Rodeo & Barreal

Rodeo was cool for a few days; super nice Argentines at the hostel who sorted us out with food and an asado, cool cat called Maui and a couple of sessions on the reservoir. Ok so the sessions were short, there was only an hour or so between no wind and 40 knots, but we both managed to get out blasting across the turquoise water. If only we had something smaller than a 9 metre! Rest of the time we spent sunbathing, listening to some tunes at the little bar and watching the awesome windsurfers.

From Rodeo we struck out for Barreal (for the second time). We seemed to be lucky with the weather as the day we left it was raining lots. The drive down through the mountains and then up the Calingasta valley was impressive with the greeney blue river, and orange canyon. When we got to Barreal it took a while for us to find the hotel. We checked in and had a good lunch of fine wine, fiambres and salad.

After a night of mosquito killing we headed out to the mudflat and parque Leoncito. The place was huge and windy and empty. Determined to get good photos for an article we set about blowing up the 9m Instinct light. Without a pump this was a bit difficult but we got there in the end and managed to get some cool photos with the Andes in the background. We were both gutted we didnt have a board, or even a buggy would have been great. Steve then tried some speed runs in the car to see just how big it really was.

In the afternoon we went up to the observatory in the national parque and tried to spot some pumas in the undergrowth. The leaflet we got when we went in said if we did encounter one out walking, we shouldnt run but should wave our arms above our heads, unfortunately we didnt see any.

From Barreal we went back to San Juan and dropped off the car, we had one night there then a whole day to kill until we got the bus to Cordoba.