls off the bone.
Quite. Quite. Delicious.
2 responses to “20. Taurean charm”
How funny! We’ve been in the same hotel and had dinner at La Zaina as well! Guess what we had … the Guanaco steak and the lamb 🙂 with a very tasty red wine from the Bodega del Fin del Mundo – soooo delicious!!!
Beef and lamb will certainly be on the menu throughout Argentina. Even better when washed down with some Malbec! Glad to hear you are adapting to miles of flat and stark landscape. We saw masses of shrines along the roads in Chile and Argentina. The oddity was the outpouring of hundreds of plastic bottles at shrines in Argentina.
At petrol stations we noticed lots of gas pumps. You can certainly travel at your own pace. Cheers