La Cumbre

From Cordoba we fancied heading into the Central Sierras to a small town called La Cumbre. It is known as a top parasailing destination and for having a bloody lovely campsite. This sounded ideal especially as it would enable us to keep up with our increasingly chilly winter camping.

The journey took 4 hours from Cordoba. We went through a number of small towns on the way and I took this nice pic from the bus window while Clairy was comatosed next to me.


After nipping into the nice and toasty tourist information office (they had a couple of chunky electric heaters pumping out the warmth) they advised us where the campsite was and that it would be bloody chilly. Being super hardcore we ignored their warnings and stomped off across town to the site, only stopping to grab a few supplies. It was a good 30min walk.

The campsite was great, although the piccies in the tourist info were definitely taken in summer when we would hope the pool would have been given a good going over. It was proper rancid, absolutely teeming with mosquito lavae. Here's me about to dive in. No not really.


The campsite was fairly large and was surrounded by lots of trees and chunky rocks. Here's a pic of the back of the toilet block where on our first morning a chap came and spent a good couple of hours getting a massive fire lit to heat the water for our showers! It was quite mental.


After this we got to know the owner of the campsite, a nice Argentine called Martin, who insisted we came into his house instead to use the shower. Clair was rather nervous about this but it turned out to be fine. He had the place to himself as his wife and child spent the week in Cordoba and just came and joined him on the weekends. It was a nice simple little farm house. It was at this point that we realised that we were definitely the only people staying at the campsite. There was one other tent pitched, but we figured that was probably a lure, just to make you think you weren't the only people there!

Here I am heading back from the shower. It was a nice and toasty, but was pretty chilly outside.


There was this beauitful ancient old truck right behind our tent. Vroom-vroom.


There's our Clairy and our fabulous little tent.


Clair had a wander round and found this super cute little childs table and chair abandoned on the site. They came and lived with us for the length of our stay.


Here's me making another of the endless supply of hot beverages. I get a bit OCD about it as soon as the tent is set up. Its absolutely bloody freezing as well. Clairy doesn't tend to thank me after she's had to get up for the fourth wee of the night. 'But surely that divine hot choccy was worth it' I cry.


The next day we went for a wander round town. Here's the plaza. Sure it would look a lot prettier in the summer what with a bit of sun and maybe some rain to green things up a bit.


Oooh a nice bit of colour. Quince flowers apparently, Clairy loves them.


And a lovely crisp pic of some rose-hips. Clair was endlessly facinated by the strangeness of the seasons. It was the middle of winter when it should be summer, but there was no rain, and rose-hips. Go figure.


We also encountered this monstrosity on our walk round town. It genuinely looked like it was still in use. Amazingly, attached to the other side were a number of containers for topping up the bike with all the things it requires to still function with multiple leakages. I never thought I would say it, but god bless the MOT.


This little shoppy was run by a totally lovely Argentine-Italian lady who made outrageously gorgeous stuffed pastas and sauces. She also sold beautiful (hopefully) free range eggs which we ate a fair few off in our egg sarnie breakfast ritual. She was super cheerful and chatted to us about how great the town was, it being full of arty types. She also let us know about the jazz festival that sadly we wouldn't be around for in a couple of weeks time.


As we were leaving she popped some free pasta francas in our bag and let us know that what they were. Apparently you deep fry them (they're like a soft pasta-y disc thing about a quarter of an inch thick and a couple of inches in diametre) and eat them freshly cooked with maté. Obviously we didn't have any maté, but I wasn't going to let a camping/deep frying opportunity pass me by. I cooked up some oil on the stove trying to not listen to Clairy's advice to avoid 1st-degree burns by throwing myself in the mozzy infested swimming pool if I had a bit of a mishap.

They were bloody gorgeous mind. The first one went a bit wrong as I couldn't tell quite how hot the oil was at night with just my head torch and the first one went fizzed like crazy and went black immediately. I let the oil cool for a bit and then chucked the next one in and it crisped up a treat. It looked like some kind of deep fried mini pancake...but with soft pasta-y stuff inside. Bloody lush. It did give me intense heartburn after all the red wine we had drunk that night (nothing to do with me eating about eight of them), but it was still definitely worth it.

Here's me trying to encourage Clairy to eat one. She had a nibble and said they were horrible.


Back at the campsite we got quite intimately aquainted with Martin's doggies. He had three of them. This one was the most super firnedly. She spent a lot of time seeking our attention. One morning I got up early to make the tea and she was hopping around looking like one front leg was really sore. I beckoned her over and she quietly placed the poor paw on my lap for an examination. I couldn't find anything wrong with it, but gave her some loving anyway, and she promptly trotted off with all legs working again...the cheeky bugger. And not only that she repeated exactly the same trick with Clair. What a sly little thing.


Looking towards the swimming pool, we kept seeing these large yellow and white striped headed birdies. They skimmed across the pool scooping up the lavae for tasty treats. Not sure what they were, maybe some kind of kingfisher?


On our last day we agreed to do a 3 hour horseride with Martin up into the Sierra's. His horses were by far the most healthy cheerful looking beasts we had come across on all our travels. I think there is a definite Argentine pride taken in one's horses. This is the beautiful beast that he was going to ride.


And here Martin is with mine on the right and Clairy's on the left. We all had different saddles. I had the Chilean variety with a small bit of leather covering a sheepskin, Clair had the Mexican variety, which unfortunately turned out to be a bit rubbish and meant she kept sliding forward virtually onto the horses head. Martin assured her that it was just the saddle and apologised for it, but she still managed to enjoy herself and it didn't ever feel like she was going to come off. The other two of Martins dogs accompanied us on the ride and absolutely loved tearing about around the horses.


All our horses would cheerfully munch on whenever they got the chance and Martin said it was fine to let them get on with it. They were much more responsive than any of the other horses we had been on though and did exactly what we asked of them.


Looking back toward La Cumbre as we rode up to the Sierras.


The town is looked over by a shiny white Jesus.


Oh hi!


The scenery got more rugged as we went up following tiny trails which the doggies and horses seemed well aquainted with.













Once we reached a certain altitude the large trees and bushes gave way to a much more baron landscape. It really did look super dry and empty. It stretched on for miles around us. There were just a few sheeps around to say hello with teady bear faces.


The doogies loved it though. The sandy coloured one was great at hunting out the small duck like birds that hide in the grass and would fly off with really loud clattering wings. The black and white one on the other hand kept on accidently bumping into them and scaring itself silly.






Chatting away to Martin. Although he didn't speak a whole heap of English, we managed to have some interesting conversations. He was born on a farm in the town nearby and worked at the campsite before buying it off its previous owners. The campsite had a glowing review in the lonely planet and we wondered if that might have been the previous owners, but its hard to say as it would look so different in summer, and he might well do a lot of cleaning and tidying up by then.


'Yeah, keep up Clairy'


'I'm on a horsey'


It was pretty chilly as we got up high and we both cursed thinking we wouldn't want our windproof outer-coats.


Doogie heaven.






'I'm on a horsey too, but you can't tell'








There were some beasty birds of prey in the air, but they were a bit far away to get a decent shot.




This one was checking us out from a rock before the doogies spotted it and chased it off.


Well camouflaged doogie.






It was a nice long ride, and as the saddle and stirrups were well adjusted to our heights we found we were able to stay comfy in the saddle for the whole time. Here we're headed back down the hills to La Cumbre.


Me racing on ahead. As soon as our horsies realised we were on the way home they really picked up the pace. There were a couple of times when they reached well known shortcuts and they really wanted to go that way instead, but being well behaved beasties they eventually did go the way they were supposed to.






The town coming into view.




After the ride, our final night got very very cold. The temperature dropped to around zero, and we were a bit worried as to how it would work out. We decided to go into town and had a few stiff drinks and on our return to the site, Martin appeared with a massive arm full of blankets. He also said we were welcome to come and stay inside in the two spare beds as it was far too cold to be outside camping. In the end with the warming effect of the alcohol and the blankets we slept soundly.

The next morning we had to get back to Cordoba to catch an evening overnight bus to Mendoza. We packed our stuff up with our usual super efficiency and headed off back into town to catch the bus. The doogies came out to say goodbye.


We also bumped into Martin on his horse in town on the way to the bus and he seemed genuinely sad to see us go. I said that we really hoped that we would be able to come back some time, and it would definitely be in the summer.