Salta

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

Day 125 on The Big Trip. “Argentina?!”

SALTA, Argentina is like many other traveling destinations in that it is not what I expected. When I arrived in Quito I was surprised. For some reason when I expected another culture, I didn’t expect a Venn Diagram with my own culture but rather an entirely foreign experience. Instead this entire trip I’ve found myself very able to latch on to familiar things and learn to grasp an embrace the new ways and the neverending list of new words.

AND SO it is in Salta where I had heard it was gorgeous and there was a lot to do. In fact, I bought the story of Salta hook, liner, and anchor so much that I took a 12-hour busride across the Cordilleras de Andes from sunny Chile to check it out. Lo and behold, Salta is nice and very much like what you’d see in some twisted version of a US city. There are more vendors, slightly fewer different outfit styles, but the count is on the “up” it seems, and there are more dogs as pets than in a lot of other places in S.A. where you’d find dogs with dogs, with trash cans, and with appetites.

BESIDES, to me adventure does not mean paying a guide a bunch of money (whether it’s the equivalent of US$20 or US$130 is not the point) to drive a 4x4 through streams, go river rafting for a few hours, bungee jump, rappel, or anything that I can foresee the event in my head to the extent that I will not be surprised even if I do enjoy it. That’s why I feel ready to leave Salta for Mendoza with its great wines and liveliness.

TOMORROW, the 2nd of November, a mere two days before the U.S. Presidential (and Vice Presidential) election, we are taking an 18-hour bus ride directly to Mendoza. There isn’t much in between that differs enough from what we’ve experienced or could experience anywhere to make us do otherwise. For the extreme duration of our little trip I almost wish there was! I hope to be able to enjoy a good bottle of wine with a TV on the 4th and hope for the world’s sake that the election goes to the better candidate.

GOOD NEWS for me has been the safe, stomach-happy, sporadically adventure-filled travels that have gotten me nearly all the way to Patagonia thus far. It’s only a few weeks away! But more good news has come frequently! My family might visit me in Chilean Patagonia for Christmas. This would be more than memorable! Even more than this, friends from sunnyside of Seattle and Stone Gardens as well as friends from the good old Maine School of Science and Mathematics have expressed solid, trustworthy interest in visiting me in Patagonia. This makes more than my day! I’m really excited for what the future holds. I truly revel in the unknown anticipation of job-searching and adventure-forging in the depths and summits of Patagonia at the extent of my abilities with people I love!

A STORM is what we’re cooking up to save money! We split our meals that we make four ways with the Padraig and Caroline. For dinner we make tuna melts with onions and a tomato soup with tortellini. We all get stuffed to capacity on just three dollars or so a piece. And now it’s time for Alisa and I to start preparing for our night out. While running a grocery errand to the supermarket, the man behind us waiting with us in the queue started up a conversation. A direct result of this conversation was an interest and the hope of going dancing for our last night in Salta. So we start polishing off a rum and coke and then leave the hostel to find the area of clubs that he’d said was happening. The short story is that we didn’t find the clubs and had to return to the hostel for actual directions.

VOILA!: A very posh area of town where drinks and clubs and restaurants with live music formed a strip sectioned off by barricades with guards for pedestrians only. Pedestrians in Salta’s hotspot include the following genarlized groups: teenagers spicing up their bright-color fashion and social lives, tweenagers (twenty-agers) with a bit more confidence and looking for a date and a good time, adults with hungry bellies and sometimes with kids and sweaters around their necks. It’s an interestingly diverse crowd in an area of town consuming massive quantities of electricity, I’m sure. Since the club Nuevo XXI cost more money than we wanted to spend, we bought an energy drink and sat on a stoop watching all of the people come and go and watch like us. By the way, it’s something like 2am by the time we finish people watching and decide to head to

SALON VIP, a club across town that you should taxi to that is the real deal for Salta. The strip we’ve been hanging about is apparently the pre-gaming dinner area. This place stays open ‘til 5am and people generally begin to shift there at 1am. We start walking and on the way catch a secure taxi with a timer – the first timer-priced taxi we’ve taken this entire trip. Come to find out, it’s cheaper to enter Salon VIP with the drink-included price than it was to enter Neuvo XXI. Perhaps they can afford the better price because of the sheer grand number of people that they attract daily. The short stick of the story is that we ended up back at the hostel after trying to dance to some redundant Argentinian-bass songs and a bunch of great songs accompanied by music videos, body-to-body. By the time we return to our hostel it’s something like 5am. That means it’s time to sleep! It also means we're in a different country than Ecuador, where some towns thereof seemed to close at 5pm, or 8pm if you're lucky! Anyhow! Tomorrow we head to Mendoza and I'm happy about that! Goodnight! Or should I say goodmorning?!