visiting family and red deserts in Argentina

Buen dia todos!

No worries, I won’t write this report in Spanish, although it is confusing sometimes to switch between Spanish (while speaking with locals), English (while speaking with other tourists) and Dutch (sometimes you have to keep in contact with your family). But it’s nice to practice my Spanish again and even learning new words. Though most of the words I learned in the last weeks is Argentinean slang and thus completely useless outside Argentina.

The first days in Argentina I spent with Stef and Carolina, starting with a weekend in their big, cold house on the river in the river delta north of Buenos Aires. Finally I got the chance to see where they’ve been living for the last 6 years. It’s a nice and relaxing place, far away from the busy life of B.A., although the nautical traffic in front of their house was much more than I imagined. Because of the winter here, it was very quiet, but I can imagine how it fills up with guests and friends during the summer days. As it’s a big and old house, there’s no central heating or isolation, so this time of the year it’s really cold. Fortunately their big garden was full of fallen leaves so whenever I got really cold I could gather the leaves and burn them, to get a bit warmer.

During the week, Stef and Caro stay in a small apartment downtown B.A to be closer to Caro’s work/study, so I went with them to fill up the apartment even more. As I have been in B.A. before, I had planned to stay only a few days before travelling north towards Bolivia. But in Argentina, plans always change every day, so I turned out to stay for almost a week. One reason was that it was nice to spend time with Stef and Caro and go out with them and their friends for dinner or drinks in the evening. Another big reason was that I had planned to take a bus to Salta (in the north of Argentina), but several things I couldn’t take it. The first time I had to postpone it myself, because I suddenly had to do some job interviews by Skype so I had to stay one day longer. When I arrived next day to take the bus I had booked, the company decided to use a smaller bus, so I couldn’t go. I then bought a ticket for the bus that would leave that evening, but when I went back there and waited for 2 hours, it turned out that the bus had some small mechanical problems and the road police didn’t let it depart. They promised me that next day another bus would leave for sure. Next morning they called to inform that it would leave in the afternoon instead of the morning and by then I decided to stay another day, because it was a long holiday weekend and I wanted to be in B.A. a bit longer. Two days later I finally had a bus that did really leave, although it was delayed for 4 hours.

After 24 hours of travelling, I arrived in Salta, a nice colonial city close to the Andes Mountains. The area around Salta is very beautiful, everywhere intense colored rocks and mountains. I took a day trip through a beautiful gorge to a village called Cafayate, famous for its many wineries. Especial the road towards it was amazing, with all different rock formations and many colored mountains. After getting back in Salta, I joined all the local people watching the semi-final of the America cup, because Argentina had to play against the US. Fortunately they won the game, so they had to play the final against Chile (same as last year, but then they lost on penalties).

Next day I travelled more north to a region called Jujuy. Here the landscape was even more incredible. The area was very dry (as always in wintertime), desolated and full of cacti and the colors of the mountains had about 50 shades of red. During the days it’s quite warm here, but after sunset it cools down dramatically, and I was staying with a cousin of Carolina in a house made of adobe and again without isolation, so the nights were even colder than in B.A. Fortunately I got used a little bit to the cold and I had 20 blankets on my bed so I survived.

My last stop in Argentina was Humahuaca. Stef has a friend who runs a hostel there and I luckily decided to stay there. The hosts were really friendly and for the first time since I arrived in Argentina, I met some other European tourists. (So far, the only tourists I met where Argentinean exploring their own country so I started to wonder if they would be international tourists at all in this country). With some of the tourists we made a daytrip to a much unknown place with ancient wall paintings from the Indian people who lived here before the Inca’s came. On the way back, we saw some llama’s running down from a hill towards a little river. It was the first time I saw a herd of llama’s in the open land and was really excited. The same afternoon I went to a more touristic viewing point where we were supposed to see the 14 colored mountain. Unfortunately there was a strong wind and all the dust was hovering in the air so we couldn’t really get the right impression. Fortunately on the way up there, we past some Vicunas, a wild sort of animal, family of the llama’s and alpaca’s but more elegant and with less, but softer hair.

By this time I had seen the most scenic parts of the area and was ready to continue to Bolivia, but the next day Argentina would play Chile for the Americas cup and I wanted to watch that game in Argentina. In the hostel it was common that some of the guests or the hosts would cook dinner and for me it was a long time ago since I had the chance to cook for more people so I took my chance this day. The match started at 21.00h, which is a right time for Argentinean people to start dinner. Because of the match, we also had some (??!!) wine and beer to celebrate the expected winning of the cup. After 120 minutes of exciting moments but no goals on either side, it turned out to be decided by penalties. Well, in that way Argentina looks like the NLs; they always loose a great match during the penalties. Nevertheless, I had a great evening and wonderful time in Argentina, thanks to all those people I could spend time with. On my way to Bolivia.

In the meantime I can inform you that I accepted a job for next year on the 'Jeroen Bosch College' in Den Bosch. I'm looking forward to start teaching again and also to see everyone again, but this also means my trip is getting closerd to an end. One more month to go and enjoy the unemploid life.