Salta

I feel an obligation to tell you all about my trip to Salta last week and to share my pictures with you, but as I get farther from that time, my desire to do so fades. My daily adventures are interesting right now. I will therefore spray about some pictures and explain them as much as I feel like and hopefully you'll get some kind of sense about how it was.

Lets do some buildings:



These are all churches. This last one is in the main square of Salta, the 9 de julio or as I prefer to pronounce it, the nine duh hoolio. People buzz around in the plaza during all hours of the day. It's got to be the only urban green space I've been in where people aren't cautioning my about the transvestites that come out at night.

Can you find whitey?

I actually didn't leave Salta much. I found way too much fun hanging out with the international/interesting people to be found at the hostel. I was given steak by one group of people, but they turned out to be evangelical Christians, damn it all. It seemed I was to exchange my ear for their asado. So I retorted by excusing myself to go eat dinner with my friends, the Jews! Pictured above.

Observation: when there is a conversation between myself and evangelical Christians, they do most of the talking, when its between myself and Jews, I do most of the question asking. If I were president of Evangeland, I would review the conversion procedure.

I also met a family from Ecuador, who showed me the mystery of making rice and promises to dine me while they're in Bs As, a Chileno cactus collector who accompanied me to the Quebrada de Humuaca and miscellanious other: my australian roommate rob, my british roommates from oxford. I had great fun with Robert. We made rice, before the Ecuadorians educated us as to how, observe:

You may notice that the rice is purple. After totally failing to get the correct water to rice ratio, Robert and I experimented with various ingredients we believed could save our rice. Here is a list of things which do not save rice:
Lemon
Sugar
Wine
Prayer

Also pictured is devil-woman Veronica. I might politely refer to her as a scoundrel. Fact: she flirted with me vigorously, she is moving to Germany. Allegation: she is getting married in Germany. I'm scandalized.

Pictured here is Veronica's less evil counterpart, Mariana. Mariana was the girl at the bus terminal that assaulted me with talk of a promised land called Iskay Huasi, the name of my hostel. Initially skeptical of people trying to get me to buy things in places of public transit, I was eventually swayed by her pretty pictures, face and offer to pay my cab fare. She's an exceptionally nice human being who humored my Spanish whilst speaking to me in vaguely Jamaican English. My search for a Argentine who speaks no English goes on unabated.

Also, my trip out of Salta to Jujuy, (pronounced in such a sway that makes me think of a wind tunnel infested with molasses) I saw the Quebrada of Humuaca, which is a beautiful colorful place. Lookee:




I also met some half-Chileno Hollanders, one of which was quite obsessed with Mexican food and language. The other could play a little of this weird local instrument which is like a oddly tuned 12-string ukulele. Matt, you want one? Oh, I'll take your silence to indicate a non-patronage of my blog.

The people of los pueblitos of Jujuy are really something special. They make it look normal to live in a adobe house with a door of corrugated aluminum. I guess I've never known a lot of subsistence farmers before.

Nathan "No Entiendo Ingl'es" Lane signing off.