There’s rarely a kitchen without it! Olive Oil. Great to cook with, great for your skin, really good for your hair and I’m surprised Cleopatra didn’t have a bath in it! A few months ago I was in Mendoza, Argentina sampling their greatest produce across several vineyards when I was given the chance to go and visit a local olive oil producer. Now most of us attribute olive oil to the Mediterranean without a second thought to the possibility that all the way on the other side of the world there is a place producing some very high quality oil! After all, a place that’s good to grow wine, has the weather to grow olives! Whilst my visit to the factory, a small producer in the foothills of the Andes, was during off-production period, it was fascinating to see, nonetheless, how the worlds most popular oil is produced.
Origins: Olive Oil
Patagonian Feasting: El Calafate, Argentina
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Leaving the lush green, red and orange autumnal colours of Ushuaia, a short journey on the other side of the mountains revealed a Patagonian landscape completely opposite to one I’d just left behind. Here there were no tall trees or hills covered in greenery, but a barren landscape only dotted by a few shrubs and the native calafate bush, which lends its name to the town of El Calafate.
Patagonian eating: Ushuaia, Argentina
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Having boarded an Aerolineas flight at Buenos Aires and settled into my seat with Bill Bryson’s At Home, a remarkable and extremely humorous piece of work, as all of his other opus’ on life and beyond, I couldn’t help but wonder what was lying at the end of a three and half hour flight, a place fondly known as The End of the Earth. Naturally, there was an unbearable excitement, especially as the plane on its descent took a turn and out of the window was the curved corner of Argentinas southern coast, the piece of land closest to Antarctica, truly at the end of the earth. Patagonia,
Restaurant Aqva: Iguazu Falls, Argentina
Mother Nature is truly a surreal and magical force. One only needs to step into one’s own backyard at times to marvel at its power and, sometimes, a little travelling further afield brings us face to face with her magnanimity and blessing. We’ve paid a little homage and listed the 7 natural wonders of the world, but even that is a startling minimalistic approach to what is actually out there in the world. Luckily mans hubris to rule everything by simple quantifications hasn’t breached nature’s bounty to ruin just yet and we’ve also realised that it’s simply not enough having 7 natural wonders, but 7 natural wonders in each continent. Topping the charts at number 1 in South America, with millions of litres of water crashing and thundering through the Argentinian and Brazilian border over 270 cascades are the Iguazu falls. Some of us have probably seen this landscape in the film, The Mission, starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, but that too, only makes use of 2 cascades. It truly is an overwhelming and humbling experience. Whilst the food offerings at Iguazu are the Argentine staples of meat and more meat, things could be much much worse and one still manages to feast on ample beef and quaff copious amounts of Malbec, but what does stand out is a restaurant called Aqva, one that I’m thankful to my guide for recommending.
