19/2 – Bye Bye Albuquerque – Hello Jackson!

Time flies when having fun and if also being busy at the same time it not only flies but rockets past. Two weeks of loading the brain with drilling theory in Albuquerque came to an end in no time. 

On my way to the airport, I made a last pit stop in Old Town, just to make sure I had actually filled my monthly quota of shops with souvenirs and handmade thingies. Old Town is the number one tourist trap in Albuquerque, but as one of the locals stated – a nice trap to be caught in. The same instant you’ve made a left hand turn at the traffic light from the main road running through that part of town, it’s like you’ve also made a left hand turn back in time, back to cowboy time and land. Only thing reminding you of the present year would be the gigantic pick-ups and flash cars. Hilux has gotten a competitor on my favourite list by the way. The Toyota Tundra might be slightly more attractive in my eyes. However, they do look suspiciously similar, so might just be a name change sales trick for the American market. Back to the time travelling again… 

The old Route 66 town has got picturesque front porches, verandas and signs swinging in the wind everywhere you look. Small cafés, a pretty church at the main square, bead shops, Peruvian and Ecuadorian specialities, native American handcraft and jewellery boutiques, rattlesnake museum and New Mexican chile shops on every corner. And yes, it’s called chile in this end of the world. Green or red style and the main ingredient of the local kitchen, makes some amazing salsas. You can also find the fairly cool Vintage Cowgirl shop. After being even more indoctrinated with cowboy hats and buckle belts since the transfer in Salt Lake City, I had to have a look. No hats in there, but boots. Proper cowgirl boots with decorative stiches and patterns, just standing on the shelves waiting to be used in Copenhagen in a few months. Eventually managed to control myself and left with the same amount of money as when I entered the store.

Talking about boots, uneducated me thought boots were made of cows, oh sorry, I mean bull hide, or possibly of snakes, alligators or other semi extinct reptiles for the special occasions. But man, I’ve got things to learn about boots. During the ten days of lectures, our Louisianan instructor made sure to display about half of his boots collection. Not only including the standard bull hide and reptile ones, but also the ostrich leg ones, ostrich body ones, the authentic colour elephant ones, the dyed elephant ones and as a Friday treat, the stingray ones. Not really politically correct to make boots out of some of these animals in my opinion, but have to admit that the stingray ones looked pretty cool with their black, glistering texture. And supposedly they’re very good for wet weather.

While walking back to the car after having had the best club sandwich ever for lunch, I realised my eyes were stinging. Strange. Ok, a little bit tired from the Malbec and GTs last night perhaps, and yes, I should have brought my sunnies, but it shouldn’t sting this bad. Almost felt like someone had thrown sand in my eyes. A few second later I had connected the dots, windy weather in a city in the middle of the desert, what would that give you? Sand in the wind of course. Finished the workweeks off in sand storm and started the holiday week in a snow one - nice.

16/11 - Marvellous Mendoza and Home of the Hilux.

Not only have I spent a couple of days in paradise, and been having some of the best wines and meat ever, lately. I’ve also been in Hilux heaven. Everywhere I turned, there was a version of the amazing vehicle. It already started at the airport on Friday, when Juan walked straight towards the dusty, black Hilux with my two bags in his hands. I instantly knew it was going to be a good weekend and we weren’t even out of the parking lot yet.

About an hour and a half later, we opened the gate to the ranch at the bottom of the hill, engaged the 4WD and made the last bit up to Rancho E’Cuero. And what a place – two days of being spoiled with food, wine, hiking, and horseback riding, surrounded by amazing nature. I could easily have stayed up there for a month or five.

The standards were set at the top right away with a proper Asado for Friday lunch, where Pedro was in charge of the bbq, and some beautiful wines in the sun on the back deck. The hours, where a wine glass was not attached to my hand during the following 36 hours, were spent on horse trekking and hiking. From the back of my black beauty Fernet, who definitely knew a lot more about where we were going than I did, I enjoyed walking along on mountain ridges and through gorges with absolutely stunning views. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t classify myself as a confident gaucho enough, to swing my new camera around every time a photo opportunity was in view, but a couple of pictures made it through the lens. While still sober, and before the first glass of Malbec for the day made it into the system, my lungs got to experience the high altitude during a Saturday morning hike. Again, the impressive scenery never ended and while trying to keep a steady breathing and heart rate through valleys and up the hills, we spotted the odd condor in the distance and some red deer being on a close lookout.All in all, it was a weekend in paradise, for all senses, where everything was beautiful, delicious and relaxing. Not to mention the quiet, dark nights with all the stars.

Perhaps Tupungato and Mendoza is the place for me?

27/4 – Rio Driving #5 – I want a Hilux.

Kitesurfing on Sunday afternoons in Arubinha can be just great. Mainly depending on the wind of course, but also since there’s normally not that many people there as on Saturdays. And why aren’t they there? Traffic! The way back to Rio on Sunday nights could take anything from the optimistic 2.5 hrs to 5, 6 or even 7 hrs. A while back, it could have taken longer than ever, if it wasn’t for the creative, Schumacher wannabe driver behind the wheel. Thanks to him, who’d been guiding us along the narrow roads through the country side at speeds close to the one of light most of the day, we were moving a lot quicker than most of the other people on their way back to Rio - on the shoulder. Don’t ask me what traffic regulations in Brazil say…I don’t know, but can of course assume.
We thought we were doing quite well out on the shoulder, passing one car after another, until we were stuck in a que on the shoulder as well. Too many creative drivers out apparently. The three-lane motorway had turned into a four-lane que-way. Oh sorry, a five-lane way as a white Hilux (Here the very nice car appears again, and no, I’m not getting paid to say this so Skatteverket bring it on.) suddenly passed us on our right hand side…in the ditch. Pays off to have a 4WD every now and then.