El desierto de Argentina

Right now I am sitting at the airport waiting for my flight back to the United States. I cannot believe my study abroad is finally over. To kill time, I decided to wrap up my blog with two more entries.

First of all, I wanted to recap my last trip to Salta, which is located in Northern Argentina. I heard from many different people that Salta was as amazing as Patagonia. I had to see for myself.

The first day Celine and I met up with Ali and Liz to take a tour of Salta, Cafayette, and all of the towns in between. We had a hilarious tour guide who showed us amazing rocks and mountains. I felt like we were guessing shapes in the clouds with images like the Titanic, King Kong, and a woman lying down.

Can you see the woman? The head is on the right and the feet are on the left.

The Titanic

We also saw the Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s throat). I swear Argentine’s just use this name for everything.

The next day Celine and I headed to a smaller town called Humahuaca in Jujuy. We explored the mountains and even created our own pathway through the dessert.

At night we asked a woman where the supermarket was and she invited us to visit her school to have an exchange with her English class. Well the class did not speak a word of English. It was almost sad to see how little resources this school had. But on the flip side, it was extremely satisfying to know our Spanish was better than their English. When I first got to Argentina, many people would “comfort” me and say “It’s Okay, we can just speak in English.” I always wanted to say – No! I came hear to learn Spanish give me a chance and a little bit of patience. Now we had to speak Spanish because our ability was better than theirs. The class laughed at me when I told them about some of the porteño (Buenos Aires) slang I had picked up on – Che Boludo! Como andas? (This means buddy – jerk, how is it going?). They also died of laughter when I said yo tambien with my Buenos Aires accent. The y and double L have distinct sounds in Buenos Aires. I guess its always-interesting when you hear a double accent. I always find it entertaining when someone whose second language is English has a British accent. Anyway, Celine and I just answered their questions about America and tried to practice a little bit of English with them. They really struggled over questions like what is your name? where are you from? 

We told the students we were heading to Tilcara and this girl from there offered to take us around. She was super sweet and a wonderful tour guide. We explored some ruins of an old indigenous population. 

The next day Celine and I went to Purmamarca. This was definitely my favorite part of the trip. Purmamarca has the seven-colored mountain, which is absolutely gorgeous. We did some hiking because the city had seven different viewpoints. We met this great couple from Tandil. It was interesting because originally they told me they were from Buenos Aires. Afterward I found out they meant a providence of Buenos Aires: Tandil. I guess technically Tandil is a providence… but it is five hours away. Since I have been there I can honestly say it is completely different from Buenos Aires. I just found it interesting because that would be similar to me claiming I was from New York City. It’s pretty much the same distance.

We ended up exploring the Salt flats with them. The salt flats were beautiful but you really only need an hour there to take creative pictures. 

The next day was Celine’s 21^st Birthday and we celebrated with a picnic at the top of the mountain. We explored the mountains and ended up a bit off the trail. This was fine until we had to go down the hill. It was too steep to walk so we ended up sliding on our butts to get down. But it was completely worth the view.

The last day we headed back to Salta and I went bungee jumping. It was definitely the most exhilarating thing I have ever done. There is this moment after you jump and before the cord catches you when your mind is thinking WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST DO? 

We headed back to Buenos Aires for one final weekend in the city.