Viaje al Noroeste

Lots of news. This one includes llamas and sheep and rainforests, so you don’t want to miss it.

Yes, last week we went to the Northeast. Google Salta, Tucuman, and Tafi de Valle if you wish. We left school at 9pm and traveled all night. We stopped at a gas station for dinner for 45 minutes. Meals here are never “grab and go,” even at gas stations. Afterwards, I managed to sleep off and on a little bit for 5 hours until we stopped to eat pastries and coffee on the bus near our destination at 7:00. I had been up for about an hour watching our bus weave around these hairpin turns going up the mountains. It was still dark but still incredible to watch. When we stopped, the sun was just beginning to come up and we were in front of a lake, with a little town twinkling on the other side. After stretching, admiring the view, and eating, we boarded the bus again and headed to a little town to go trekking! We spent the rest of the morning walking up this little mountain range thing, where we saw wild horses also climbing and had a view of the whole town. I decided on the location of my future home, where I’ll live with my horses while serving at a local little restaurant.

Lunch was at the bottom of the mountain in a hostel. So, when in the mountains of Argentina, you might expect indigenous-themed décor, or maybe cowboy-esque motifs. Something of this sort, right? Wrong. This hostel boasted drawings of Che and tie-dye. On the ceiling someone had painted “ONE LOVE,” and they played Bob Marley and other reggae the entire time that we were there. We ate empanadas and stew with flan for desert. Reluctantly, we had to reboard the bus to head to our own hostel in another town.

We stayed in a much more “typical Argentine” hostel. Firstly, the town was tiny. The hostel was situated on one of the sides of the plaza, which contained just about all that the town had to offer, other than the Museum of Pachimama. The hostel was fine—really nothing to report there, but the museum was interesting. Outside, there were all these architectural artifacts and inside was mostly indigenous paintings and information. The tour guide spoke very few words, quickly, and with a clipped accent. I understood next to nothing, but I’m pretty sure that the Cordobeses didn’t either. That night we ate dinner at the same restaurant that we would eat at for the rest of the weekend, save one meal. It was near the hostel, and we were served locra. Locra- n.­- stew-like substance unique to rural Argentina consisting of corn, steak, potatoes, and 20 additional undistinguishable ingredients. This was the same stuff they served at Borratarán. So, it wasn’t that bad, but I couldn’t eat more than half of it. This stuff is made to fuel the back-roads workers and cowboys. “Corn fed” finally hits home—did someone say Nebraska?

Anyway, we were all exhausted and ready to sleep after our 2-hour meal. So I slept, fitfully, and woke up to board the bus once again. This time, we were headed for a winery! This place was really cool. The weather here is so perfect for wine production that the roads were lined for miles and miles with grape trees and bodegas, or production centers. We stopped at a very large one and got a tour concluding in a tasting. They produce this amazing sweet white wine that we all went ga-ga for.

From the bodega we went to the town of Salta for lunch and a visit. This place was awesome. Apparently that night was a local carnaval or festival, so there were a lot of people milling around all day. While sitting outside at a restaurant for lunch, much happened. First, across the street a truck pulled up, behind which they began unloading raw cow carcasses in front of a butcher shop. I didn’t eat my empanadas. Seriously, this was disgusting for me. One man would unload and another would sling this very fresh slab of cow back over his shoulder into the store. No one around was phased. I felt sick for the rest of the day. Secondly, on a lighter note, there was a very dark-skinned man out front on the patio playing this drum-like instrument. He was very good and the sound was almost Caribbean. Also notable, as we were eating, a handful of local venders came up to us with their products. One was selling coca leaves, like the same ones from which you make cocaine. This is the common remedy for altitude sickness—in the Andes, hikers carry it. You chew the leaves and swallow the saliva from it (SKOAL ring ring a bell?). The effect is similar to mate- it’s a stimulant. I didn’t try it.

But, after lunch, I did try a three-person bicycle! This was by-far the most amusing thing I have done in Argentina. My friend KC and I made our friend Juan drive, and as 30 min only cost 4 pesos (US $1.33) for all three of us, the bike was clearly a piece of shit. KC’s handle bars didn’t work, so she held onto me the whole time, and after a while we realized that the brakes were also broken. Thus, Juan would yell “PARE! PARE!” to stop, and the two of us would put our feet on the ground, puttering to an eventual stop. KC’s feet didn’t reach the ground, so she had to simply stop pedaling. We ran into a car once. Remember when I said there were a lot of people milling around? This was a problem when trying to navigate a three-seater through the streets. The whole endeavor was a catastrophe, but we all agree that it was well-worth the 4 pesos for the photos. The rest of the day was anti-climatic, save for one episode on the bus, which I describe later.

I bought a dulce de leche ice cream and then we headed back to the bus for the afternoon trip to the mountains. Different mountains this time. Rock formations and the Cerros de siete colores (hills of seven colors). We went via bus and made 5 stops to get out, walk around, explore, etc. The views were awesome, but all I can say is to look at the photos, because there’s not much to tell outside of them. Our tour guide did sing in this native style that is just amazing—I’ll try to upload a video.

We dropped the tour guide back off in Salta, and as we were on the bus, encountered a group of young drunk boys. It started off with some innocent heckling, but then this one guy—he couldn’t have been older than 14—started chasing our bus and dancing. At one point when we were stopped, he actually CLIMBED onto a parked truck next to our bus and pointed at one of the girls (Jessica Gentry!), for which she screamed and ran to the other side of the bus. It was hilarious, but maybe you had to be there.

One the way home, KC and I rocked out to old American songs, which amused pretty much the whole back half of the bus. That night we ate another stew at the restaurant near our hostel. Stew and bread and mayonnaise, siempre. I stayed up that night and taught the Argentine boys Bullshit Pyramid. One was very excited because he had seen the game Bullshit in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. That amused me. I was ready to go to sleep at 2, but two of the boys went to this local boliche, reporting the next day that they were offering a free beer to anyone who danced with one of the prostitutes in the middle of the floor… with adam’s apples. Apparently when walking home one of the boys (from Morrocco) got hissed at by prostitutes on the side of the road. Who knew?!

Sunday was another long day. We spent the morning at the Ruins of Quilmes- google the story of the Quilmes tribe—it’s really pretty fascinating. These people fought off the Spanish for 130 years. They lived in little houses built into the ground so that only about a meter was above ground. When they were finally defeated, the Spanish set to moving and separating them to different locations throughout Argentina. They took 2,000 on a path to Buenos Aires. 400 made it there, and most of them were then killed off by European disease once they got to Bs As. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and passionate about teaching the right education about these tribes. He said that he went to school 20 km from the ruins, and he didn’t learn the real story of the Quilmes. I was enlightened, I must say. Not to mention, there were tons of cactus. (the word is the same in Spanish and very fun to say!)

That afternoon, after ravioli at the same restaurant as before (yum!), we departed the NE. The ride home was absolutely amazing. That morning we had traveled through the winery country to get to the ruins in the desert, then continued to “normal mountains” (grassy). Well, that afternoon we went back through a forest. I’m not sure if it’s considered a “rain” or “tropical” forest, but it has the most trees of any forest in Arg, and it was spectacular. There was a river running at the bottom of the mountains, and I was just waiting for a monkey to jump out and mount our bus. We made hairpin turns all the way down the mountain, and at one point our bus had to stop (in traffic) and reverse, because it couldn’t make it around a turn. We were fearful.

Eventually, the land flattened out and we were in the “campo” for the rest of the journey. Here, at about 8pm, is where our bus broke down. We pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, for 3 hours. Something got clogged somewhere in the engine, and we had to wait for a tool to clean it. There was a big puddle of gas or water or something under the bus at the back, and our chauffer thought it was funny to smoke a round of cigarettes directly over it. All of the girls who know nothing about automobiles were scared. (I am one of them.) Thus, we eventually made it home at 4 in the morning. Some people had class in the morning, but I didn’t have one until 2, so I was able to sleep some.

Since then (last Sunday—it is now Saturday), classes have started. “CRI” (Center for International Relations) classes that is. Our “UBP” (Argentine—university—classes) start this Monday. I really like a couple of them, but this one class is insane. It is called “Culture through Artistic Manifestations.” So I think that I would like my teacher as a person, but she talks sooo fast, and to the wall. She just puts up these slides of architecture and in rapid-fire Spanish spits out facts. We have a notebook that corresponds to her lectures, but she covered 60 pages of it the other day in an hour and a half! All of us just look at each other as if to say “did you get that? Nope? Good, me neither.” That class should be interesting. On the other hand, my film class is 3.5 hours long on Fridays only, and the professor speaks really slow, stopping the film every few minutes to ask if there was a word we didn’t understand. But I really like that class- we watched Motorcycle Diaries the other day. If you haven’t seen it, rent it!

I also had horseback riding yesterday in the morning. I thought I miiight die. I had to gallop, but I had no idea what I was doing, and my horse this week was crazy. If you barely touch him, he starts flying!! I would get really scared and try to stop him but he would just slow to a trot, at which point I would get flung to the front of the saddle and almost fall over the front of the horse. I’m exaggerating, of course, but regardless, it was scary. Next time, in two weeks, we finally go into the mountains, as long as the river goes down a bit more (we have to cross a river on horseback!!)

Last note—I went to a bar last night for a concert. The band is comprised of high-school age boys and made me reminiscent of those little high school bands we had in Va. But what really got me was that these boys played…. Red Hot Chili Peppers, among other American music. It was incredible. All of the Argentines in the bar (I didn’t go with any other international kids) were singing along with the wrong lyrics!!! It was so funny for me.

So, I haven’t heard from many of yall lately, so if anyone is reading this, and you are my friend, EMAIL me! I don’t get online all that much, but I love getting email updates from home, so let me know what everyone’s up to. I miss and love yall! BESOS!