Morning in TDV was cold and clear.
After breakfast we raided the high street for as much meat as the beleaguered Carnicare could provide, sparking a run on the local meat market.
We struggled back to the truck under the weight of various Lomo, Vasilo and Chorizo cuts of beef. Ivan recommended not less than 800g of meat to do the evening’s planned barbeque justice.
Enough meat made it back to the truck that Cameron had to tow a freezer wagon to make way for the Frankenstein of animal parts that we had accumulated. An unlucky lightning strike on the road to Cafayete would have resurrected an infernal beast - part cow, part pig – to roam the landscape searching for its creator.
After lunch and 300kms we had left the cold weather behind us and arrived in a temperate wine growing region of which Cafayete was the regional centre.
As the kilometres passed the layers came off until the back of the truck looked like a Chinese laundry.
The vines appeared suddenly.
After miles of featureless scrub and dry savannah, a field appeared and in it were rows and rows of neatly ordered vines, bare and fruitless in the depths of the Argentinian winter that was currently a balmy, bright and sunny 25c.
Time was pressing and the Nini Winery was threatening to start its final wine tasting of the day without us. Dave pushed the needle to the red line.
As we screeched to a halt in a cloud of tyre smoke, twenty thirsty people jumped down from the truck and laced up their drinking shoes as they ran to the entrance. After conceding that the two things cannot be done simultaneously, the pile of twisted limbs was hurriedly untangled and we queued in a disorderly fashion for the ten pesos ticket.
There was none of Kevin's cheese this time but it didn’t matter as Nini’s improbably busty guide provided a perfunctory tour of the production vats and cellars followed by the nod that permitted us to dive headlong and fully clothed into the tasting pool - sorry, session.
Merlot followed Cab Sav and local desert wines rounded it all off.
Tour over and tongues slightly thickened, the more desperate scoured the town for the free tour up the road while the pyromaniacs amongst us took Cameron to the Cafayete municipal campsite and set about lighting a fire that would feature more steaks than Dracula’s bad dream.
The wood was unloaded from the truck’s back cage and the camp site scoured for kindling. The fire was built and only awaited a flame as we turned the truck upside down to find the elusive smoker’s lighter that we had been relying on to light the canteen every day for the last two weeks.
It was nowhere to be seen.
Dave rubbed some rocks together but failed to raise a spark.
Bert, a fireman who should have known better, doused his shoes in petrol but failed to focus the sun's dying rays sufficiently through Vanessa's glasses to raise a flame.
Ivan constructed an elaborate bow and sharpened a kindling stick but only succeeded in trying himself in knots that Dave had to cut him out of.
Sharif whacked his head repeatedly on the ground but no one really knew whether this was to start a fire or just for kicks.
Eventually the lighter appeared from an anonymous pocket and the conflagration was unleashed. The only problem was that we needed embers to cook on and the fire was hours away from providing them. Patiently we fanned and stoked the flames with a piece of pipe work that Dave wrenched out of the engine and slowly but surely the raging flames died and the true heat of the coals started to burn through – which is when we discovered our second problem.
We had burnt so much wood that the embers were too hot to get close to.
Ivan waved at the pyre with a shovel which promptly melted, leaving him with a smoking handle and no eyebrows. The trees around the campsite began to wilt. The sky was dark with smoke and Bert shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as the local fire brigade turned up, threw their hands up in disgust and left again, shouting something about water not being enough.
Eventually at 10pm, five hours after the first flame was applied to the wood pile, we were able to get close enough to scrape off some embers and load Frank, piece by piece, onto the grille.
The first steaks vaporised instantly but with a little patience and after lifting the grille several metres above the heat, we found a happy medium that enabled the meat to be grilled with tent poles by Nic and Elliott, standing on Cameron's roof.
The sausages came and went followed by the Lomo and Vasilo cuts but, resisting all attempts to cook it, was the Chorizo. Closer to a joint of beef for twenty than a meal for three, Ivan, Dave and Alex wrestled the carcass onto the grill and subjected it to temperatures greater than the surface of the sun, but to no appreciable effect. Eventually accepting defeat, they took to shaving the surface layers off and ate these while the interior felt its first whiff of flame.
By 3am with the heat finally receding, they had carved the mountain of meat down to a respectable hillock. They patted their protruding stomachs and crawled off to sleep off the experiment while the remainder was bagged for the next day’s lunch for us - and the whole population of Cafayete.
The dogs that had waited patiently were rewarded with the biggest slabs of beef they had ever seen. They wolfed it down and three choked. Only the quick thinking Leon who had already performed the Heimlich manoeuvre twice on Dave, saved them and they limped off into the gloom, bested by the remnants that the men had left behind.
Somewhere in the darkness, the God of Cows took bitter note and planned a grim revenge.
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