South Africa has some of the best wine in the world. To go along with that wine, the wine growing regions in South Africa are simply amazing in terms of their beauty. The winelands offer a good escape from the bustle of Cape Town and it seems like there is a wine festival of some sort every weekend. A trip to South Africa and the Western Cape is not complete without a trip to towns like Stellenbosch or Franschhoek to enjoy learning about the winemaking culture and heritage of South Africa and to try some great vintages at the countless wine farms. There are plenty of tours to shuttle you around so you can take part in some of the tastings, which by the way, are a lot “healthier” than in the wine regions of the US and Australia.
The Garden Route is essentially the stretch of coastline in South Africa from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town and is argueably one of the most spectacular drives in the world… up there with the Pacific Coast Highway in California, USA and the Great Ocean Road in Australia. Great surf spots, amazing forest trekking, and beautiful landscapes wait for you around every corner of the road. Whether you are watching top surfers compete in J-Bay , hiking in the mountainas in Knysna, jumping off a bridge with Face Adrenalin, or just taking in the amazing scenery, the Garden Route will not dissapoint.
Cape Town, South Africa is a great city. It is a very international and cosmopolitan city with shades of Sydney and San Francisco, but it has a culture that is definitely unique. Cape Town has all of the qualities you would expect in a modern city and it has some of the most dramatic natural beauty to go along with it. Cape Town, and the Western Cape in general, also offers visitors a wealth of activities. Whether it is wine tasting, hiking Table Mountain or exploring the Cape Peninsula, you can always find something to do.
The weather in Cape Town during the winter can be a little wet and cold but luckily, I caught a break in the rain and was able to hike to the top of Table Mountain. After reaching the top of this Cape Town landmark, I was rewarded with some specacular views of the city and the surrounding area. It is not the easiest hike in the world, but it is well worth the effort and if the hike to the top of the mountain has depleted your energy, you can always take the cable car back down. A lot of people talk about the crime in Cape Town and in South Africa in general and it does exist but overall, Cape Town is an environment that is safe and enjoyable. One thing is for sure, Cape Town has something to offer everyone and at times, you might find it hard to beleive that you are actually in Africa.
A district of Buenos Aires named La Boca is probably what many of you have seen in travel photos of this city. It is a place where the local people have managed to spruce up one of the poorer neighborhoods in the city by painting the walls with bright colors and lining the streets with eccentric artwork. I have now spent a total of 3 different days in the area, some crew members even more. We went to a futbol game at La Bombonera, walked the streets and have eaten quite a few meals there.
Watch out, as the locals have learned to make money on the hoards of tourists that frequent the area. After walking up to the center, numerous tango dancers will come up to offer photos with them at a cost, countless restaurateurs will do their best to lure you into their delicious but pricey restaurants, and the street vendors and artists are will be ready to sell you their wares. It can be easy to get overwhelmed by the intense feel of commercialization, however, once you enter La Bombonera or walk a few blocks from the main tourist center, the surroundings are genuinely local.
We found numerous restaurants with excellent food for half the price of anything downtown, and on the way to the game dozens of street vendors sell freshly made and ready grilled choripans (a chorizo sausage on a bun) and other delights. The most exciting part?…Joining the local flavor in the cheap general admission seats at the game surrounds you with the crazy futbol fans of the local team. Just above this section are the seats for the opposing team. Towards the end of the game we learned the reason why these fans are separated while listening to the craziest of the local fans yelling obscenities to the opposing spectators through a small opening of chainlink fence on the stairs. Then you wait.
We sat in our seats for about 30 minutes in what I like to call the post-game home team fan detention center. I guess this allows the local fans to blow off a little steam while the poor visiting fans can get away unhurt. As soon as the gates opened up to let us leave the entire mob of fans started to push their way toward the exit. It is a unnerving feeling when the crowd is essentially carrying you toward the exit whether you want to go or not. The mob pushed us through the stinky stadium hallways with the distinctive smell of urine, and our the doors to the street where the locals hooted and hollered all the way to the bus stop. After a short wait we were on the bus with the fans on the way home rolling by numerous police officers ready for any rowdiness that may ensue.
Latin Americans take their futbol very seriously and a match somewhere down here is not to be missed as part of the adventure. The energy surrounding these events is something that everyone should see once in their lives.
I would bet that most of you have heard this saying before, and depending how old you are and where you grew up, you probably remember the Wendy’s commercials featuring the little old lady that solidified the phrase’s place in American and international pop culture. The commercials that aired in the US and Canada in the mid to late 80’s featured Clara Peller going into several restaurants with her friends, and ordering hamburgers only to find that there was not much beef to be found in the burger. Well, unlike the late Ms. Peller, I have definitely found the beef and it is all over the place here in Argentina.
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We have met a handful of Argentineans in our worldly travels and in talking about their homeland, if there was one common denominator in the descriptions they gave us of Argentina, it was that Argentina has the “best beef in the world.” In fact, they were so confident not only in the quality of the beef emanating from ranches throughout Argentina, that some even took it a step further by saying that Argentina has the best meat in the world. Coming from the United States, where we pride ourselves on the delectability of our own homegrown beef, I was really interested and excited to see just what these people were talking about. After spending a few weeks here in Argentina, I can personally say that these people were not joking around about the quality of meat in Argentina, and we have not even made it south to the heart of the country’s agricultural, farming and ranching region. In Buenos Aires, meat is everywhere and if you are a vegetarian, you will have a difficult task ahead of you trying to find a restaurant that will cater to needs which most Argentineans would probably consider to be quite strange.
Here’s the beef…
…a whole bunch of it
“Jackpot!”
I have had the privilege of eating some of the best steaks and meat dishes in my life here in Buenos Aires and to make matters even more appealing, you can dine on a great cut of meat in Argentina for a fraction of the cost of what you would in back home in the US. In fact in some restaurants, vegetable dishes are more expensive than the staple meat plates. And you do not have to go to a restaurant to participate in the meat madness of Argentina. No matter where you go, no matter what time, it always seems like someone is grilling up some meat. Whether it is a collection of street stalls grilling up meat before a home football (soccer) game, the drifting odor of grilling meat descending from a residential window in downtown Buenos Aires, the smoke filled air in open spaces and parks on a sunny weekend day, to a full blown Gaucho barbeque out on the ranch, you are always within olfactory’s reach of some great food. Luis and Ignacio were right, Argentina arguably has the best beef, if not meat in general, in the world and no matter what part of the country you are in, you can bet that beef is what’s for dinner.
Argentineans doing what they do best
Having access to good quality meat is one thing but unless you know how to cook it, you might as well be a vegetarian. Fortunately, Argentineans also know their way around a barbeque. In the US, knowing one’s way around a barbeque is a well respected talent. Granted, cooking something on an open fire is a pretty simple means of preparing a meal and not that far removed from methods employed by our cave dwelling ancestors, but there is a learning curve and not everyone has the capability of making magic happen on the grill. Eating all of this great meat in Argentina has inspired me to create The World by Road International BBQ Awards. For this important competition, I have taken the time to go back and reminisce about all of the food we have devoured on this trip, food that was cooked on a barbeque of type or another, and rate quality of the barbeque on a scientifically proven yet unreleased scale resulting the following awards. Granted, we did have some great barbeque in countries that did not make the podium but in order to medal in this competition, it takes more than a few individual grill masters scattered about the country… it takes a nationwide mentality that embraces not just the art of grilling but the culture that comes with sweating over a smokey bed of coals, sometimes for hours, in order to deliver some goodness that can only come from a barbeque. So, in honor of Ms. Peller and barbeque fans around the world, here are the final results of the TWBR International Barbeque Awards.
The World by Road International Barbeque Awards
Gold Medal
Argentina has a grilling mentality and a supply of top shelf meat to back up everything we have heard. So, the next time someone from Argentina tells you about the quality of their meat, they are not kidding.
Silver Medal
There are some regions in the US where the barbeque is second to none: St. Louis, Kansas City, Texas and whether it is a tailgate party at the local stadium, or a 4th of July picnic, good barbeque it not too hard to find. The only reason the US fell short of the gold is because there are too many vegetarians per capita compared with our competition winner Argentina.
Bronze Medal
In Afrikaans, they have their own word for barbecue, braii, and they do it up right. Not only will you find beef on the grill in South Africa, locals seem to throw whatever they can over the coals: wharthog, giraffe, gazelle, antelope, crocodile, ostrich, the list goes on.
Honorable Mentions
Malaysia – Just because Wan hooked it up so nice
Australia – Kangaroo on the barbie is pretty damn good, but a lack of variety, flavor and the inability to pronounce “fillet” right will continue to keep Australia out of title contention no matter how many people hover over the grill down under.
“Remember the rebels and how we could not get our Angolan visas for months, the Angolans have the worst policies on the planet.”
Time moves fast making your way around the world. With each border falling behind the horizon, we find new challenges to deal with. Time and time again we encounter something that presents itself as likely the most difficult task on the expedition. Customs in Argentina may not be the most difficult, but perhaps the most frustrating.
Looking back at our run through the heart of Africa it seems like no countries could be more corrupt, no roads could be so bad, no government policies could be so senseless. In most of these cases Africa will take the cake, but this all depends on how you decide to measure the worst or the best. For instance, Mongolia is one of the least developed countries in the world, yet one of the most pleasant when it comes to dealing with the government.
While going through Africa and Central Asia, you must convince yourself that things just work differently there. A different set of rules apply. Upon coming to South America and here to Argentina, we expected to encounter our fair share of difficulties. These countries are more developed so in our minds they should have been a little easier to do…well…anything. So far, if you set the bar of expectations higher based on Argentina’s level of development, they have officially beat every country by a landslide in terrible government policy.
We have many many different ways to prove that the trucks are ours. We have a website, thousands of photos with us and the trucks, videos of us driving the trucks, laminated copies of the articles of incorporation of the business, carnet documents, vehicle titles, a direct link to the Colorado Secretary of State website with online proof, bank statements, credit cards, debit cards and a crew of restless TWBR team members. So what is holding us up?…(moments ago I received this instant message from a good friend in Denver)
“Benjamin: Talked to Secretary of State’s office. I’ll need one more day. I’m getting it notarized, and getting the international designation for 15 bucks at their offices tomorrow morning – only time it can happen. I’ll scan and email the copy tomorrow, and then will fed-ex the rest.”
If it was not for good friends like Ben and all the others who help us out, the bureaucrats would win. The friendly customs agents here in Argentina are keeping the trucks because out of all the hard evidence we have that these trucks are ours, including a bill of lading from the shipping company in my name, they are only willing to take a document with an Apostille. This fancy little stamp that will be on new copies of our Articles of Incorporation is simply an international notification that the papers are legitimate.
I guess that somehow we are really good at Photoshop and motion graphics because the thousands of photos and video we have from all around the world with the trucks are just simply brilliant cut-and-paste work. You caught us Argentina customs…there is no logical way that the trucks in those containers could possibly be ours. Okay, well I left something else out…we were offered the chance to pay a bribe totaling $1500, then our papers will magically become legitimate.
I think it is safe to say that most members of the crew are becoming a little stir crazy as we wait to get back on the road. Most of us have been here for two weeks or longer and starting to not believe anyone when they say “any day now”, but as it stands, tomorrow really might be the day! Probably Tuesday though. Wednesday at the latest?
In the meantime, however, we are all keeping quite busy to arrange and map out the events and course of the foreseeable future. No leaf in South America will go unturned, I tells ya! No cheek will go un-kisssed! It’s not really like that but it is certain that we are gonna take this continent by storm and by style checking out all there is to offer! But seriously, everyone is working really hard for everything to come together just right in order to make this segment of TWBR the best yet. So in between Tango lessons and eating delicious 33 cent choripán at a Boca Juniors game we are researching the sights and sounds of upcoming destinations.
First item on the agenda: Bouey’s dad’s colleague’s organic farm outside of Bahia Blanca, Argentina. It is quite the convoluted relationship, I know, but we are all anticipating a very unique and rewarding experience! We have already been told that we will definitely be welcomed with a true Gaucho style BBQ. If that isn’t enough, the farm also boasts a composting and fertilizing plant for our learning pleasure.
The plan after that is to keep heading south! Hopefully most (if not all of you) realize that Patagonia is not only the maker of fine fleece wear, but a region shared by Argentina and Chile at the southernmost point of the continent. It is the closest land mass to Antarctica and as such, we will be greeted with colder temperatures and shorter days. No matter the time of year, it is rich in stunning landscape and without a shortage in outdoor activities and adventure sports. Lucky for us, though this time of year is perfect for whale watching off the Valdes Peninsula!
While all of the final details are being sorted out to get us back on the road, the crew is getting deep into Buenos Aires checking out the sights and sounds of one of the most fabulous and entertaining cities in Latin America. We often get questions from our readers about music, movies and books we would recommend for each area we travel through. In order to give our readers a better idea of what we are reading, watching and listening to in each locale, we will be posting blogs with links giving samples of the media and the option to purchase via Amazon.com (and it gives you a chance to support the expedition through our affiliate program with Amazon). Buenos Aires has provided all of us with endless history and culture and we have already accumulated some note worthy Argentine bands and books.
Although their reputation hardly precedes them outside of South America, Babasónicos have been holding strong on the forefront of the Latin rock scene since the early 1990s. Now, over 15 years since their debut, a whole new crop of cool kids are discovering their earlier classics like Jessico. Their music continues to expand and evolve, but most would agree their more solid recordings can be found on Infame and Anoche.
Jessico
Infame
Anoche
Another Argentine group that offers a little bit of everything is the legendary Los Fabulosos Cadillacs. Because they are a nine piece band they can and do offer a greater range of sound and style that will never disappoint. Their music is a fantastic blend of multiple variations of ska, reggae, rock and traditional latin folk music. The easiest way to familiarize yourself with their 20 year discography is to pick up a copy of their greatest hits…the first song, Matador, should give you the general idea!
Any trip to Buenos Aires, no matter how short or long, would not be complete with out experiencing the seduction of the Tango. Now a world famous music style with accompanied dance, the Tango was born in the relatively lower class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires in the mid 19th century. Within fifty years the world was introduced to the “King of Tango,” Carlos Gardel, a baritone crooner that recorded hundreds of classic tangos.
Lo Mejor de lo Mejor
However it is Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara who is easily Argentina’s most famous and recognizable citizen. It is widely understood that it was his motorcycle trip around South America, coupled with family instilled leftist leanings that molded him into the Marxist Revolutionist that people understand today. Guevara’s published account of this trip as a young medical student in the best selling Motorcycle Diaries. His diary and the award winning 2004 film adaptation of the same name can be found below.
One of the main things that has been taking so much of our time for the last handful of months is putting together the new crew. This time around we have a solid crew of 7 people leaving Buenos Aires with us. Some will make it all the way home, some may have to leave sooner, but these are the faces you will be seeing on the site for at least the next few months. With an international crew spanning from here in Argentina to all the way up in Canada, we will have a very diverse amount of knowledge, opinions and outlooks that should prove to broaden the types of stories we write and certainly guarantee much more content up on the site.
Right now we have three new bios up, and shortly we will have one more, Fernando Bishcof, from here in Buenos Aires. Soon we will have a friend from South Africa joining us once she is done studying and working in Cambridge. So click the link below to check out the new crew.
