On the bright side, I got to finish my terrifying midterm week with an absolutely AMAZING trip to Salta, Jujuy, and Córdoba for my midsemester break. I traveled with just one other person, my friend Sadie, having realized after our trip to Iguazú Falls that smaller numbers is much more desirable, especially for a trip this long. I'll start with Salta and Jujuy, which are two provinces in Northwest Argentina very close to Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. The capital of Salta is also called Salta, and this was the first somewhat "major" city I've been to outside of Buenos Aires (not counting my excursion to La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Aires, for the day, which was more depressing than anything else really). There's a different feel about the town and the people up there. For starters, it's got a much slower pace - the majority of the people there follow their Spanish traditions and take a siesta from about 2-5 in the middle of the afternoon, which took some transitioning. Also, they have a different way of speaking. I don't believe they use the "vos" pronoun or conjugation, and they have a sort of light, sing-songy way of speaking. The biggest thing I noticed was that all of the locals we talked to a) immediately knew we were from Buenos Aires, or at least that's where we learned our Spanish, and b) thought Salta was the best part of the country and that Buenos Aires was "too much." It really put into perspective the fact that the country was nationalized more or less against it's own will, and that all of the different provinces have their own identities and opinions about the rest of the country.
The first day we got there (Friday afternoon), we checked in, dropped off our stuff, and found a travel agency that did rafting trips. Originally we were only going to do rafting through them but then we realized that their prices for the other excursions we were interested were about half of what the hostel would have charged us, so we booked three trips with them. The first was to Cafayate (on Saturday), the wine-producing region of the province, known for their Torrontes grapes which make a super sweet white wine. We toured one vineyard and even got to try wine ice cream, but for me the best part was the drive up there. Our tour only had me, Sadie, two other girls and our driver, and we were all squished in a 4-door sedan, but that was okay because we got to stop anywhere we wanted to to take pictures. To get to Cafayate we drove through La Quebrada de las Conchas, or the Gorge of Seashells, so named because it's a bunch of mainly sandstone rock formations with marine-life fossils embedded in them. They were absolutely gorgeous, especially on the drive back, though our "English-speaking tour guide," was not very informative, nor did he speak much English, so we ended up acting as translators for the other two girls in our car, which turned out to be pretty funny.
The next day (Sunday) we went rafting, which was fun, but we were pretty hungover from the night before because we decided to eat dinner at the hostel (for free (and it was spicy!) - this place was such a steal) and met a bunch of people traveling all over South America and went out with them. We met a guy from Boston who was living in Bs As for a month and half, two guys from France (one who was also twenty, which we've now realized is really young amongst hostel users, but who's planning on working on a Disney cruiseship for 6 months so he can travel all over the world once he's done), and a really nice girl from Australia who we're actually gonna try and meet up with when she's in Bs As again. Interestingly enough, almost everyone we talked to was headed on their way to Bolivia, being that its only a two hour bus ride away, and the entire night people kept telling us how amazing it is, which made Sadie and I very tempted to just try to sneak over the border as apparently it's quite easy, but we resisted the urge. Anyways, rafting was fairly easy compared to all the other times I've been, and we got the chance to do some extreme sports off of one of the dams in this man-made lake we visited after rafting, like bungee-jumping and something called "puenting," though I'm still not really sure what it is. I did not go bungee-jumping because I didn't think the height was large enough for how much it cost - I know, sounds silly, but if I'm going bungee-jumping, I want it to be worth every penny.
Monday we went to Humauacha (I'm sure I've spelled that wrong) which is north of Salta in the province of Jujuy, and along the way we stopped at a bunch of little villages populated by people of Incan and Spanish ancestry and who speak Qichwa (also probably spelled wrong), which was lovely as well as we got to see this range of mountains called "Las Montañas de Siete Colores" which was absolutely gorgeous. Also, in Humauacha, I ate the most amazing "locro" which is a stew traditionally eaten in the winter there, with corn, garbanzo beans, Spanish chorizo, and sweet potatoes. When we got back to the hostel, we met up with a bunch of other kids from IES who had just arrived after having been in Mendoza for the weekend, so we got to chat with them for a bit but they all had excursions early in the morning so we went out with some other friends from the hostel (a lovely couple called Dorris and Valter (like Walter) from Holland who were hilarious and a kid from Colorado who's here doing work for his non-profit that bring lacrosse gear to villages). The next day (Tuesday) we walked around Salta more, hiked up a trail to get a better view of the city, then went to the MAAM museum which is home to three perfectly preserved sacrificed Incan children that archeologists found on top of one of the highest mountains in the Andes. After saying our goodbye to all the wonderful people we met at our hostel, we packed up our gear and got on a 10 PM bus headed to Córdoba.
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