Beaches from Brazil to Buenos Aires & Beyond

-Day 24-

Mora Hostel’s pastries were scrumdiddlyumptious. Under the bow of Ian’s raised eyebrow, I demolished five in quick succession, fuelling up for a day of relaxation at the Cacheuta natural spring spa. Then realised I’d peaked too early, when they brought out the duche de leche crepes, oops.

Our exuberant and rather toothless bus driver gave what we assumed was an entertaining speech in theatrical Spanish; we chuckled along with the other passengers, wondering if we were missing any vital information about our trip? We’d find out soon enough…

From Mendoza, our bus climbed 2000 meters above sea level, passing through valleys of vineyards cocooned in barren chestnut coloured mountains. We reached a dusty “village” (though I’m not sure that’s what this was) it was a dust bowl with a couple of tired wooden shacks selling the usual trinkets, cold drinks, and fly-covered pastries. Then everyone got off the bus. Were we here? This wasn’t exactly what we’d imagined when we’d heard about the famous Cacheuta springs?

In it’s heyday, Cacheuta was home to one of Argentina’s most luxurious spa resorts. The Transandine Railway used to stop in Cacheuta, and a special lift would transport the guests and their furs & gold, directly from the platform to the hotel. Today all that is left of the resort is this very lift shaft, after it was devastated by a glacial flood in 1934. Since the train line stopped coming here, the town sadly never returned to it’s former glory. However more recently a new spa has been built on the same site, and adjacent a natural spring water park was also constructed.

Unable to extract a word of direction from Mr Funny Driver, we followed a trail of people and found we were indeed at the springs. And they were fabulous! Waterfalls cascaded into about forty different pool sections, staggered at various levels down the face of the mountain. The water blue and crystal clear, the sun blazing; today was a day for topping up our tans and not much else!

Choosing a pool was like russian roulette, some were scorching hot, others luke warm and some were freezing cold! So after making a circuit of the whirlpool and Ian convincing me to go down the waterside (which was much scarier than it looked) we sprawled out in a cool shallow pool for the afternoon. It was a busy day at the springs, and as midday crept up strings of people arrived and set up camp in the sounding barbeque picnic areas. We were envious of the racks of ribs and scent of barbecued chicken floating by our noses, as we’d come equipt with an unimpressive selection of apples and bananas. But then I discovered the alfajores ice cream sandwich, and all at once, equilibrium was restored.

We got back to the hostel later than expected, but just on time to take part in the empanada making course with two Australian girls. Over a glass of Malbec, the fantastic hostel cook and her translator guided us through the surprisingly simple steps of making her delicious Carne (meat) empanadas. Try it at home, here’s the recipe:

Carne Empanada Recipe

Ingredients (in order of appearance):
2 eggs
Olive oil, drizzles
2 onions, finely chopped
1 red pepper, finely chopped
Green olives (approx 15) roughly chopped
Pack of mince meat, 250g
Chilli powder, 1 teaspoon
Cumin powder, 1 teaspoon
Salt & pepper
Empanada pastry - either make your own, recipe here or ready made puff or filo pastry cut in the right shape should do ok too!

How to make them:
Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees celius.

1. Hard boil 2 eggs (for about 9 minutes). Once cool enough, peel and chop them up roughly into lots of small pieces, put to one side.

2. Drizzle some olive oil into another pan, when hot add the chopped onion and red pepper and cook slowly until browned through, add a few big pinches of salt and pepper.

3. Add the mince meat, cumin and chilli powder to the mixture and cook until browned through and smelling delish.

4. Take off the heat and mix in the chopped eggs and olives

5. Make the empanada pastry or lay out and cut the ready made stuff

6. Grease up or line a flat baking tray

7. Put a large table spoon or two of the meat mixture into one side of the pastry round. Then fold over the send half of the pastry, wet the edges with your fingers and pinch to ‘crimp’ the two edges together and seal in the mixture in a pretty crescent moon shape.

8. Bake for approximately 20 minutes (or however long it says on the pastry packet)

9. ¡Buen apetito! They should look something like this!?

-By Cass

- Day 19 -

As you may have noticed, Cass and I have not been maintaining the rigorous backpacker moneysaving discipline of cooking our own pasta in the hostel, before venturing out. In fact we freely admit we are what some call flashpackers. Many of our best travel experiences have been enjoyed over a great meal, and thankfully Buenos Aires has plenty of restaurants on offer.

On a blisteringly hot day we decided to spend the morning cycling through the city parks, picking up an Orange bike in a great sponsored collaboration with the Dutch airline KLM who now fly direct from Amsterdam. Thankfully these were a lot more reliable than those in Colonia and we quickly headed out from Palermo (bizarrely bumping into the Canadian couple once again), past the Zoological park and melting track runners, before finding ourselves (no pun intended) in the beautifully tranquil Japanese gardens. These were a gift from the Japanese emperor to the city and are some of the largest outside Japan. Order and calm are maintained while BA’s frenetic pace fizzes at its borders; the apartment blocks towering above giving the only indication another world exists outside.

When I was last in BA, after 5 days of steak, I had craved broccoli. Similarly this time, after our previous night’s carnivorous exploits and a heavy bread diet over the last few weeks, we both craved a salad. Strangely our lunchtime hunger always seems to coincide with being surrounded by great shops. However, after my “hangar” ( Hungry +Anger) kicked in and we couldn’t find the recommended café amongst Palermo Hollywood’s labyrinth of boutiques, we settled on La Salamandra, pulled in by the temptation of spoons of Dulche de Leche served with your coffee and home made Alfajores. We forced ourselves to initially stick to our good intentions and were rewarded with delicious bowls of crisp peppery arugula (rocket), torn mozzarella, meaty tomatoes and generous portions of pan fried chicken. The energy kick from the coffee and postres (dessert) though was what powered us round on the hunt for replacement leather sandals for Cass’ flapping gold ones and another obligatory stripy T-shirt for me.

After an early evening siesta to keep up with BA’s vampiric night scene, and Cass enacting a cliché by slipping on a banana skin in her new shoes, we caught the 67 bus to head out. I had hoped to repeat a night I’d done two years before, showing Cass the wonderfully characterful El Cuartito pizza restaurant, but sadly it was closed on a Monday so we headed to my second venue and dined instead at Milion. This beautifully restored terrace mansion has a Soho house feel with sweeping staircases, a delicious cocktail menu and courtyard garden where stylish Porteños relax. Opting for salmon stuffed ravioli and seabass we continued our exploration of epicurean delights, saving home cooked boiled rice for another day.

- By Ian