past few stops..

ok so i admit, i've lost alot of the details of our last few stops because i didnt write them down on here... GOOD news is i have them, just somewhere else. What that means to you faithful readers :) is that when you ask for stories, the unwritten ones and the details come to face so get excited. Anyways, what you SHOULD know is that we went on a long tour around the vicenity of salta which i will expand upon in a minute. Afternoon one, we took a teleferico (cable car) up to the san bernardo look out and it was great, but the city has a lot of smog. We ended up watching the sunset over the mountains to the sweet tate of a submarino (hot chocolate). We met some isrealies on the way up and kept running into them on the tiny mountain outlook. What we didn't realize was that when the sun goes down, so does the temperature by about 15 degrees..in line, a sweet old man offered katie and I his jacket: I first refused because thats what you always do, decline once and then accept.. when i declined though, he replied with "i am with my wife" haha so then i had to take it. We met some really awesome girls on the way down in the gondola, one from Missouri and one from New Jersey (Misa y Ariel). WE convinced them to go on the tour the hostel offered in place of "el tren a las nubes" which is one of the highlights of argentina. I also need to mention that in between all of this, we wrote our final essays for our class and turned them in with about 5 minutes to spare, but they got done :) The tour left at 7am and lasted until about 9 30 pm. Basically we took the same route as "el tren" but went alot faster, paid alot less, and met some great people. In our camioneta (bus/van) there were girls from spain, our friends, bri from ohio, Niels from germany and a super sick girl named paris from france.. Our first stop was in the Quebrada del torro which was awesome.. cacti covers the mountains like a sheet. the jagged mountain tops are a sight especially combined with ancient power lines at the base..gosh its just pretty. Our guide fede told us about pacha mama (the pre-incan God or something in which you find various shrines on the sides of the roads..people leave half empty bottles of water so "she" wont get thristy and they (truckers and other argentines) also leave trash inside the shrine. To me, it was an excuse to litter but to them it's custom. So after purchasing the softest alpaca scarf and some 1 peso empanadas we continued on our way. The stop for lunch was interesting because the menu was in our waiters head..always a dangerous thing. I asked for pollo and they brought a whole rotissery chicken to me.. not quite what i was expecting but it was good. We got scammed with the price and so when katie and i left, we took all the bread possible off the table and stuck it in our purses..because we had ultimately paid for it and then some. Anyways, I was pretty darn tired so i managed to fall asleep. Funny thing is that we were on the bumpiest road known to man, but it wasnt just for 30 mins or so, it was about 2 and 1/2 hours. At one point before falling asleep breifly, i had to go to the bathroom SO bad. I asked if we could stop and we did.. only problem was there are NOOO trees..so i found a medium size bush and made it work. after i broke the ice by asking to stop, many other enjoyed the break as well haha..anyways, i awoke to a world of white..the salt flats! possibly one of the coolest terrains. Its like when you're in colorado looking at the beautiful rockies and then you arrive to the massive sand dunes..kind of random. Fede told us that the salt planes (also some in bolivia and chile) were not from the ocean, but from the volcanoes..and that every year they get covered with water ( a big lake forms) and then they dry up again. Pentagon-ish shapes covered the earth as far as you could see to the mountains around you..I tried to think of a reason why while applying my chemistry and I came up with this: maybe salt NaCl has a traingle shaped crystal and that after the forces act with the other crystals, they all together form a large pentagon shape! Also in the salt planes, you can take crazy optical illusion pictures, which we did. Neils the german guy got a little out of line with his creativity but it was funny none-the-less. We passed through Jujuy on the way back which was a really cool little place. It also is the home of the rock of seven colors. It was there i bought my beloved alpaca sweater and some other super cheap dessert empanadas. That night we decided to eat out and possibly to go check out a pena (a spanish folklore show popular to salta)...but we were too tired. We felt like true argentines because we ended up eating dinner at 11 30. I had the best meal out of my entire stay in argentina.. it was lomo (the best cut of meat) covered in onions, peas, bacons pieces, ham and a fried egg, surrounded by circular potatoes at the perfect hardness..it was heavenly. One of the most interesting things about eating with katie is that she is SUPER slow..i mean like SLOW. Every time i sit down to eat, i have to pace myself with katie and make sure i dont get too far ahead because if i finish too much before she does, i'll still be hungry and want more JUST because she's still eating. The balancing factor is the same when it comes to drinks..You only get one and it doesnt matter if its coka, pepsi or water..all the same price and all small. This is one of the only things i REALLY miss about the states, no free safe water and no free refills..they also dont use ice :( but back to salta. The next day we walked around town a while, saw some quirky latin american churches and took a bunch of pictures.
MENDOZA
Then we headed to the bus station and hopped on..it was the smoothest transition from hostel to bus that we had experienced yet. Our bus to mendoza left at 3:45 and was supposed to arrive at 9:30 am. During this wondeful ride with Andesmar, we played bingo. Now i love bingo and so does katie, so we were trash talking to each other about who was going to win. It didnt even occur to me, rules could be different in argentina. Also, katie has a problem with understanding numbers so everytime he called one out, i translated it for her in english. I got a whole row across so I yelled out BINGO!.. he then proceeded to call out all my numbers and told me i was missing one..41 in the corner..that would link 3 edges together for a triple bingo in american standards. YOu know what happened next, katie was about to win and then he called 41.. i was so pumped..and my gift was a bottle of white wine from mendoza, perfect welcoming gift to our next desination. Our guide friend Pablo from our previous mendoza trip made plans to pick us up from the bus terminal and go from there. Apparently he got confused as to when we were arriving and went there at night, therefore he wasnt there when we actually did arrive in the morning. I ended up walking around the entire terminal searching for a very argnetine looking pablo and wasnt successful. This man tried to get us to go to his hostel and it was actually the one we had already planned on going to. We couldn't get a hold of pablo and so we used this mans knowledge of dialing in argnetina to check to see it pablos number was valid. It was indeed and we heard from his after we camped out in a cafe for a while. He picked us up and we crammed our things into his car only to go, as the crow flies, across the street. However, by road it took about 30 mins with traffic and a confused driver :) it was good time to catch up with him though and we enjoyed the brief reunion. As we walked in our hostel room for the next two days, we were met with a horrible smell. We realized later it was our roomies that hadn't showered recently. Ryan, from san diego, more specifically 2 blocks from where drew and I surfed alot, and his traveling parter Charlie from argentina but residing in Spain. We chatted with them a while and then headed out to do our own thing. We were on a mission: find me a towel! I had been using katies towel after she showered up until this point because we hadn't run into any towels...and i did not want to "hire" or rent a towel from the hostels we'd been at. Anyways, we were successful only after a wonderful lunch of hamburgers! I eat almost exactly twice as katie so when she didnt finish hers, I did and continued to have 2 alfajores as well :) I am in love with milka..its a chocolate here and i usually am not a HUGE chocolate lover..but now i am addicted..thats right addicted. I also have taken a strong liking to pepsi. You may think, well holly, you already had a huge liking...but now its much more strong. Word on the street, or in the hostel lobby, is that they make pepsi sweeter here, with real sugar and in the states they make it with sweetner..not sure if thats true but it sounds good :) Afterwards, we did indeed find a towl like i said, and also a really great argentine jersey type shirt that i'm very attached to. We decided to walk down and see the main plaza and it was beatiful. When we were in mendoza about a month ago with our group, we saw a very different side of the city so it was good to see the other part this trip. Katie wasn't feeling well so we headed home after taking a look around. I of course had to get a pepsi and some chocolate on the way home. Everyday I think about the amazing sale we found on this chocolate in puerto igazu..6 pesos for a huge bar and now everywhere else, its double that :( I'm even a bargain shopper in argentine pesos. Anyways, i tried to catch up on uploading pictures for a while and chatted with some girls in the tv room. Later Ryan and i headed to the supermarket to grab some things for dinner. Katie and Charlie weren't eating so ryan and i put our food toghether and charlie cooked it (bc his brother is a chef and hes knows how to cook well too). I broke open the bottle of white wine that I won on the bus and shared it with our newfound friends. I still however don't enjoy the plain taste of white or red wine and always taint it with sprite. People mince at this..but thats fine with me. We had a wonderful meal, chatted with a guy from france and a woman from chile for a while, and then continued with adventure stories. The stories lead to showing pictures and that lasted for a while. Ryan and I talked about aspirations with our majors and what not and he told some pretty funny stories about how life goes in california. Charlie was educated after the night on what he needed to go see in the states. That night was pretty rough..katie was doing things in the bathroom that aren't considered fun..meaning she had water sickness. Ryan was moving around alot... and i woke up suppper hot. Needless to say, morning was a welcome sight. We jumbled our things together in 30 mins and headed to the bus station. The 8 30 bus to chile was full so we got a ticket for 9 30 and drank coffee in the cafe once again. Katie and I always have nice chats at the coffee shops. It amazes me however how many people eat solo here. I mean maybe i just never analyzed that at home but i have taken notes here..and i will soon compare :)
VALPARAISO CHILE
Oh dios mio...thats equivalent to "oh my gosh" Pretty much this day was the longest day ever. the drive was splendid but we'd actually already seen the first 3 hours before when we went trekking at aconcagua. The difference though was the snow slopes were open and teeming with people. The andes look soo much more spectacular dotted with white powder. For whatever reason, katie and i were feeling pretty lousy for the whole ride up until the border. Before we know it, we're headed through a tunnel and see a "welcome to chile" sign! I high five the man sitting next to me and we do a little victory dance. Katie was on the opposite row next to the sweetest middle aged woman. Well we shouldn't have done that little dance yet because the border control took FOREVER. First we waited in a line for about 45 mins..then we were allowed to get off and walk around a bit. The only piece of comic relief here was we could see the ski slopes running across the way. So, after we wait for a while, we all get in line to get stamped out of argnetina, and then stamped in chile. During this process we met our new friends Elizabeth and Russ who have a sheep farm in Australia. They didn't speak a lick of spanish and had been travleling all around..quite an inspiration but not what i prefer. The next thing was to get all your things off the bus, have them look through then, and also pass ALL the luggage through a screen. IN the mean time i met one of the detectives and his dog nino..just in case we needed some help :) haha Passing the time in conversation was much appreciated as it took about 1.45 to finish all this. Well wouldn't you know some stupid woman tried to bring eggs across the border and instead of just throwing them in the trash, they have to go through a 2 hour long process of who knows what...scolding?? Anyways, our bus waited another 2 hours for the woman to get on and then we continued to valpariso. The andes continued to stand with dignity, looking majestic. The road we took to decend from the frontera (border) had about 12 switchbacks. Because we were sitting on a two story bus in the front seat, going around the corners just about gave us heart attacks. Chile had much different terrain than argentina. It is SOOOO green.