Smile, cry or feel completely confused...

Getting a smile...

In the north especially, lots of the elderly women seem quite grumpy and a little intimidating. This is completely not the case. If you amuse them with something, do something kind or just smile nicely then they suddenly break into the most amazing warm smiles and giggles that light up the room. You just have to earn it.

'll'... 

the accent sounds nice in argentina but is much harder than in other countries, pronouncing 'll' like 'sh' instead of 'y' is much harder to adapt to than I though it would be.

Supremas, Milanesas and Empanadas...

sometimes the only food you can find. Don't get me wrong, I like it, but you don't know what I would give for a Thai takeaway!!

Beautiful, quirky, cute little llamas...

Jim keeps eating them! Llama stew, llama milenesa, llama burger, llama empanadas, llama steak...poor little llamas.

Postcards...

sent some over a month ago. Haven't arrived yet :-(

Sausage dog on the loose in Cafayate...

almost every stray dog in Cafayate is short with a funny long body. We thought there was a little randy sausage dog on the loose a while ago that managed to make lots of puppies!

Young people in white doctor jackets...

at one point Jim and I were wandering why the doctors looked so young, or if they were pharmacists or did they work in a factory? In fact, the school uniforms here are the same as the white coats doctors wear. This was confirmed when we then saw a group of 10 year olds in these coats...definitely not doctors.

Lots of donkeys and that always makes me happy...

I watched a lady pull her donkey up a hill in the midday sun and when the donkey reached the shade of the one tree that was on their path it stopped. The lady tried to pull the donkey along, it just stayed where it was, completely ignoring the lady. Obviously her stubborn donkey was as amusing to her as it was to me which made me smile.

10 pesos is about £1.50...

you can't get more than 1000 pesos out from a cash machine. Sometimes cash machines don't work. You can't get money out from a bank unless you belong to that bank, I have noticed some HSBCs so it would have been good if we banked with them but we don't.

Bus whisperers...

there are some things here that you are just meant to know, on buses especially. Sometimes the bus will stop to pick up locals and other times you are able to get off for a stretch, a snack and a loo break. No one tells you which one it is though and by the time you work it out it can be too late. 

a man puts your luggage in the luggage compartment and takes it out for you, we learnt very quickly that you tip him or he might give you a bit of abuse. Seems obvious now but the first time we thought he worked for the bus company. 

People in the countryside like to stare...

they also fib about distances! 1km is not always 1km and 5km is usually 8km.

They are obsessed with facebook...

more than us!

No-one will talk about the 'bin'...

it's got to be mentioned. Put it this way, no paper goes down the toilet.

Don't expect things from hostels...

don't expect a window in your bedroom. If it says 'internet' that does not mean in your room. If you do not have a private bathroom you might be sharing one with the whole hostel.

Some hostels have TVs...

got the world to explore and I'm excited by a TV! Channels 36-45 often have English speaking programmes on them. Good stuff sometimes. Watching famous people being dubbed in Spanish is also quite amusing.

They eat a lot of sweetcorn...

and there are whole aisles of tuna in the supermarkets. If you are stuck for something to cook there is always tuna and sweetcorn pasta.

Los Ninos del llullaillaco...

made me cry. Incredibly sad but an amazing insight into the Incas.

...and that is about it for our Argentina. ;-)

altitude, ambulances and the amazing Jim...

We have now travelled up to an altitude of 3442m. That is high. Really high. Unfortunately my body doesn't like it very much... a week later, two trips to the hospital, one ride in an ambulance, and a lot of Argentinian television and we are just about ready to cross the border.

It has not been the best week we've had on our journey so far. We left Tilcara and made it to La Quiaca where we were due to have one night in a hostel and cross over to Bolivia the next morning. By the evening I had become so ill that the staff suggested that a trip to the hospital would make me feel a lot better. A little lost in translations but I managed to tell the doctor that I had been really sick and dizzy all day and my head had been extremely sore. They gave me oxygen, put my thumb in a beepy thing, prodded and poked me for a bit and then to my surprise gave me a rather painful injection in my bottom! I'm still not entirely sure what it was for ;-) Anyway, it turned out I had altitude sickness.

It can take up to a week to adjust to the lack of oxygen of the high altitude and it effects people in different ways. Luckily Jim has not been badly effected. It's been so amazing having him here, I really don't know what I would do without him... he has even been out shopping on his own to some quite intimidating, spanish speaking markets for fresh veg just to make me soup!I'm a lucky girl.

It has taken me the full week to adapt and I've been to the hospital a couple of times, got better then got worse but I am definitely getting there now. As for La Quiaca, I've no idea what it is like but our hostel is lovely, the couple that run it have been really kind but it feels like we have been here forever. Can't wait for Bolivia.

Images of Tilcara...

...not even slightly capturing what we saw but I gave it a go.

Heading north...

We have left Cafayate. We were at our hostel for such a long time compared to other travellers that the lovely manager offered me a job! I found it interesting to see how many people travelled through in the time we were there. They all had schedules to keep to, places to get to and people to meet along their chosen journeys. All of them kept asking us why we would want to stay in such a small town for longer than a couple of days and what could we possibly have to do there... mean while we were wandering why nobody wanted to stay in such an idyllic town for as long as they could and why we had to do anything at all except absorb our surroundings, enjoy talking to the locals and take some time to breath and relax. We did decide that it was time to move on however when one of the days our only objective was to try a particular type of ice-cream!

We spent a couple of days in Salta, a city with lots of tourists, lots of traffic and after the peace of the countryside the change of pace was really noticeable. Salta had some nice bits to it but I didn't feel like we were missing out on anything spectacular by only spending a short time there. The highlight was definitely a ski-type-lift to the top of a nearby hill where you could see the whole city. Scary trip up but worth it for the view.

We then booked our bus to head north past Jujuy (pronounced who-who-eee... I tried all sorts before I worked out how to say that one!) and when we were all packed up and standing, waiting for our bus we suddenly realised there were quite a lot of policemen around, men with make shift percussion instruments and firecrackers, and crowds of confused tourists. Long story short, there was a national bus strike and we ended up getting a couple of quite expensive lifts/taxis to our next destination.

So, having left Cafayate, one of the most gorgeous places we have ever been to, we have now arrived in the equally gorgeous village of Tilcara! Tilcara is surrounded by mountains with layers of rocks of every shade of red, orange and brown. The little maze of cobbled streets climbs up the mountain and the weathered looking buildings look like they have been cut out of the hillside. The sun quickly heats your skin as the cold air cools you down and for the first time it feels like we have begun our journey through the Andes.

Illustrations of Argentina...so far

'Wisdom and Light'

'The noise outside our window' very noisy Buenos Aires.

'Shapes behind Jim' sitting on the balcony in Buenos Aires.

'A Mandala for my Mum' my mum likes Mandalas and there are a lot of Mandalas here!
(i pretty much just coloured it in but it was a lot of fun!)

the story of the 'Foraging Princess'

Things on our terrace in Cafayate.
didn't draw the mosquitos cos they would just fill the page!

Life around Cafayate.

some of the views from Cafayate...

Cordoba... nice hostel, nice people, nice place

We have had 5 days in Cordoba. It's a pretty nice place, we haven't seen as much of it as I thought we would but that has mainly been because we have been hibernating a bit. We have hidden in our hostel (which is really lovely, friendly and has even got a kitchen with pans, knives and chopping boards!) and recharged our batteries for the most part. Of course, we have been out exploring a bit and discovered a massive park, some strange circle arty things, endless mazes of shopping streets and some really friendly people. It is not the most exciting of places but is a nice change from the sometimes overwhelming bustle of Buenos Aires.







We did meet some travellers from Chile in our hostel who were hitch hiking across Argentina, or travelling by 'dedo' as they called it. They encouraged us to give it a go and told us that a lot of the time you end up staying at the house of the person who picks you up and you never end up without a ride or without a place to sleep. It all seems a bit to scary for novice travellers like ourselves but give it a couple of months and maybe we will give it a go!
It was actually one of the first long conversations I have had in Spanish since we have been here and although I felt I was talking rubbish half the time they seemed to understand me... Jim struggled a little to keep up with what was going on but did manage to join in and answer a question. Scary thing to do for the first time so I'm feeling particularly proud of him!

As I am writing we are waiting for another over night bus. This time we know what to expect, which I'm not entirely sure is a good thing... we are heading to a little town, just south of Salta, called Cafayate which is known for it's beautiful landscapes and it's tasty wine. We only have a bus booked to Tucuman and tomorrow morning we will hopefully find a way of travelling from there to our destination.
Wish us luck... it is the first journey where we really don't know if we will actually get there or not!

Thoughts of home.

We have made it to Cordoba. The bus journey was a little strange and went surprisingly well considering how travel sick I usually get. Ten hours did not actually feel that bad. We opted for an over night journey to save ourselves the cost of a night's accommodation and a 'cama ejecutivo' which meant our seats were massive and reclined right down. I slept on and off for about 4 hours of the journey and Jim only managed a couple so by the time we arrived we were ready to spend the day relaxing at our hostel. We did venture into the city centre for a quick look and the impression we got was that Cordoba has a lot of shops and a lot of people! So, we hid from the world for the rest of the day and caught up on some sleep.
This morning I woke up to an email from home and it is the first time I have really wished I was there instead of the other side of the world. My two beautiful dogs are having to be re-homed and although I already knew this and I had said goodbye to them when I left England I had not really prepared myself for how I would feel when they were really going. It has upset me a huge amount and I guess that is one of the draw backs to travelling. We haven't even been gone that long and I already want to be back home. I know the feeling will not last but I am sure there will be a fair amount of times ahead when I will feel this way. Hopefully I will get better at dealing with the idea that I will miss things, good things and bad things.
So much love being sent over the internet to Molly and Dylan. And a huge hug for my mum.
xxxxxxx

Tango!!!

Panic over. Found some tango.....

The reinvention of daily life means marching off the edge of our maps.

-bob black

I've been looking at maps, following other peoples routes along their maps and drawing my own quite badly proportioned map...

Every time I think I might have come up with a potential route for our adventure through South America I change my mind. There are so many amazing places to see and experiences not to be missed that of course there are too many. It's a little overwhelming.

We are arriving in Buenos Aires. That's the only decision we have made, it's a start... but where to next?

Second decision is whether to go south or not. Patagonia. Looks fantastic. Expensive. Long long journey from B.A. I managed to convince Jim that maybe we can go back for a holiday one day when we have more money.

So, I believe we have three options for our Argentinean travels and beyond;

1. west, straight across to Mendoza, over the Andes and into Chile and then north up the coast.
2. north/east to Puerto Iguazu and then back north/west of Argentina and continue into Bolivia.
3. straight to the north of Argentina via Cordoba, up to Salta, over a border to either Chile or Bolivia.

At one point we were contemplating having help with one of these options and following a typical backpackers route by using a company to guide us along our way (the 'Libertador Ways' with Bamba bus http://www.bambaexperience.com/bus-travel-buenosaires-lima.php looked particularly interesting). It seems like a simple way to travel; safe, secure and probably really fun, but there just doesn't seem to be enough flexibility. So, we will be making our own way.

I would love to go to Chile but (along with Argentina) it seems to be relatively expensive compared to the rest of South America. We can't afford it so unfortunately option '1' is out. Option '2', although beautiful, looks like it will be really touristy so we are also going to miss out Puerto Iguazu. That leaves option '3'...

hopefully will have one of my own photos soon :)

...our plan is to make our way up to northern Argentina, explore some gorgeous looking places, a little bit off the beaten track, short journeys, short stays and cross over to Bolivia.

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
-Lao Tzu


hmm, I like plans... hopefully the more we travel the less I'll plan.