San Juan
no images were found
I started the year off in the Amazon in Brazil where I travelled with two Argentinian guys, two Italian guys and a Brazilian guide. We chattered non stop despite the fact I did not know Italian and only had a smattering of Brazilian Portuguese, the Italians had no english and the Argentinians had no Italian. It was great fun. I met up with the Argentinian guys a few times throughout 2011 in San Juan. Ricardo and Miguel were perfect hosts and great fun inviting me to the farmhouse (finca) with horses, chickens, ducks and many other fowl. I had a wonderful time drinking wine and riding horses and meeting their friends. What a beautiful place and what lovely friends I have made in these two. San Juan is a wine producing area of Argentina and arguably their wines are as good or better than those of Mendoza. It is a modern city as the historic centre was destroyed by an earthquake and had to be rebuilt. The scenery surrounding San Juan is beautiful with the Andes as a backdrop and lots of green and tall trees.
The wide avenues of San Juan are lined with trees, with lots of large parks. Looking from the top of the Cathedral bell tower there is a mass of green. This sunshine state grows as much if not more wine than Mendoza its more famous neighbour so vineyards flourish.
Another invitation from my friends was to come to San Juan for the festival of the sun. The high point of the festival was a gigantic evening concert given in the valley with the mountains as a backdrop. This was where the Beauty Queen of the nineteen departments of the state was chosen. The parade highlighted the beautiful girls in the running for queen and their attendants danced round them with a variety of dances including samba, rock and roll and Chacarera, a local folk dance.
The Andes surround San Juan with some of the largest mountains in the Western hemisphere. San Juan was devastated in the 1944 earthquake where most the city was destroyed and more than 10,000 inhabitants were killed. The city is very modern with street cafes lining its leafy shopping centre.
