I could sit outside on our front porch and people watch for days and not get bored. There are so many interesting people that go by. The Torti’s house is located at a reasonably busy intersection where 3 busy streets meet. And two of those streets lead directly into the Centro/downtown area, so we get a lot of foot and vehicle traffic at all times of the day and night.

Shino, aka Jorge aka George, the Japanese exchange student that was living here at the same time i was 2 years ago is here (i think I may have already talked about that..) so along with her, we have been able to do a lot of fun get togethers. Last Sunday we had a tea get together at an old friend, Vicky’s house, where we got together with some of the old friends, and the current Japanese exchange students. We also have continued to explore downtown, walking around and taking some photos, and then also to the artisan fair.

I can’t describe how much fun I have had with Juan and the rest of the family. It has been non stop laughing, jokes, some pranks, great conversation and relaxation.

We have also gone out a few nights this week. Last night we went out with some of the exchange students with the CC-CS program (one was a Luther student!) and made our way around Nueva Cordoba.

Now today and tonight has been a day of rest and recuperation. Hopefully tomorrow we will be having an asado, and more than likely another night of dancing! But for now, I am going to go hop in the shower and watch a movie with the family.

Hope all is well where you are,

Julian

On the 7th, it was Jero, my youngest host brother, had his 15th birthday. Birthdays are always a good time, but it happened to fall in the middle of the week so we didn’t celebrate too much the night of. In a way we have lucked out that Juan, the oldest brother, as well as a good friend and the boyfriend of Sole, the second oldest of the kid’s boyfriend, don’t have jobs right now. So we have had a lot of opportunities to treat this as a  full blown vacation for all of us. So we stayed up with Jero for his actual birthday day, hanging out, playing cards and watching movies. Normally, birthdays are a pretty big deal. The following night, Jero had over a bunch of his buddies and we made pizzas out in the quincho over the open flame. I love how almost all the food is made from scratch, and over the open flame.

We have also been out dancing quite a bit which keeps us out until at least 8 in the morning the following day. It’s a little different than home, but it is a great time. This schedule kinda messes up any sort of regular sleep patterns but it is a lot of fun.

I am staying in my old room, and it is just the way I left it. Juan is staying in there with me because as of right now, we have 11 people living in the house, and then many guests that come over at all times of the day (and night). We have also had a few asados (grill outs). The biggest as far as guests are concerned was on the 9th, the Argentine Independence day.

It has been great catching up with the family, old friends and just relaxing. We have also become friends with some of the new exchange students from the states. Two students from Luther are studying through the program that I went through, CC-CS, and so it has been fun seeing them experience all of the “firsts” Cordoba has to offer.

So things here are great, as expected. This is one of those trips that I knew would happen someday, but I didnt expect it so soon! I am very happy and lucky to be here, and really hope to live up these next two weeks! I will try and write more soon, but now, time for dinner, and then off for the night to catch up with and old friend from ELdB who lives here. We are going to see a few bands play in Alta Cordoba.

Chau for now!

I flew from Mpls to ATL, then ATL to Buenos Aires and finally Buenos Aires to Cordoba. There were a few hold ups, like my not being able to check-in in MPLS with the technology stuff, then about 2 hours into my long flight from ATL to Bs. As. the sweet old woman sitting next to me spilled her red wine all over my pants and tshirt which now have some very trendy, red stains… I think it gave me street cred because it made me look like I had been roughed up, or I had put someone in their place.

After about an hour in the bathroom of scrubbing my clothes (now completely soaked) with club soda, I decided to just go back to my seat and try to sleep, and when I got back, she invited me to her house for an asado to make up for the spill. I love Argentines. Just sitting in the airports and slowly starting to hear more and more of them talking made me grin like an idiot from ear to ear. That grin only got bigger the closer to Cordoba I got.

After arriving in Bs. As. I was super excited to find out one of my bags did not make it… So I got the bag that was full of the gifts, but now no clothes, toiletries or anything. Who needs hygiene or clean clothes anyways..pshhh…

After Juan (the oldest son) and our good friend Gonzalo came to the airport to pick me up, we were pulled over and got a 160 peso ticket for a broken headlamp…so I brought the ticket home to Mama for a gift…needless to say she wasn’t as excited about that gift as she was the duct tape and sour patch kids I brought her.

Now, I finally met the Torti’s 4th child, Sole who is 23 and when I was here two years ago she was spending that semester in San Francisco, so we had only met over skype.

I have been informed that we are going to go out on the town tonight, so I took a good 3 hour nap, and now am starting to wake up again…now what to do about these wine soaked jeans and lack of clean clothes to “go out” in…hmmm…..Where there is a will there is a way.

Chau for now,

Julian

One year ago yesterday I set foot in a place that would become my second home, Cordoba Argentina. My life has changed drastically in the last year since the beginning of that experience, and I would not go back and change a thing. I miss Argentina, my family (The Torti’s and Shino) and my friends dearly. I have been fortunate to be able to stay in contact with the whole family and Shino through emails, skype and instant messages. It is actually my little brother Jero’s Birthday today, can’t believe that he is already 14. It feels like we just celebrated his last birthday!

I miss traveling, but over the last 2 years or so I have been incredibly blessed and fortunate to do a fair amount of traveling. starting in January of 2007, I spent a month long jterm traveling around Mexico, then spring break with family and friends in Aruba, followed by a trip to NYC with my good friend John Nordby to visit his father, to Italy with the family, and then directly to Argentina where I was able to travel all around the beautiful country, and up to Brazil for a short trip as well. Since coming back from Argentina, I have traveled to Spain with the family this past June. And now we are in the process of planning a trip to Mexico for next christmas break, and then January term of 2009 will be spent for two weeks in Norway, and then two weeks in Costa Rica.

I am very grateful for my opportunities to travel. This past year has brought a lot of changes, surprises, excitement and fun. I think my abroad experiences have helped build character and given my priceless life experiences that i will value forever. I have been able to meet many many people, see amazing things and have been able to take pieces of each person and place with me. I feel this has all shaped how I think, and how I approach life situatinos. I have been humbled by the people I have met and really have been ready to make some more positive changes in my life. I am also very grateful for having such a wonderful and supportive family back home, as well as my extended family. Having their support and constant encouragement has been nothing short of amazing. I love them all very dearly and am very blessed to have them in my life.

I hope to continue these travel sprees as long as I can, and continue to learn about this little world we live in. There is so much more I would love to see and experience. I just need to stop and re boot on free time and funds before I can do the next wind

Thank you all for being so supportive through all of the expierences and keeping me in your thoughts and prayers.

Let me know if you want to get together and we can look at some photos, or for a mate or quilmes!

that is all for now,

Peace and love

Paz y amor

Julian

Now this past weekend, was another extended weekend, so Mary Marshall, Frances and I went to PATAGONIA! it was the big trip of the “big trip”. Probably my number one place i wanted to go. and it was amazing. lots of similarities (surprisingly ) to Alaska and Grand Marais Minnesota…ill explain as i get there…

Wednesday night the 10th, we left on overnight bus to Buenos Aires. We have decided to “rough it” and take the Executive buisness class from now on when it comes to the buses because for 20 pesos more ($6 US) we get a “full cama” which is a “full bed” seat, plus dinner and whiskey. neither of which are very good…but a perk none the less…and the full cama makes for a much more comfortable night of sleep..but for other opinions you can ask my parents their opinion on that…

We arrived at about 6:45am in Buenos Aires Thursday morning, and headed directly to the airport. Our flight was not until 10:40 or so so we had some time to relax in the airport. AKA i crashed on the airport chairs and slept until the last possible moment to board the plain…cutting it sorta close…oops. We arrived in Ushuaia at about 20 after two, and we were greeeted by a guy who was hired to drive us to our hostel. (I forgot to mention this was the first trip we took where we went through a travel agency. The agency was actually started by my friend Marcelo that i know through ELdB Concordia Language villages, but he sold it a few years back, but was still able to help connect me to the right people) I felt like such a big shot with someone waiting with a sign that said my name. it was sweet. and it happend the whole weekend. We got to the hostel which was really really nice and comfortable and dropped off our things. We had the rest of the day to explore the city, shop and eat. We found a hiking trail where it was supposed to lead to a good view, so we headed there. the girls went down half way up, because it was full of snow and we were all getting wet, but i kept going for about half an hour more just hiking on my own and taking it in. it was a really nice, peaceful time. the whold day was a lot of fun. we ate at a diente libre parilla again, where its all you can eat asado. then we called it an early night because it was another early morning the next day.

Friday morning, we got up and had our breakfast at the hostel and then were picked up again to start a day filled with excursions. First we were picked up by a tour guide who took us to the Tierra del Fuego National Park, where we hiked, saw wildlife, where the two oceans meet, ports, and saw some really beatiful scenery. We also rode the “train to the end of the world” which is ushuaia’s claim to fame, because they are the furthest south city in the world but in reality there is one more spot further south. the only catch is that there are only 3,000 inhabitants, where as ushuaia has a little under 70,000, and the technicalities are that to be called a city, you must have 10,000 residents. After the end of our tour through the national park, and our (first) lunch, which consisted of coca cola and lemon pie, we headed back into the town. we did have enough time to grab a real bite to eat at a little seafood restaurant, and then it was off to the next excursion.

The second exursion of the day was a boat tour of the Beagle Canal, where we saw the island of the birds and the island of the sea lions. while the sea lions were great, i really was bummed the whole weekend we didnt get to whale watch or see penguins, but i got over that pretty quick. haha. we had the boat almost completely to ourselves, because it was still a week day and there was not a lot of tourists. it was awesome.

after the long day we went back to the hotel and crashed. it had been a very long day. but filled with beautiful sights, cool animals, and lots of laughing. so we decided the best way to end the day, was to rent a movie and order pizza, becuase we had another early morning the next day, and the only night life they had was a club and some bars…neither of which would be good choices for early mornings…so we ordered some amazing stone baked pizzas, and rented the movie Match Point and relaxed in the hostel, warming up and resting up for the day ahead.

Saturday morning, we were picked up to go to the airport and catch our next flight to El Calafate. To take the buses down to ushuaia from cordoba is about a 3 day journey, and from ushuaia to El Calafate is about 8 hours, so we decided to fly, and through the agency had gotten some really good deals. after the flight, we once again had the afternoon to explore and do our own thing. El Calafate is a town that is actually about 80km away from its one major tourist attraction which is the Perrito Moreno Glacier. The town survives mainly off of the tourism, so it was a very different feel from Ushuaia (ushaia had a big feel like Grand Marais, because the two main roads were the two nearest to the shore, and from there inland was all up hill. i m not sure what else, but the feel was very similar). So we did a lot of our tourist shopping and gift buying that afternoon and just walked around. Then we went back to the hostel, got directed towards some good restaurants, had a really nice dinner and then had another early night.

Sunday, we had our excursion up to Perrito Moreno, which was absolutely beautiful. we had a really interesting tour guide, and were able to see the glacier from multiple sides, and we had a few little things with in the excursion. we were able to take a boat ride to the glacier and see it from the water. it was really incredible. but when we went back to the dock, we had found that two large icebergs from the glacier had moved so that we could not dock. after trying to pull them (the first time) with a rope out of the way, we went for another lap around to see the glacier. then we returned and tried again. luckily this time, after lots of patience, and pulling , they were able to move them enough to get the boat in. the whole time it was very windy and the water got choppier and choppier…it made for a pretty interesting ride. after the boat ride, we had time to walk around the national park, and go to the “viewpoints” to take pictures. while we were at one, we were looking at the glacier, and we were able to see a chunk of the glacier, no kidding the size of a building break off and fall into the lake. that was really cool to see. it is always breaking, every day, but they said not usually pieces that size, so that was really neat to see. it is one of only a few glaciers in the world that are growing, and so its always breaking off pieces and regenerating. it was absolutely beautiful. the colors it had were really neat.

after that, we returned to the hostel, and took about a 3 hour nap, and hten went out for dinner at a nice little place filled with locals, and then went bed. it was an exhausting but yet again amazing day.

Monday was Frances’ birthday and the beggining of the journey back to Cordoba. we left the hostel early to get ot the airport and wait some more…and then flew back to bs. As. where we had about 8 hours of layover, so we went back to our friend peter’s cousin Mary’s apartment (where i have stayed everytime i go to Bs As) and hung out around there walking around and just killing time. which is alway fun there. we found our little sandwich shop we like, and people watched for two hours. always a good time. almost comparable to people watching at the MN state fair… then we took the allnight bus again, and arrived this morning at about 6:15 and by 7am i was back in my “own” bed, and asleep till noon.

sorry this one has gotten long..

the countdown has begun. As of tomorrowmorning i will have 38 days left (not counting tomorrow) which is absolutely crazy. Only four weekends left to adventure. 1 i am going to Iguazu falls, one of the 10 wonders of the world…another, back up to the sierras with my family here, and then who knows….ill keep you all up to date!

I hope all is well with all of you where ever you are and with what ever you are doing! now i just gotta live as i have been, by the advice of my uncle paul “Be careful, but do it all!” and thats what i plan on doing.

Lots of love, and thanks so much for reading!

PICTURES BELOW IN BLUE! CLICK ON THEM TO GET THE FULL PAGE

“Train to the end of the world”

thats where i was! follow the line on the bottom

tierra del fuego National park

Glacier Perrito Moreno

here are two entries…one from two weekends ago that i forgot to put up, and one from this past weekend…enjoy!

TUCUMAN (with CC-CS) 14/9-16/9

This past weekend CC-CS organized another trip for us. We went back northwest again to the provincia of Tucuman. We rented a bus for the whole group and we had the opportunity to invite an Argentine friend. It was too bad, because Shino, the Japanese exchange student who is living in the bedroom next door to me and has become a good friend of mine, is not with the CCCS group, and she is not “argentine” so she was not able to come with, which is to bad because she has become good friends with a lot of us, and we would have loved to have her with. It was also to bad, because for my guest I invited my older brother Juan, but about a week and a half before the trip he had a problem in soccer and got a slipped disk in his back. He is fine now, but when it was time to go, he was still hurting and having a tough time just walking around the house (what a wimp…haha. Just kidding) so he decided last minute not to join us. It was too bad because I think he would have loved it, but two 10 hour bus rides and a lot of hiking was not something I think he could have handled at the time.

So we left Friday night, (after a group of us went out to dinner) and began the long bus ride. We had a lot of fun on the bus, and we turned it into a mini disco for a while. We had a lot of argentines with us, including professors from the international department, friends, and tutors. Saturday morning after a long night, we pulled into Tucuman, and we stopped at a hostel (where we were later to eat) to run in use the restrooms quick and then head out on the first hike. The first hike started at 8am, and we hiked up a mountain. I think I would have been more proud and had more of an accomplished feeling if I could have seen how high up we were, but the fog was so bad that we couldn’t see more than about 20 yards away. It was fun none the less. Hearing the moaning and groaning for the fact that the hike was slightly challenging, it was sorta misty/rainy, chilly, and EARLY, but it was fun. Lots of “are we there yet?” and “Water break!”. After that hike we went back down to the hostel, and had about an hour to roam around the little town we were in. I had brought my full pack in because I was under the impression that was where we were staying…bad idea…

We went back to the hostel and had a really really good stew lunch, and then packed onto the bus again to go visit a museum (I was still under the impression we were coming back…). After a 2 and half hour bus ride to the museum, we all woke up from our “siestas” and headed into the museum. It was neat, it was another museum on the natives that were there a long time ago, and had lots of artifacts… you know how museums are…haha. Then we boarded the bus after a beautiful afternoon at the museum walking around (because much of the museum was outdoors) and I heard “time to head to the hostel” and boy did that baffle me…

Turns out where we ate lunch was not the real hostel…that was just one to eat at…so almost 3 hours away was my tooth brush, my passport, all my clean clothes and every other thing in my one pack for the weekend. But it turned out alright. Bought a 20 cent tooth brush, and borrowed some clothes and we were able to get a hold of the hostel and I picked up the pack the next day on the way home. We hung out and learned “Truco” during the evening at the hostel, which is an argentine card game. Pretty fun, but tough. After wards we went out to dinner and then there was a little party. I went to bed right after dinner sadly because I caught some bug, and was not feeling well at all.

After a reasonably long nights sleep, for me, we got up early to head to the Ruinas de Quilmes where we hiked around ruins and learned a lot about the indigenous people that lived there before. It was a beautiful day and was awesome to hike so much. Then we boarded the bus, stopped for a quick lunch and headed back home. After a looooong 10 hours plus traffic, we arrived back in Cordoba at about 1 am, and I crashed.

Overall it was a good weekend. Kind of rough getting sick, but its alright, I still was able to do everything, no bug will keep me at the foot of the mountain! Its been so cool to see so much of Argentina, it excites me I still have a few more trips in store before this trip is over! Tonight I head to the provincia of San Juan where we will go to the Valle de la Luna. If you get a chance, google image search Valle de la Luna, its incredible! I will be sure to take many more pictures!

Take care everyone, miss you all a lot!!!

Sept. 20-23 2007, Valle de la Luna/San Juan Argentina

This past weekend, again, we had another adventure. I am liking our travel habits… we did not end up going to Bariloche as we planned, but that was alright. We ended up going northwest (yet again) to the provincia of San Juan. We had Friday off because it was dia del estudiante which is student day, so there are no classes. It was nice because when we got to classes on Thursday, they were also cancelled because our university was hosting a party with karaoke, food, drinks, and everything out on the lawn for the day to celebrate the first day of spring (which is also dia del estudiante). It was awesome!

We left on our bus Thursday night at 11:15pm so that was pretty nice. It was not a packed bus at all, so we were able to spread out and take up all the seats we wanted. We pulled into San Juan (ciudad) Friday morning at about 8. so we had a full day Friday.

We first went to our hostel, which was really nice, and was one of the cheapest yet. The girl working was really helpful in us planning out the weekend. We dropped off our stuff, showered, and then started to figure out the weekend. We first went to eat at a nice little coffee shop for breakfast, then we went to a travel agency, and lucked out, because we were able to get a tour of San Juan for that day. So at 2:30pm we were picked up at our hostel by two cars (we were six people) and were drive around San Juan City and saw all the sights it had to offer including an amazing performance center for the arts. They had an auditorium with some of the coolest acoustics I have ever heard. I wished so bad that I could have had one of my Luther Choirs with especially at that point, because I think we would have sounded awesome in there. We also saw a winery/champagne factory that was built into a mountain, and other interesting places around the city.

San Juan is located pretty close to the Andes, so we were able to see them from some parts of town. The town has about 600,000 inhabitants, and is driven (like many places in the region) by the wineries and vineyards. The dry climate helps that out a lot. They also have a fair amount our tourism.

Later that day after our tour, we went to Classic. What is classic you may ask? Good question. It is a CAR RENTAL agencyJ that’s right, we rented a tiny car for six people (probably the size of a large geo metro…haha that’s ironic…no such thing..) and we picked up the car after our dinner that night because we decided we didn’t want to take another bus to Valle de la Luna (about 350 kilometers away) we wanted to drive. It turned out I was the only one who could put my name down to drive…so I got to drive basically the whole time. It was amazing. We had fun, even though four deep in the back seat wasn’t too comfortable the girls said, but we had fun. We got up real early Saturday morning to start our four hour road trip. When we finally got to Valle de la Luna, we decided to get some lunch and relax a little before going to the park. Then when we did get to the national park, again we lucked out because we got on the last tour possible for the day, and if we didn’t make that we would have had to miss the whole thing because the car had to be back at noon the next day.

There was a catch though to our “lucking out” and that was that we had to jump aboard a tour bus of “senior citizens”. It was pretty funny. But it worked out because then we didn’t have to follow in our car, we got to hear the guide explain the park, and we made some friends who were between 3 and 4 times our age. After the Valle de la Luna tour, we went back to our hostel (about 40 kilometers away) and found a restaurant and had a chill dinner. Then we decided to drive out again into the middle of no where to do a little star gazing, but by about 12pm cloud cover was bad again so we didn’t get to see much. So we just went back to the hostel and crashed.

Sunday morning we got up early to head out again, and there was no worker at the hostel. Usually they will make you coffee and sometimes toast when you have to head out real early, but there was no one there. We didn’t know how much we had to pay (or who) and we had to get on the road, so we left 10 pesos a piece on the desk, and started the journey back to San Juan again. After another goofy car ride, with roads full of dips and bumps (way fun) we got back to San Juan about 2pm. So we returned the car, and got some lunch. Then it was beautiful out so we went back to our same hostel from Friday, and grilled out in the back yard, and just sat all day relaxing. It was a rough Sunday! Haha. Then we caught out 10:30 bus back to Cordoba.

Again it was a fun weekend, not as much as some of the others, just because the towns were not as nice, but we had fun with the company.

Now I am very excited because 48 hours from right now, MY PARENTS ARE GOING TO BE HERE!!! I am very excited to see them, and show them my life here. We are going to Buenos Aires all together this weekend, so be ready for another entry this time next week!

we started this weekend off friday night with some indoor paintball. about three doors down from my house an indoor paintball facility opened up so we took advantage of that. it was a fun guys night out. we had an asado, played paintball then just relaxed.

after wards, i only got about 2 and half hours of sleep because a last minute trip to the sierras (again) came up and i jumped on the opportunity. about 6 of us tagged along with a group of 40 argentine students who were traveling up to the mountains for part of their tourism major. each student forms a team of 3 or 4 and organize trips around argentina for the class. pretty cool huh?

so at 7 am we were all downtown and took the two hour busride out to the moutains. from there we did some “novice” rock climbing, rapelling, and ziplining. then we got to hike a lot, and just enjoyed the beautiful open land. it was a blast. we met some awesome kids. saturday night then, we had a big party in the hotel because we were the only ones in the hotel. it was fun. yet again we had an asado, and then we turned the party room into our own discoteca, and just danced the whole night. it was a blast. sunday we all slept in, i didnt get up until 2 because i had missed out on so much sleep before. then we hung out all day out in the sun, more asado, a water fight, and just hanging out with each other. it was fun to meet some new argentine friends. then we took an evening walk through the mountains and came back and then packed up the bus and came home.

all in all, another good weekend.

now next weekend we are making a group trip to Tucuman, then the next weekend MY PARENTS WILL BE HERE! so we will go to buenos aires, the weekend after that Bariloche, and the weekend after that…PATAGONIA (ushuaia/tierra del fuego) it should be a lot of fun! ill keep everyone informed! hope all is well back home!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/julianinargentina/

it is really slow uploading pictures, and i am still trying to figure it all out…but i got a few up to tie everyone over for a little bit

this weekend has been awesome. Friday classes went really well and i really liked them and the weather was beautiful. friday night we had an asado at our house and it was a blast. today, as soon as i woke up i got a guitar, and went outside to sit in the sun and play. today was just awesome. it was one of those days that just sneaks up on you, you dont konw how great it will be and then it is.  After stting outside with Juan and Jero (my two brothers)and the grandpa, my dad, Jero, shino and i startedto clean the quincho (the big back room thatwe use for asados/parties). it was so fun. We just blasted Frank Sinatra, and cleaned everything. the weather was beautiful. i was out in just some gym shorts, and then jero and i played some one on one soccer, and we just relaxed all day long. then we went for some ice cream, and now its about 7pm, and just about nap time. Today was just amazing. i wish i could put into words how fun it was jsut to hang out with my little brother, shino (the japanese exchange student that also lives in our house) and our dad. it was a blast.

 well, i think im going to head out, relax a little more and read and keep enjoying the wonderful day! hope all is well with everyone. i will try and figure out the picture thing this week…

Trip to Jujuy and Salta

            This past weekend we took another adventure. Once again, my friend Russ, Mary Marshall and I teamed up with three other friends, Amelia, Fran, and Jordan and ventured to the far northeastern providences of Argentina called Jujuy and Salta. 

            We left Thursday night (we took off Friday from classes because we are still in a grace period where we are choosing which classes we are going to take for entire semester) from the Cordoba bus station and boarded another double decker bus, for what was going to be our longest over night bus ride of 12 ours (which turned into closer to 13 by the end of the trip). Again everyone met at my house on Thursday night earlier, so we could all go down together. We ordered some pizzas and just hung out with my family for a bit before heading out to the bus station.

            The bus ride was long. We figured out that the bus was traveling about 30 miles an hour for the majority of the trip…or at least that’s what it felt like. We were lucky enough to sit by an old man who snored louder than any bear, or other large mammal I think ever would be able too, and to top it off our seats were not “full cama” (fully reclining) but only went from the 90 degree angle to about a 110..so that made for some comfortable sleeping. I actually didn’t have as much problems sleeping as the others, but this is coming from the kid who can fall asleep almost anywhere if the occasion calls for it…

 Finally about 10am Friday morning, we arrived in Jujuy. Jujuy we knew from the start was going to be a different feel from all the other places we have visited. While it does have some tourist attractions, it has a lot more poverty and a larger indigenous population than the other areas we have traveled to yet. That was something that excited me, because I love seeing different culture besides a…main stream (for lack of better wording) culture. As my host dad told me, many of the things that I saw there and in Salta, especially in regards to the people, music, etc. have not changed in 60 or 70 years, if not longer. So I thought that was really cool.

We went out to lunch at a little restaurant near our hostel, and just relaxed there a little bit. We were able to arrange a half day excursion which was lucky, so we had about 2 hours to kill before that started.

Our tour was really fun. It was just four of us, because Jordan and Fran decided to just hang out and explore the city of Jujuy capital. We rode in a big 1990’s Mercedes van, and our driver was really cool. He knew so much about the area, and the history (which I guess are some good qualifications to be a tour guide…) but I really felt like I learned a lot from him. Jujuy is not on the list of largest towns in AR, it has about 460,000 citizens. On our tour, we saw Los Termas de los Reyes, which are hot spring baths, which the kings and wealthier citizens used to use for baths and hot tubs hundreds of years ago. The water comes from the mountain, and we were able to see how that all worked, as well we had an hour to sit in the hot tubs and relax. 

We also visited a Granja de Truchas, which is a trout farm, and there were hundreds and hundreds of trouts that were being bread and ready to sell. It was such a neat place. When we were walking around though, Mary Marshall got bit by one of the dogs. There are dogs every where here, both wild and pets, and its hard sometimes to tell the difference. We were all a little ways away from here, and she apparently heard a growling from the bushes where she was walking by, and then when she turned around and tried to talk to it, it bit her leg. Luckily she was wearing some decent jeans, so it barely broke through her skin. I think it just scared her (and us) more than anything. It turned out to be the neighbor’s dog.

We also saw Laguna rodeo, where we just got to see some of the most peaceful lagunas; they were absolutely gorgeous. Everything around them was silent. You could hear water trickling from across the laguna, which was probably a good 150 yards away at least.

After the tour we met up with the others, and we decided to go find dinner. Apparently 8pm is still really early to eat dinner in Jujuy, so we ate at a restaurant by ourselves and I think we were the first customers of the night…it was fun though, we got to try some tamales that were known to the region, as well as a few different meat preparations. Afterwards, we went back to the hostel and called it an early night, because we booked a 10 hour excursion for Saturday morning at 8:30am.

Saturday morning came way to fast. We all rolled out of bed sleepy eyed, hungry and still half asleep, once again climbed aboard the Mercedes bus. Our tour guide was this guy named Adrian, who was pretty fluent in English and a blast. We tried to get him to speak to us in Spanish the whole time, since that is the reason we are in AR, but I think he enjoyed speaking English as much as we do Spanish. It was fun because we would talk to him in Spanish, him to us in English, and if anyone ever made a grammatical error or needed some vocab help we were able to help each other. We left the hostel at about 8:30 and traveled for about an hour out of the city. Its safe to say I fell asleep every time we sat down in the van for the half hour to hour stretches in between sights. We saw las montanas de siete colores, the Mountains of Seven Colors, they were really pretty. We also had lunch at a very authentic Jujuy-ian restaurant where we had milanesa de Llama, which is breaded llama meat…it was actually pretty good. We also went to Humhueaca, an archeological museum, las ruinas del Pucara, and a botanical garden, that had a lot of really cool cacti and llamas. Russ and I learned the hard way that they were spitting llamas…

After the long day, we got dropped off at the bus station and jumped on the first bus to Salta. We were lucky and didn’t really have to wait for the bus. But it was a two hour bus ride, and the bus had a..unique..odor, and was about 100 degrees inside. But it we made it alright. We got to Salta about 11pm, so we just hung out at the hostel and called it another early night since we were wiped out from the day’s adventure.

Sunday we slept in until about two and made it a relax day. We went out for breakfast (at 2pm..) and then just roamed around the city of Salta for the afternoon and evening going in and out of shops and checking out the sights. We tried to arrange a four wheeling excursion for Monday up in the mountains, but it was rather expensive. So we didn’t make any plans for Monday. We went out and tried an Irish pub that night because it was recommended in our guide books. It was fun, but kinda costy again so we left and just went back to the hostel.

I love all the people we have met traveling. Whether it is the girl working at the desk in the hostel, a waiter/waitress, bartender, or street vender, we have met some really cool, kind, and helpful people on our trips. Its one of those things that I never really thought about before to much, but they really can set the mood for the area we are traveling in.

Monday we decided to make our own hike, so we hoped on a city bus which took us about 7 kilometers out of the city to the foot of some hills/mountains where we were able to just hike around. After a quick stop for some snacks/lunch at the grocery store, we adventured up the steepest tallest hill we could find. It was cool until we reached the top, and encountered our first wild animals – bulls. They were honestly the biggest bulls I have ever seen. And we had to walk pretty close to them. As scary as it was…it was quite a rush too. Then we found a little town, rented some horses and rode in the mountains for about an hour, then headed to La Quebrada de San Lorenzo, which is a national park with some awesome hiking trails of all levels. It turned out to be a really beautiful day to, so that made it even better.

Afterwards we headed back into town, met up with the others, and headed for the bus station again. We got on our all night bus and called it another good weekend.

Salta and Jujuy were really cool towns, and had a lot to offer, especially as far as nature is concerned, and we were able to see another side of Argentine culture. Now, back in the swing of things for another week of classes….but more importantly anticipating our next excursion to the providence of Tucuman in two weeks! Hope all is well with everyone, miss you all!

 heres a pic…im still working on setting up one of those free online albums…any suggestions…?

riding in San Lorenzo