Salta, Argentina

in an attempt to continue working on my spanish, the first part of this post is for my spanish speaking friends. i hope i am not butchering the language too badly.

el primer parte de este mensaje es por mi maestra de español en la ciudad de mexico...y mis otros amigos que hablan español.

ahora, ben y yo estamos in salta, en el norteoeste parte de argentina. esta area es increíble y me encanta. salimos de buenos aires en domingo y llegó a salta con bien clima. pero, cuando me desperté el lunes por la mañana, el clima era malo. simplemente no tenemos buena suerte con la clima. increíble! el lunes caminamos en la ciudad y fuimos a cerro san bernardo para grandes vistas de la ciudad. también compramos nuestros boletos para ir a san pedro de atacama (chile). vamos allí el jueves.

el martes, alquilamos un coche y manejamos de salta a cafayate. la camino fue magnífico! los colores de las rocas y las formaciones fueron sorprendentes. nosotros comemos en cafayate y visitamos dos bodegas de vino. yo recomiendo el torrontes a las personas que gustan el vino blanco.

voy a tratar de seguir escribiendo un poco en español, pero no siempre tengo mucho tiempo para escribir....y es mas facil para mi a escribir en ingles.

besos y abrazos.


now, for the english version.

last saturday night ben and i decided that we should get out of the city for a couple reasons. first, the smoke was still not going anywhere and it really took away from the sites of the city and the enjoyment of being outside. second, the weather in salta was supposed to be gorgeous...and continue to be so for at least the next week. finally, the boca fútbol game we wanted to go to got moved up to saturday night without us knowing (boca beat newell's 2-1).

so, sunday we headed for salta. we arrived in the northwest part of argentina to clear, sunny skies. finally, the traveling and weather spirits were with us...or so we thought. we woke up monday morning to a severly overcast day. we spent the day exploring the city and organizing the next leg of our journey. one of the places we went in the city was cerro san bernardo, a large hill on the edge of town that offers great views of the city and surrounding area. by the time we got to the top of cerro san bernardo, the weather had cleared a bit and allowed us pretty good views. salta reminds me a little of mexico city in that it is a sprawling city surrounded by mountains. later in the day we bought our bus tickets to go to san pedro de atacama in northern chile for thursday morning. finally, we decided to rent a car for tuesday and wednesday so we could venture outside the city and see places that have come highly recommended to us by friends.

tuesday morning we set out for cafayate in our VW Gol (the latin american version of the 3-door hatchback called the Golf). it turned out to be much cheaper to rent this car (that comes with unlimited mileage...nice!) than to do the buses and tours to get to the areas and places we wanted to see. the drive from salta to cafayate will be one of the defining moments of the trip. it was truly breath taking. as you leave salta with its fresh green mountainsides and lush farmlands, you enter the quebrada de cafayate...an area of expansive reddish-brown sandstone that over time has come to resemble the landscape of another planet. massive amounts of rain over thousand of years have created incredible formations in the rock...including formations known as the devil's throat, the amphitheater, the toad, the friar, and the castles...to mention a few. having our own car allowed us to stop at all these site and many others along the way, providing us with incredible views that words and even pictures cannot accurately describe or portray. we arrived in cafayate around 1pm and walked around the small, quite town. as we entered the various craft markets we were offered figs, nuts, sweet wines from the region...all
of which were outstanding. we had a great lunch of empanadas, humitas (similar to a tamale and made out of cheese, onions, corn, pumpkin, and spices), and locro (a spicy meat stew that includes beans, onions and other vegetables). afterwards, we visited two of the local wineries (of which there must have been at least 6 in this very small, sleepy town). the northwest region of argentina, including cafayate, is known for a particular white wine they produce called torrontés. for lovers of white wine, i highly recommend it. the drive back to salta was just as amazing as the drive to cafayate, despite being the exact same path. simply coming from the opposite direction changed the vantage point of the landscape so much that it was as if we had never driven the road before. we also decided to stop off at dique cabra corral, a massive lake about 40km south of salta. companies and brochures claim to have 'extreme sports' here, including bungee jumping, jet skiing, and other water sports. we left quite disappointed after seeing the single jet ski (probably 15 years old), the 12 foot high water slide (that currently directed riders into an empty pool...not even the lake), and the fairly pedestrian 75 foot tall bridge from which you could bungee jump.

right now it is about 8:45am on wednesday morning and we are going to drive north to explore the jujuy region, including purmamarca (with its cerro de los siete colores) and the argentinian salt flats. tomorrow morning we head for northern chile. i will write more again when i can get in front of a computer.

ciao!