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Published: October 13th 2006
The main event
Of course the religious statues would be carried on an armed army vehicle....says a lot. After the last web blog i had a great day saying goodbye to Mendoza and preparing myself for the journey on to Tucuman. I spent the day wandering around cafes, sharing my time with Bill Bryson and stuffing my face with delicious vegetarian food (The Green Apple comes higly recommended should anyone be visint mendoza!). On to the night bus i got, most overjoyed to find i would be sharing it with a group of rowdy teenagers on a school trip....just what you want to find out with a 14 hour journey ahead of you! Luckily a very nice local girl sat by me so i got to practice a lot of spanish and the school kids soon lost their over excitment and contented themselves with tapping away on their mobiles for hours.
Arrived in Tucamen in good time and set off to find my hotel and explore the city. I had resigned myself to the fact i wouldnt meet anyone in the insocialble environment of a single room however i bumped into my neighbour who had spent a lot of time in england and was very nice so we arranged to go for a beer later on in
my absolutely favourite woman in the crowd
Everyone had their sunday best on and this lady was no exception as she unintentionally did an impromptue pole dance for me! the evening.
Tucaman is a nice enough city although it fits quite neatly into the ´just another city´category. As i wander through the streets however i got the idea something quite big was going to happen, i´d jsut bought myself a bottle of wine and was looking forward to sitting and sharing some more time with bill bryson in the sunshine. as i walked back however hundreds of people started to flood onto the street and loud speakers all over the city were blabbering around in spanish everywhere i walked. I took some time to chill out and see if i could find out what was happening. It turns out i´d managed to arrive in Tucaman on the most iportant day of the year and every single citizen was on the street celebrating. I´m still not sure what they were celebrating but they were very happy about it, something to do with independence or the like. So i had a jolly old time watching a huge procession go by and having a whole load of culture smack me in the face. A classic travelling moment.
After a couple of hours i returned to the hotel to find my
new friend and instead of going out for drinks he suggested goign to an exhibition. Of what he wasnt sure óld things and new things apparently´with this fantastic endorsement ringing in my ear i agreed and off we went. It turned out to be a tractor convention. i kid you not. for the next two hours we wandered around looking at combine harvestors! thrilling! got to practise more spanish however and was forcefed more classic argentinian food. It turns out however that these travtor people really know how to party so i spent the night dancing away around the combine harvesters enjoying champagne (again) and enjoying one of the most random nights of my life!
Next installment...salta..
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JJ
non-member comment
Tucuman
Hi Claire. I'm glad you had a nice time in Tucuman and Argentina. As regards the local celebration you saw, it's the anniversary of the Battle of Tucumán, one of the battles fought in the early 19th century as part of the War of Independence. Local forces defeated the Spanish troops and the victory was dedicated to La Merced Virgin, the one in the first picture, who later became the patron saint of the province. Regards