I am back from a wonderful trip to Argentina. A re-cap of our travels: from Buenos Aires we flew northwest to Salta, capital of the province Salta. I'm just guessing. We landed in a beautiful lush valley right around dusk. The cab ride was something like 20 minutes or so into the city. It was kind of a typical colonial city for the region, although bigger than most. It had its jems... like the gondola and the dulce de leche. Our first night we stayed in a hostel type deal run by a couple old ladies who talked incessantly outside our door. This place had musty sheets and some mysterious flying cockroach that we could never find... It was late and dark and our bags were heavy (our 1 bag w/ all our things that I was carrying...). So I convinced Lauren that if she only just fell asleep, she would smell daffodils and ride unicorns and the flying roach would be like a dream roach, one with feathers, stuffed with cotton, and dropping chocolate chips from its wings. So we left as soon as we woke up to find a friendlier room. Which we did. Across from a park and cafe con leche in the morning. That place was sweet, except for my all too common traveler's incident. Lauren was sort of insistent I not burp or fart around her since we've only known each other for 9 months and farting in the presence of another should only be an occurrence saved for relationships of 2+ years. With that in the back of my mind, I proceeded to shit my brains out for 3 hours in the bathroom a mere 4 feet from the bed at 3am.
In the morning we got our cute little rental car, a volkswagon gol. 10 minutes of driving through the city, just to get out of the city, it was really important to be driving outside of the city, not in the city... we hit open road. This open road led us to San Lorenzo. It was the gateway to the jungle we were about to enter. It was lined with horse farms and hostels and the road started getting smaller. The next few hours were spent on a single lane road winding through the jungle and mountains. Where they came from, I don't know. But we saw the vines that Tarzan traveled on. In between sections of this jungle area were fields, probably created by the millions of cattle that were usually only standing in the road... around the bend... Anyways. I had a headache cause I was dehydrated. We ended up at the thermas de reyes. Wow. google that. Again, Lauren's gut feeling to spend a little more for the more comfortable thing, proved beneficial to us both, to our sanity, to our sanity, and to our sanity. Instead of swimming the the community thermal pool with screaming kids (i'm sure they were smart, beautiful children, but they were screaming...) we spent an hour at the Thermas de Reyes spa hotel. You just have to go.
We continued on to Purmamarca. A sweet little town right on the edge of loosing its charm to the movement of tourism and corruption. It had a great market. Stuff is cheap! We thought about buying everything and opening a store and selling it for way more! Corruption? Greed? I guess its an opinion, and opinions don't mean a thing, right?
So that was day one of our rental car, I wonder if I can actually remember them all...
Day2 we drove to the Salinas Grandes. Expansive salt flats, you just have to go. We stayed another night in Purmamarca... listened to more flutes and ate more empanadas.
Day3 we drove to Tilcara. Tilcara was a really cool little town, dusty roads, cobblestone roads, lots of young travelers and musicians around. We met a German and an Australian. This day we went horseback riding. My first time. It was cool. Our guide was some all knowing anthropologist archaeologist guy who told us all about the Andes. Well, he told Lauren all about them and she had to translate. And she hated me b/c her tits were hurting from riding the horse and all I wanted to do was ride the horse into the sunset and still be riding in the morning. "Has it been 2 hours yet?" So my translations were getting shorter until all of a sudden I could understand everything! haha. That night we went to a little place w/ some cute musicians and we ordered way too much food. Just in case we didn't like whatever we might be ordering, there would always be the salad, and the empanadas, and the tamale... and the soup... Lauren stayed out until 5 am w/ the musicians in a smokey bar, she had a blast, I slept.
Day4 we hung out in Tilcara for a good amount of the morning and early afternoon then drove north to Humauaca. When we got there we were starving, but it was only 6 pm and normal people in the whole country of Argentina do not eat anything until 10pm. We were allowed to eat cake and drink coffee until 8pm rolled around, which is what we did... and then we met the Texan's. If you cut off their hair, added some make-up and changed out the cargo shorts and tie-dyed moo-moo (is that right? moomoo, mumu? whatever) for some tight wranglers, big buckles, glitter and fringe, cowboy boots, and fly fishing rods, you'd have the majority of Texan's in Argentina. This couple was interesting. They were buying everything to put in a storage unit to sell in a store in the future or decorate their home. In the future. They drank a lot of beer. And they looked like they drank a lot of beer. They were big people from Texas. Big. Not fat. Biiiig.
Day5 we had a couple bus tickets to Iruya. A town in a mountain. The road was windy. The day was dreary. The ride was long...
When we got back to Humauaca we drove down to Tilcara and saw the German, then to Purmamarca. We liked it there. It was like home. Kind of. Not really.
Day6. I can't remember. How many days? Day 6 we probably went shopping in the morning. Then we drove... drove south... this may have been the day we drove all the way to Cafayate. If it was, we drove all the way to Cafayate. Through mountains and cardones and sand. Ending in a country of wine. We went to taste the wine (I was the driver), but the wine tasting was closed. We met some crazy hostel guy who Lauren says had a crush on me. I didn't believe it, but then she re-enacted the way he got down on one knee to kiss my hand and ignored Lauren when she gave him her hand. I didn't believe it b/c everyone was seeing me as a guy the whole time. Northern and Central Argentina. I'm a guy there. Gender. pthhhht.
Day7 back to Salta. This day we had the best food. La mejor. Chicken and potatoes. I can't even remember what else, but we were almost late for our flight and we ate everything on our plates. It was good.
I thought we were there for 8 days. Maybe I missed a day. I can't remember. It was fun.
