On the wine trail in Orange - Lolli Redini

Making the most of a recent well deserved holiday my wife and I headed embarked on a tour of some of New South Wales wine regions. Having already covered the Hunter, Southern Highlands and Canberra region this time we decided to tour Orange and Mudgee, which are a couple of places a bit more off the beaten track.

Enjoying the view across
 Lake Canobolas

Orange itself is a beautiful location, in the shadow (well,  as much as a mountain of 1400m can cast a shadow) of Mount Canobolas there are a number of cooler climate vineyards which can grow a wide variety of grapes due to the variance in height, as there are vineyards in the surrounding area sitting between 600 and 1200 m in altitude, Orange are very proud of the fact that to be a wine of Orange the grapes have to be from vineyards which are between these heights, nothing from below 600m is allowed to have Orange on the label.

View from the top of
Mount Canobolas

While we were there we booked into a wine tour with Chase, an American (don’t hold it against him) who is now doing minibus tours for small (intimate) groups in the area, I have to admit this was probably one of the better commercial tours I have been on as the low numbers of people (although he can take 11 people he prefers to operate for smaller groups of 6 or 8) get a very personal experience on the cellar door which is a million miles away from the 45 person bus load things that you get in the hunter. As a shameless plug for his new business you can find out more about him here http://www.orangewinestours.com.au, I would definitely recommend it as the best way to get around and still enjoy a drink as cycling around the many hills on narrow roads in Orange seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

As well as some excellent wine (we finished the wine tour slightly merry and with a case of 12 bottles from various vineyards in the back of the bus) there is also a lot of good eating in Orange with a number of their restaurant making the good food guide. On our first night we dropped in to Lolli Redini(http://www.lolliredini.com.au/), which if you mention it to any of the locals will immediately illicit a response of "it’s great, you have to have the soufflé".

The Cheese Souffle

This led to me conquering one of my main fears when it comes to ordering dinner, which is ordering the same thing as someone at my table. This fear grows the fewer people I am dining with, so I pretty much never order the same thing as my wife, however I was glad that, aided by the wonderous nerve calming effects of a glass of local wine, I was able to mutter the words "I’ll have the soufflé too, please".

This turned out to be the best decision I had made in quite some time, the Twice Cooked Gruyere Soufflé was probably one of the most enjoyable things I have eaten since coming to Sydney, it was everything a soufflé should be, light, beautifully textured and incredibly tasty, surrounded by a cheese sauce and topped with spring onions to break through the creaminess. I have to admit that from the picture I took it is no looker, however in real life I thought it was quite attractive. Lolli’s do an interesting pairing of wines with their food, all of which is from the local vineyards and with the soufflé they had put a sparkling wine (interestingly the waitress warned me it was sparkling as if this would somehow put me off ordering it!?! My wife was given no such caution, perhaps the men in country towns think it is not manly to be seen with a glass of bubbles! I think reading that back it may not be manly to call it a glass of bubbles, but I think that drinking it is perfectly masculine..)

Hereford Brisket

After the soufflé (how many times can I mention it) the rest of the meal rather pales by comparison, which is unfortunate as my main of beef brisket was very good, and I am a great believer in their general policy of showing off the best of the regions produce, both with the meat and also the matching wine which they suggest. The food was excellently cooked (My wifes Pork Belly apparently had excellent crackling) and also well presented, they also do a very fine truffle mash which we had as a side, although it could be considered to be slightly unnecessary as the portion sizes were, what could only be described as generous.

Pork Belly

Price wise it is not exactly cheap (certainly for the area) with two courses coming in at 68 dollars, but compared to Sydney I would class it as excellent value (although compared to Sydney I think most places are excellent value but I digress).

We chose to finish with the cheese platter as our dessert and were helpfully informed by the waitress that this was also massive and that a platter each was completely unnecessary, this was great advice as we struggle to finish even one of them between us.

  

Bejing - great chinese food, but Maccy D's is the recommended breakfast.

Welcome to Bejing ... hold on, where are all the tall buildings? For some reason I was expecting a high rise or two, I am stood in the centre of Bejing and there is nothing taller than 4 or 5 stories. Part of this may be the smog which is circling overhead, obscuring my view and meaning that taking photographs is a little tricky, but I am fairly certain that most of the reason is apparently nothing in the centre of Bejing can overlook the forbidden city, which is where the Emperors used to reside.

The second thing I noticed is that although the hotel has wifi it does not have access to facebook or instagram, the Great Firewall of China appears to have seen to that. Now don't get me wrong, this is not a total disaster, I am not addicted to facebook (honest) but I do like to be able to boast to all my friends about how nice the places I have been are and how great all of the food I have been eating is.

Taganga, Colombia. Cooking on the road.

I have to admit to being a bit lazy so far on this trip, we've eaten out a lot during our time on the road either due to lack of a kitchen or abundance of good, cheap places to eat.

Now we have arrived in Taganga neither if these things is true. There are not really any great places to get food here and we have a small kitchen in our room, well a gas ring, fridge and a sink, but you get the idea.

To be honest I fancied the challenge of sorting out a meal in this environment, there is no hot water, the cold water from the tap is not drinkable. There is no sharp knife, only a small frying pan and a larger lidded saucepan, a 4 litre measuring jug, no bowls (but we do have a large cup) and a chopping board that is so old and stained it would give my mother nightmares for months. Oh and there is only a single ring gas stove to cook on.

In the back of my mind i thought that a risotto may be the answer so I headed to the supermarket to see what I could find there. This was an interesting experience as the supermarket is not self service here, it is more like the old village shop where you tell someone what you want and they run off and get it for you. This is ok if your Spanish is acceptable, however for me it degenerated into a lot of "umms" and hand gestures to get what I wanted.

The haul I ended up with was...
2 chicken stock cubes
1/4 of a chicken (leg, bit of thigh, lot of rib)
1 bottle of butter flavoured cooking oil?!?!
2 Spanish onions
2 green peppers
4 plum tomatoes
Garlic
Parmesan
Rice (they only had one type, definitely not risotto)
5.5 litres of drinking water in a bag!

Planning when you only have one gas ring is pretty important, I needed it for hot water for washing up, for making the chicken stock, to help peel the tomatoes and of course for cooking the risotto itself.

First I put some water on the boil to make the chicken stock, while this was heating up I washed all the veges in tap water to get the worst of the dirt off before rinsing in drinking water. I then scored the tomatoes with a cross at the top and bottom and dropped them into the now boiling water for a minute or two. These were the removed and left to cool, when they were subsequently peeled. I then disolved the stock cubes in the water.

The biggest problem with the kitchen was actually the lack of any kind of sharp knife. Luckily I have my pen knife but the blade is at best 1 and a half inches long. I used this to chop the garlic, onion, pepper and tomatoes while the stock was boiling.

I used the jug to hold the rice while I rinsed it (we have no sieve so I poured the water off the rice using my fingers to stop the rice escaping) before putting the drained rice in the frying pan. I then put around 300ml of the stock in the frying pan with the rice (this pan is not on the heat) and put the rest of the stock in the jug.

Finally I prepared the chicken this was fun using only a penknife basically separating the thigh and leg by cutting most of the meat around the joint then pulling, i skinned these and left the meat on the bone, I then cut all the remaining meat of the carcass.

I heated some butter oil in the pan and added the onion and garlic, after the onion had softened I added the pepper and chicken and waited until the chicken had started to brown before adding the rice and half of the stock (something like half a litre) and the tomatoes. I then stirred this all in and put a lid on the pan and brought this to the boil before simmering for 2 hours while occasionally stirring and adding more stock.

Once finished it tasted pretty great, especially accompanied by a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon from concha y torro!

The total cost was around 20,000 Colombian pesos, or 8 quid but when you consider a steak and chips in a restaurant is only between 18 and 22 thousand I suspect I won't be going to the effort again in Colombia!

Pictured are the pan, the water bag, the finished risotto and the gas ring and preparation area.

Bogota, city of surprises

From Quito the plan had been to get busses through Colombia, this would have taken a couple of days and allowed us to see Ottavalo, where there is an apparently great market, Pasto and Popayan. Sadly the coffee pickers in the south of Colombia had other ideas and decided to go on strike blockading the two main northbound roads. So we once again decided to fly (so much for our good intentions of taking buses and saving money.)

We booked a hostel in La Candelaria area of Bogota, which is the main historic old town where most of the tourists go, as well as having a large student population. It is also blessed with an abundance of restaurants, juice/cocktail bars (depending on if it is day or night) and eating options to go with a pretty impressive nightlife scene.

The first thing we noticed when arriving was it was cold, well, cool. I had expected it to be sticky and tropical but because Bogota sits at around 2600m above sea level it has an average temperature of 14 Celsius.

The second thing that became apparent is that tourists appeared to be giving Bogota a miss and instead heading straight to Medellin or Cartagena and the rest of the Caribbean coast in the North. I think this is a shame because Bogota has a great vibe as a city and there is plenty to do with around 50 museums, including the excellent Museo de oro (museum of gold), as well as having a 2 hour free walking tour (in English) run by the central tourist information and gives information on a bit of South American and Colombian history while introducing you the main historical buildings.

There is also a hill (Cerro de Monserrate) in the city (near La Candeleria) which has a church (sanctuario de monserrate) on it and once you have taken the cable car or walked up you are treated to spectacular views over the whole of Bogota.

Food wise making a decision on where to eat was difficult with many nice looking places offering a variety of food.

There were a few things in Bogota I really wanted to eat. The first is a chicken soup called ajiaco which, like much of South America has its origins with the South American tribes (not the incas in Colombia, they did not get that far north) and the Spanish conquistadors who conquered them. The basis of the soup is a corn and vegetable broth (traditional indigenous Indian staples) with chicken added and served with pots of cream, avacado and capers (all Spanish additions) which you can add into your soup in quantities you want.

I had the one pictured at the bottom of the blog at a restaurant called Sanalejio on Jiminez ( the Main Street running down the side of la Candeleria) which was filling, tasty but not exactly haut cuisine. The idea of eating avocado floating in soup was interesting and not unpleasant.

The embrace and extend attitude of the conquistadors can be seen all over South America, with many of the churches are built on inka (or other indigenous) sites of worship. The church also incorporated a lot of traditional aspects into its art in South American churches with the sun and moon featuring strongly as they were also worshipped as part of the earlier religions here.

Anyway, I digress, I have to say that my first impressions of Bogota were very favourable (and not just because the cool temperature and inclement weather reminded me of Britain). In my next blog I'll go into the other food we had here and maybe a bit more about the city. Pictured below are the ajiaco and accompaniment, the church in bolivar square and 2 views of the city from the cerro de Monserrate.

Cuy, Valentines day (and food) in Arequipa

Valentines day this year found us in Arequipa. This left me with a bit of a problem in terms of booking somewhere nice, the place most people recommended was chi cha and those of you paying attention will know that we ate there in Cusco and weren't completely blown away by it.

In the end I used my best Spanish
(really not brilliant) to book a place called Paladar 1900 via Skype. In unsurprising news when we turned up there was no table for Barker, however Mr Parka did have a reservation we were able to take advantage of.

The setting was pretty romantic, a half barrel shaped room with lots of candles, my fiancee got an awesome chair too, which was pretty much a full winged armchair with an asymmetric back.

As a starter we shared an excellent octopus salad (which falls into the category of more excellent sea food from unexpected places as arequipa is 2500m above sea level). I followed this with a very good duck in orange sauce while my fiancée had an apparently less enjoyable fish on potatoes (thus proving the rule that seafood far from the sea is not usually a great plan.)

This was the day before our 3am start and trip to the colca canyon so we only had 1 pisco sour each (excellent as ever) and I left with a good impression of the restaurant, however my fiancée was less impressed. I think that if you go there meat rather than fish would be the option.

After our return from the colca canyon we were aware that our time in Peru was running short and we still had yet to try Cuy. After helping carry several guinea pigs out of the canyon (with limited success) we decided it was time to eat some before we left the Peruvian highlands (apparently in Lima it is less common and is not as good).

We'd spent a while building up to this moment, there were only 2 real questions, how do you want your guinea pig cooked? And secondly, do you want it "con cabeza" or "sin cabeza" (with or without its head)

We decided deep fried (cuy charcardo) rather than oven roasted or cut into pieces and served with sauce was the way to go with question one. However when it came to question 2 we both bottled it and had the head removed.

The guinea pig itself turned up with a great crispy skin (similar to Chinese crispy duck) and quite a dark meat which was similar to thigh meat on chicken or turkey (although a little fattier), my only criticism was the lack of meat (I know this will not be a surprise to anyone who has seen a guinea pig) but the actual food we did get off it was quite tasty, however I suspect this will be the last guinea pig we eat as I think I prefer chicken, beef and most other sorts of meat.

Cusco eating

Cusco is a beautiful city with several picturesque plazas surrounded by mountains and blessed with some great restaurants and bars.

It is also quite a tourist influenced city, firmly established on the gringo trail as a staging post and good place to stay on the way to Machu Picchu. There is a lot more to the city than that though, many travellers find themselves staying a lot longer than they planned once they experience the city.

Because of the number of travellers there are also plentiful tourist restaurants offering tourist menus. Gemma and Tim clued us into the good value of Tourist menus in Peru while we were in Puno. These menu's are usually between 15 and 25 soles for 2 or 3 courses and a soft drink. You can find these is pretty much all of the tourist restaurants offering tourist fare in Cusco's main square.

These are great if you are travelling on a budget but to a certain extent you get what you pay for, although the meals are usually ok the are not haut cuisine. we tried a higher end 25 Sole menu which the consisted of a decent soup starter and followed by meat, potatoes and a couple of vegetables. The meat brochetas were good but the vegetables were bland and there was no gravy or sauce so it was a touch dry.

We decided after the tourist menu that it wasn't really enjoyable and that trying the local food was too important to us for us to eat too many more tourist menus. We decided to control costs by sharing starters and mains and not drinking too much alcohol.

After our dalliance and disappointment with the tourist menu we decided to try some of Cusco's more famed restaurants, starting with Chi cha. This is something of a Peruvian success story with a number of branches in the major Peruvian cities offering modern twists on standard Peruvian dishes.

The decor is certainly great as are the pisco sours. Our starter was a selection of 4 different fish dishes, which were very tasty. the mains we chose were a more traditional meat stew (for me), which was massive, tasty but not life changing. My fiancée also had a traditional dish, stuffed peppers with Andean cheese.

We even stretched to a dessert for the sake of research having and egg yolk caramel mousse with a merengue topping, this was literally the sweetest, richest thing I have ever eaten, even between 2 of us we failed to eat half of it!

For the money (40-60 soles, 10-15 pounds per main) chi cha is ok, but you have the feeling that you are paying a for the name, reputation and experience as much as for the quality.

The best food we had in Cusco was at a restaurant on the plaza de armas (in between maccy d's and kfc). Limo is Cusco's most surprising restaurant, despite being some 3000 metres above sea level and 7 hours drive from lake titicaca it has built quite a reputation for its sushi. There are seven different types of sushi roll to choose from ranging from the regular California rolls to a house concoction (Limo roll) which had a filling of breaded fish, avacado and cream cheese covered in a sweet chilly jam. The also have a menu of interesting twists in traditional Peruvian dishes.

When we first went we had a 5 piece limo roll to share as a starter which I followed with an excellent tuna main. The sushi was so good we returned for later in the week to try 4 different types of rolls (which cost about 18 pounds).

If you are in cusco and fancy stretching you budget a little I would look no further than Limo, it is definitely worth a visit.

The other restaurant we ate at was the inka grill. This is also on the main square (plaza de armas) but offers a more straight down the line menu of traditional Andean dishes. It may be (slightly) more expensive than most of the places on the square but the quality is also reliable.

Cusco really impressed with its excellent array of restaurants and bars (see my previous post about the pisco museum). I would highly recommend spending a few days in Cusco as part of any Machu Picchu trip as the city has lots to offer.

Pictures show Limo rolls and tuna steak also from limo. From Chi Cha the 4 fish starter, multiple meat stew and stuffed peppers. The final image is a view of Cusco.

Copacabana, Lake Titicaca (snigger)

The final stop we made in Bolivia was copacabana on the edge of the brilliantly named (and equally beautiful) Lake Titicaca.
There is a theory that you know you have been in London too long when the posh station announcer on the Picadilly line saying "Cockfosters" stops making you chuckle ever so slightly.
I suspect that there is a similar rule when you are travelling relating to titter inducing place names (I am not at this stage yet, so I am suggesting a competition for the comments at the bottom to list the towns or cities with the funniest/rudest names).

The journey from La Paz to Copacabana took around 4 hours and was one of the more interesting trips so far. At one point we had to disembark our bus while it was loaded onto a raft (which I could have built) to cross the lake. Forget being robbed or using dodgy guardaequipage I think this was the closest we've come so far to losing our gear, and as we crossed in a motor boat next to our bus we'd have had front row seats to the whole thing!

When we arrived in Copacabana it was Friday and carnival was in full swing, this involved a marching band walking the streets playing the same 4 tunes from 7am until 4am the next morning, hundreds of people selling things in the mains plazas, people firing flare guns at all hours and perhaps craziest of all people dressing their cars up like Vegas show girls (think sparkly top hats, tinsel and other shiny things), parking them outside the cathedral and setting off a string of firecrackers they attached to the boot to get a blessing! Even if god wasn't paying attention everyone else in the plaza and most of the town could certainly hear it!

Copacabana itself is something of a hippy Mecca in South America. This was illustrated by lots of young dreadlocked people wearing ponchos and ali baba pants wandering the streets in the tourist area. There were also a lot of travellers sitting on the tourist strips selling their wears. Copacabana is something of a weekend retreat so once the weekend was over most of these people disappeared.

We stayed in Las Cupala which is a hostal overlooking the bay, it has a restaurant which I have to say I was a little disappointed by. Despite the great views the food was some of the more expensive we had and was no where near the quality of some of the other restaurants on the strip.

In fact at the start we found it hard to find good places to eat and drink, until we realised that quite a few of the tourist places on the strip had the same menu. After a couple of meals we surmised they must be sharing a central kitchen as the meals we had took forever to arrive and were usually Luke warm at best (this may or may not be true but once we avoided the places with this menu the food we were eating improved no end).

The best meal we had was once again provided by the Rosario hotel chain. The presentation and taste of typical Bolivian food with a fine dining twist could not be faulted and at around 130 bolivianos per person (13 pounds) for 3 courses and a glass of Bolivian wine (surprisingly drinkable if a touch sweet) it is good value (anywhere other than Bolivia, as a meal is usually 50 bolivianos per person)
For lunch we went with a cheap option of trout by the lake. Along the "beach" there were a row of "kioscos" selling trout, we picked one based on our usual criteria, are locals eating there? do they have a free table? and were treated to a wonderful meal. For 20 bolivianos we both got a full trout and sauce freshly cooked, my fiancée went for the garlic trout which looked nice but I was sold on the trucha del Diablo (devils trout) which was topped with chilli, tomatoes and onions and tasted amazing. Both these meals came with chips and rice included in the cost, it was a shame we only found it on our last day.

One final restaurant recommendation in copacabana was La Orilla which is a small place on the main tourist strip. It is recommended by a couple of the guide books and appears to be a family run place serving something like Bolivian cowboy (similar to Mexican) cuisine. The owner served all the tables while his wife cooked and his 4 year old daughter balanced precariously on a bar stool. If you get bored of trout this is the place for you as they served an excellent chilli, nachos and other meat based dishes for around 35 bolivianos a main course.

Luckily despite the plentiful food I found lots of ways to exercise, I tried running along the side of the lake, but as it turns out it is hard work at 3850m above sea level (so I managed around 3km before my lungs felt like they were on fire), instead we walked, first around the side of the lake before later tackling the 2 steep hills at the side of the bay which give great views of the lake and Copacabana itself.

I think spending a few days here relaxing was exactly what we needed before Peru as between now and Equador we'll be in constant motion as we try and cover Machu Picchu and the kolka canyon and still get to Quito in time for our trip to the Galapagos.

Pictured below are our bus crossing the lake, trout in garlic sauce and 2 pictures of Copacabana

La Paz - the dangers of a little knowledge

If we weren't looking forward to Bolivia in general then I should probably clarify that it was La Paz in particular that was concerning us.

Having read the dire warnings in the Lonely Planet about safety and scams, and having talked with my fiancée's cousin who herself had been a robbing victim in La Paz we were more than a little concerned about the city.

We also both read Rusty Young's Marching Powder (a book about San Pedro prison in central La Paz, which I would highly recommend) on our way through Argentina, so our view of the city was slighty slanted as a den of corruption and police brutality (note to self too much info can be a dangerous thing).

Had the other half not needed to get a visa for Brazil (apparently being Australian in South American is annoying) we'd have certainly not spent the 4 days we did there. In fact we may have skipped it all together.

We didn't arrive in the best of moods, despite paying and astronomical 130 bolivianos each (13 pounds, but bear in mind the rest of our transport around bolivia was about 30 bolivianos a trip) for the bus from sucre to la paz to get a suite style seat (literally turns into a fully reclining bed) with bolivias premium bus company el dorado (the golden bus) we didn't get much sleep as the winding road meant every time I dropped off the bus changed the position i was sleeping in.

It was cold, cloudy, raining and early (6:30am) when we arrived so we weren't really in the mood for looking around we just jumped in a taxi for the hotel. We expected to be waiting around for our room but from this moment on la paz surprised us and began to change our minds about it. We were allowed to check in when we arrived (5hours early) and they even gave us a complimentary breakfast that morning !

Although basic the hotel sagannara was centrally located, had friendly staff who spoke english; pretty good Internet access, hot running water all day, cable tv including axn and a pretty comfortable bed

It also had a great view of the city out of the window. We had been so tired we hadn't really looked, but the city view took my breath away (this was a common theme as the altitude of 3800m above sea level will also do that!).

The Main Street (called various things but referred to by the locals as "El Prado") runs along the floor of the valley and streets climb off it at a dizzying rate, house cling to the steep mountainside, beautiful squares abound and the effect is stunning.

We found the people friendly and helpful, we managed to get proper coffee for the first time in a couple of weeks, with a choice of which country the beans came from! The food was also more varied, there were many options from Dumbo's (which is a Bolivian/Mexican chain fast food place), Thai restaurants a plenty (we tried one and it is certainly interesting to see other people's take on a cuisine, which I think I will cover in another blog post) to the fine dining in the Rosario hotel (the food pictured) which was incredibly good quality and put Bolivian cuisine in a fine dining environment at a fraction of what you would expect to pay in most countries.

I think this reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend after he moved into a house in East London, I was asking him if he felt safe walking home from the tube. His reply was that at first he didn't but then he stopped reading the London Metro and Evening Standard (who delight in saying everything is terrible and the city is going to hell in a hand basket) and since then, although he is still sensible and careful he's not been worried at all. I think I now agree reading too much into the dangers can really stop you from enjoying a place. Luckily La Paz is so amazing we'd forgotten most of the bad stuff we'd read almost as soon as we started walking around.

Pictures below (because the iphone blogger software won't let me put it anywhere else) are the food from the hotel Rosario, the beautiful plaza Murillo, San Pedro prison as seen from San Pedro square and the view from outside our hotel on sanganarra street.

Bolivia, Tupiza to Sucre (it's about beef)

Bolivia was probably the country I was looking forward to the least in our tour around South America. However I have to say that the 10 days I spent in the country so far have been really great despite the fact that we have stopped drinking for this part of our trip.

The people here have been much friendlier than Chile (although a pastor did spend 2 hours on a bus trip trying to convert me), the towns and cities have been a lot less run down than I expected and even the food has been much better than I imagined.

While in the country I have tried llama (very deer like, although a little on the chewy side it was very tasty) and several of the national specialities such as pincho de macho which is a pile of chips, steak, sausage, boiled eggs, tomatoes, lots of onion served in a beer based gravy and topped with cheese and jalapeño peppers and salteñas which are empanada like but with a different pastry.

Our first stop was Tupiza, where we ate like cowboys and I even went horse riding, which was fitting for a town which is heavily linked with the real Butch Cassidy and the sundance kid. The town was kind of how I imagined the Wild West to be, lots of horses and dust (as well as a load of pickup trucks). The food was mainly meat based, lots of beef, which was usually grilled on a barbecue (and which tastes excellent) with chicken and some sausage available as well. In Tupiza the steak was always excellent and cost very little, the one piece of advice I would offer is steer clear of the touristy pizza places, they are double the price of the more Bolivian restaurants. If there are no Bolivians eating in the restaurant you have chosen give it a miss!

Next stop was Potosi, which used to be a rich mining town blessed with abundant silver (apparently it bank rolled spain for 200 years!). Nowerdays the silver has dried up but the mining for other minerals continues around this growing city set 4000m above sea level. We got to Potosi just in time for Carnival in Bolivia. This entails lots of people (kids, adults, women and men) having massive water fights. Tourists are in no way exempt (in fact we found that, lugging our bags) we were good target practice. The mainly problem we had is that this far above sea level running away is difficult, and the other slight issue is that this water bombing starts at the end of January and runs through most of February.

Potosi is not really a tourist city, although there are several hostels in the centre, the main attractions are the mines, mainly to marvel at the third world conditions the people work in to this day. There is also mountain biking and horse riding but we were simply passing through and none of these really fitted our time table, so instead we looked around the old Spanish architecture in the centre and had a meal at a cafe which claimed to be 4060 metres above sea level. The food we found to be almost as good as the Bolivian was the Mexican, there were tacos, quesadillas and nachos all with a Bolivian twist, definitely preferable to the South American take on pasta which has, without fail, been served in a watery tomato sauce.

Our final stop on this leg was Sucre, this was different again from the workman like Potosi, boasting a centre full of beautiful buildings courtesy of the Spanish. Sucre was the former capital (now judicial capital) of Bolivia. It certainly had a more affluent feel in the centre with several up market shops and cafes.

To satisfy my inner science geek we went to Sucre's Dino park where we saw some dinosaur tracks dating back millions of years (not for everyone, I know), they are on a cliff face which they discovered while mining for cement.

Food wise the Belgian run cafe in the main square (whose name shamefully escapes me) was a good source of tasty nourishment and information (and wifi), perfect for a breakfast or lunch before exploring the city.

Although it was a little out of our way I have to say that sucre was well worth the trip, the only downside being the 12 hour overnight bus to La Paz (via Potosi) which followed.

Tikaykilla and the Coquimbito, Mendoza wineries

As our first stop in Argentina we settled on Mendoza, set with the spectacular backdrop of the Andes and laced with vineyards.

This is the expensive passage of our trip and accommodation in the vineyards around the city is exclusive and not cheap. We did manage to find one place in Coquimbito which was cheaper than the rest despite boasting excellent reviews on trip advisor, this was called Tikaykilla (http://www.tikaykilla.com.ar/en/index.htm). It is well located, a short taxi or bus from central Mendoza and gives you an excellent starting point if you want to explore some of Mendoza's vineyards. It also has Francesco, the owner, whose knowledge of the area and the wines as well as his happy to please attitude certainly contributed to our enjoyment of our stay in the region.

The local region around the lodge is becoming more and more geared up (excuse the pun) for cycling tours with parts of the main street boasting cycle lanes (with more being built) the police also keep a close we on the traffic so while you are cycling, even on the main roads after a vino or two, you never feel in too much danger, as, certainly towards the end of the day the drivers assume you are drunk and give you plenty of room.

The terrain is also almost completely flat so riding around is not too much of a problem even for the less physically fit of us (Although when the temperature is over 35 it does seem like hard work).

You should also note that the maps which are given out with the bike are not to scale (which we found when we tried to walk one day) and gaps between place (and the distances on signs) frequently say the same distance to your destination for kilometre after kilometre!

Bike hire was 35 pesos (5 pounds) a day and included several discounts for vineyards and restaurants as well as a (not very) stylish helmet.

As with Chile you are expected to pay to taste the produce but this is usually only 30 or 40 pesos (4 to 6 pounds) for 3 or 4 glasses of wine.

There are around 10 vineyards in the area who have tasting and tours, I will cover a few in my next couple of blogs (along with some of my favourite wines). There are also several olive oil producers (you can do a tasting there too) and a boutique brewery called 'beer garden' whose larger style beer I would definitely recommend on a hot day.

Finally it wouldn't be a food blog without mentioning the local cuisine. We had a couple of excellent meals from "casa de campo" which is a family run place near the accommodation who have a lunchtime restaurant where they serve excellent veal (pictured) and an evening restaurant where they do steak (of course) and an Argentine barbecue (meat selection or "death by meat" as it quickly became during the 5 courses of pork and beef). We also had a great beef sandwich overlooking the lake in the main park in Mendoza.

It was not all awesomeness though as my fiancée had what she described as "the worst pastas she'd ever tasted" from one roadside restaurant during our cycling tour from a restaurant which shall remain nameless.

I would definitely recommend a week or two in the area if you are fond of red wine and steak.