Start of the Andean experience

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My 31st birthday started somewhat slowly, following the early birthday celebrations the previous night. Several coffee injections and staring at email for an hour was required to get the old brain in gear again before venturing into the city. Unfortunately, this being Argentina, it was siesta time and everything was shut. This strikes me as somewhat mad for a country where it's considered perfectly normal to think about geing out for dinner around 10pm but often not commence eating until midnight, then pass the next 3-6 hours in bars or clubs. Surely it would make more sense to open everything throughout the day, so when you finally wake up, the shops are actually open, not just about to close until 5pm? But maybe that just shows that I need to spend more time here to fully adjust my body clock.

At least the parks and plazas were open and we could pass a few hours watching bands on the stage, followed by a number of samba type bands, with school kids performing dance routines. The groups ranged from tiny kids almost dwarfed by their drums to a group of grannies, but all were excellent. Why they were playing there and then remained a mystery, as the man with the microphone was as incomprehensible as men with microphones always are at these kind of events, but it was a pleasant way to pass any afternoon anyway.

The smallness of the world was confirmed once more that afternoon, when we bumped into a couple from Newcastle who we'd met on the Antarctica trip. We all met up again that evening for celebratory birthday drinks and dinner, trading stories on our experiences over the last few week and ran into yet another shipmate in one of the bars later. A huge portrait of Maradonna drew our attention to one particular place, which has a room full of pictures of the man in action, and of course, wine from his vineyard on the menu. To say that he´s still a god here would be underplaying it.

Sunday dawned rainy and cool, as Sundays tend to do when your only plans involve sitting by the pool in the sunshine. Undaunted, we set out instead for the modern art museum in the main plaza, only to discover that it was being refurbished. Better luck was ours at the aquarium, which had lots of familiar tropical fish and all sorts of scary looking Amazon ones, including something related to the pirhana, but black and growing up to one metre in length. The star attraction though had to be Jorge (George!), the loggerhead turtle, who apparently had been rescued from some horrible fate in Uruguay (we never got the full story as the plaque was missing). Personally, I´m uncertain he was too happy about being rescued to swim around in circles in a tank, far from other turtles, although it was fascinating to watch how agile and elegant something so large is in water.

That evening we took the night bus to Salta, revelling in the luxury of Premier Classe, for a bargain 6 pounds extra. Full flat beds meant we slept away 10 of the 17 hours, with films, ´bus bingo' and eating filling the rest. As 1st class passengers we were all even supplied with a bib to proctect our clothes in case the driver swerved unexpected whilst we were siping our vino tinto. It´s the little touches that make the difference - or in this case, cracked us up. We arrived in the city the next lunchtime, reclining in style, relishing the beds for as long as possible, being aware of the stories of the Bolivian buses we have to look forward to.

This city had been descibed to us as a beautiful colonial city, but arriving during siesta on an overcast day with numerous cars choking the streets (and us), it didn´t strike us as living up to the hype. Later, as the sun came out and we adjusted to no longer being in the wide boulevards of Mendoza, the good points shone through as we relaxed by the pleasant main square. There are 3 particularly beautiful churches in the city which impressed even us non-religious types; the baby pink Cathedral, which holds statues which were paraded though the city in 1692 in an attempt to stop the series of terrible earthquakes which plagued the city (apparently it worked); the sky blue Church of La Vina (?) which was used as a refuge in the civil war, and a hospital during cholera epidemics; and my favourite, the San Francisco church with its stunning gold and red-orange facade.



Having lunched in the cafe outside MAAM (Museso Arquelogico de Alta Montana), it only seemed right to have a look inside, but we were to be struck once more by the old curse of fermeture exceptionnelle, so had to wait a day to learn about the excavation on Llallallacho(??) which discoved the bodies of 3 Incan child sacrifices, aged 6 to 15 years old. They were buried aboutr 500 years ago with symbolic figurines made from gold and shells, pottery and textiles and mumified by the cold, so even now the vivid colours of their clothes remain and their faces and bodies are perfectly intact. Well worth a visit.

As Salta is so close to Bolivia, the people here are noticably more of indigenous indian stock and the cuisine of the region is also distinctive from the rest of the country. We´ve spent the last few days sampling the tamales, humitos and goat stews, and delighting in the fact you get spicy sauces to go with them. People in shops and restaurants also seem to be more keen to chat once they realise we can speak spanish and understand ever more. One other change (less welcome) is the sharp rise in the numer of people asking us for money or trying to sell us things on the street. However, at least they´re not pushy, unlike part of Asia, so it´s not really a problem. Guess as a ginger I´m never going to be able to blend in here, so better just get used to it.

We took a pleasant cable car trip above the city yesterday and marvelled at the lush green surroundings. Somehow we´d expected more of a desert-like setting, with cacti and little else. After Luke´s little temper tantrum at the inefficiencies of the customs office this morning, where we failed to get our parcel posted home, the planned horse-riding trip this afternoon will doubtless be a good thing to get us out of the city and work off any lingering moods. Tomorrow we´re hiring a car to explore some of the dramatic scenery around Cafayate and Chaci over 3 days, so more on that to follow.





-------Luke´s bit---------

Temper tantrum it wasn´t...more of asmack of disbelief that this country has managed to develop a postal service to rival the Royal Mail for uselessness. Go to the main PO in town to send some heavy stuff home...nope...got to go to the customs office to do that...get there, speak to a lady..nope - the other lady beside me...she takes 35mins of stamping and scribbling and dottering and stamping and scribbling and dottering to deal with the 2people in front of us then .. nope...you need the lady beside me (yes...the first one we spoke to 40mins ago)....maybe...NOPE...can´t sell you paper or a box here...you need to go to ..... +·"$¿?¿?!¡ºººççç****....
at this point I grabbed our stuff and walked out...it wasn´t meant to happen...and even if it were, I´m sure it would be happening at some other place other than the place we had been sent to.

THAT...is a temper tantrum....phew!

Horseriding was great fun.

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