When we poked around Buenos Aires earlier this year, our food quests were focused not only on understanding Argentine cuisine but also seeking out various ethnic cuisines that we hadn't encountered much while traveling the Andes and Paraguay. A couple of times a week, we’d head out with a restaurant recommendation, a gigantic map of the city, and scribbled notes as to our bus route.
We often got lost. We always ate. And we discovered something.
Some places are best suited to road trips. They speak: move at your own pace, get lost, stop off in small towns, have the flexibility to enjoy whatever experiences might come your way.
The area around Salta and Jujuy in northwest Argentina is one such chunk of perfect road trip territory. Listen and watch the audio slideshow below to find out why.
I recently shared our stories of Chandigarh with a group of new friends over a beer and was shocked to find someone who not only knew of Chandigarh but also asked me what I thought about the “Rock Garden.”
As cool as the Nek Chand Rock Garden is, the story of its construction and evolution in the unlikely city of Chandigarh is even cooler.
In a future incarnation, we will run world tours that seek to deliver extraordinary travel experiences through encounters with ordinary people. And when we do, a road trip in Northwest Argentina will be one of our first stops in South America.
After stumbling upon a dazzling gaucho festival on the first day of a week-long road trip, we figured our travel karma would have run out. Instead, our journey across the valleys outside of Salta featured interactions with engaging people open to odd encounters.
Here's a taste.
The key to eating grilled mutton is to chew and swallow it before the fat cools and congeals on the roof of your mouth.
— Our guerrilla eating tip for Central Asia
“You guys seem to have only good things to say about your experiences, especially the food. Have you ever had a bad meal? Something disappointing, gross, or even repulsive?”
You bet.
We don't know about you, but when we think Malaysia we think street food. And hawker centers (awful name, but that's what they're called) are where the action is for street food fanatics like us.
As our rental car began to drift atop a layer of windblown sand, I grabbed hold, down-shifted and noticed the hills around me were swirled in a peppermint twist. All those Ruta 40 signs in Argentina finally delivered on an implied promise: you’ll be impressed, and what once captured your imagination will now claim your full attention.
But it wasn’t the fabled Route 40 of Patagonia that would provide the exclamation point on our time in Argentina. It was a week-long road trip across the quebradas of Northwest Argentina, where chilies dry in the midday sun, llama comes served with wine pressed just down the road, and gauchos hold harvest festivals in the hills.
So we've been running all over creation for the last three and half years and living abroad for almost ten. In May, before visiting the United States we told people we were “coming home for a visit.” More recently, we found that Central Europe (Prague, by way of Vienna and Bratislava) still feels like home.
Why is it that so many people reserve their curiosity for new and enlightening experiences on the road while they take for granted similar opportunities just because they happen at home?
