The Adventures of the Morrisons

A large part of the trip for us was the opportunity to catch some of South America's finest sporting action. Today was the start of the Argentine football season and we were not going to miss out again!! Ali and I made the 2 hour journey up to San Juan with Dave and Ger. The game was San Martin vs Argentina Juniors. It was a top division clash but hardly one of titans given their respective recent league positions. Oddly the Argentine league has a 4 year average on which promotion and relegation is based upon which in turn means that the top teams never enter the problm area.

We got ourselves into a hostel and thankfully, as previously organised, the owner picked us up 4 tickets for the match. A quick trip into town for a pre match pint and some food and we were set. The ground wasn't far away now. We got there an hour before kick off and the heat was blasting down on us. The police kindly directed us to some stalls where we kitted ourselves out with some tops for the home team. As it turns out 2007 was San Martin's centenery year so we got some nice jersey's which helped us fit in the patriotic crowd.

The game itself was superb. Quite how they play in the heat is still beyond me although they do break up now and again for water. AJ's started the game brighter and went close a few times much to the amusement of the crowd. The game was fast and furious and after about 35 minutes AJ's had a man sent off for his second bookable offence. He tried a "hand of god". Brilliant, just the sort of thing we had come to see. The theatrics were marvellous, and the challanges sometimes very hard. At one point a man went down and the goalie just yanked him back up by his long hair. Soon after the same keeper had a look over at the ref and noted he wasn't watching so landed a massive stamp on a player down injurred. All part and parcel of the game here it seems. San Martin managed to work themselves into the game well and early in the 2nd half they took a deserved lead. The wingers were causing havoc for AJ's defence and now they were down to 10 men they were struggling a little. It was hardly a surprise then when San Martin went 2 up and only an offside decision stopped them getting the 3-0 route I had predicted. All in a great game aided by the crowd antics. Pre match march in of the hard core supporter's to drums, fireworks, smoke (to match team strips), and of course the firemen at half time blasting the crowd with water cannon's. It was more than welcome in the heat and it was brilliant to see the kids enjoying it.

Come Monday we were still not satisfied with our wine tasting to date so we found an interesting local producer of Argentine "champagne". They used a local mountain to store all their produce. The reason being the perfect temperature inside the hollowed out area. Apparently it took 1,500 men to mine the area required but this was some years ago. Unfortunately my Spanish isn't good enough to pick up all the info!! I did pick up the fact that they produce around 70,000 bottles a year and the machinery was all circa 100 years old but still, surprisingly, working perfectly. Funnily enough I can also confirm it tastes pretty decent for the relative cost. Of course I had to buy some to double check the samples.

Next up was organising a 2 day trip to the area around San Juan .........