My footsteps

The Car Trip continued

tspani — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 05:10:00 GMT

The trip turned out to be great! There was a couple of stalls at less than perfect moments but on the whole we both got the hang out it pretty quick. The first day after navigating out of the city... and the crazy intersections and driving 10 km out of the way to get gas, we headed up to the salt flat - Salina Grandes though San Antonio de las Cobras, which is kind of a dirty little town in te middle of nowhere. The salt flats were great of course and we took lots of pictures playing with the all white background. Then we drove up to Humahuaca - another place we fell in love with. The hostel we stayed at was run by the sweetest little lady ever and we tried some very local foods, humitas, tamales and locro. All delicious... and everyone has there own spin on it. Its been different everywhere. In the morning we shopped around and I bought a couple of paintings off of a local artist, oil on canvas that i am in love with! Very excited to bring them home. After we hoped back in the car for some more "fun times" as we liked to call it... I guess it was just a little bit stressful, and explored a few little towns and ended up in Jujuy for the night. Navigating through another city was a little stressful and we ended up ditching the car and getting a parking ticket... yay for rental cars! The last day with the car we meandered around again and then started off on the "most amazing drive in argentina" from Salta to Carchi. It was pretty nice.. although maybe not quite the nicest :) At one point we thought we smelt/saw a geyser and spun around to go look for it... disappointingly it turned out to be the penstock of a dam. Guess it fooled some others too as the was a large crowd! Had a little trouble returning the car as a coke truck threw up a rock and chipped the window and we had to replace it... Those are the times i wish i was just a little more masculine :) We´re over in Chile now. Will write some more soon. Hope everyone is doing well. Feel free to leave comments, its nice to hear from everyone! Ciao!

Northwestern Argentina part 2

tspani — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 08:36:00 GMT

From here on the weather gets fantastic! After Tafi we headed up to Cafayate, known for it´s wines. It was a morning bus between places with awesome views and very skinny lanes. We found a great hostel from Pedro at the bus stop and bargained down for a good price, and a ride in the back of a pickup. Right away we headed out on a tour of Quebrada de las Conchas. Amazing. For the rest of our days there we rented bikes and visited bodegas and out to a swimming hole with a couple of girls from the US and one from Scotland, visited a goat cheese factory, played cards on the roof with a few beverages with Jovi from South Africa and Stephan from Germany, shopped, tried wine ice cream ( which is VERY good... I think maybe it was just frozen wine though, maybe you want to try it?) and enjoyed the sunshine... definately all got some colour here! Definitely our favorite place so far. After Cafayate we bused up the Salta but were disappointed to find out it was just another city... which we weren´t quite in the mood for. We quickly organized to rent a car as we heard it was the best way to see the area around here. I say quickly because just as they were taking my visa imprint I thought to ask do we have the option of manual or automatic... and no we didn´t. Between the 4 of us only 2 could drive and embarrassingly enough none knew standard. What better way to learn than under pressure :) The vw golf showed up at the hostel on schedule the next morning and a very nervous Teresa hopped in the drivers seat unsure of how to drive and the rules of the road down here. Intersections are as far as i can tell based on aggression not any other system... To be continued.

Northwestern Argentina

tspani — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 08:15:00 GMT

The rest of the time in Buenos Aires was great! We did a week of Spanish lessons, danced the tango, met so many people, sightsaw (including recolleta), partied, shopped and lived the city life. As much fun as it was we were all relieved to get out of town and on to the road. The bus ride was... well i can´t sleep on them still... but we drove though a lightening storm which was excting! The first stop was Villa Gral. Belgrano, which is a cute little town formed by Germans left here when one of there Battleships sunk off of the coast. It was like steping into a little Germany, and we just happened to arrive on the last day of Octoberfest! We took advantage and sampled some of the local brew. We went on a day hike up to a cross (as you can do in every place here...) but the weather was pretty miserable so we decided to move on pretty quickly. The next stop was Tucuman then on to Tafi de Valle. Tafi was a cool place, we watched them erect a statue and celebrate the opening of a plaza (17 de octubre). Our hostel rooms were split into 2 and 2 and literally there was only enough room to crawl into the bed and once you were in there was no sitting up! We were hoping to go treking but the weather wasn´t great and it would have been one of those places where you climb one hill to get to the next, etc. We did a nice day hike instead up to a cross (notice a trend?) and over to a cemetary. Unfortunately I am having no luck posting or sending out pictures at all! but am getting lots of good ones! Hope everyone is doing well!

Gallery: Randoms so far

tspani — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:53:00 GMT

Buenos Aires

tspani — Tue, 7 Oct 2008 07:54:00 GMT

Hey! I arrived safe and sound to BA, Almalija and Robin met me at the airport and we went out site seeing near the hostel. They had met Dave Matthews in the cemetary the day before and found out that he was playing in the big Pepsi music fest thats on right now. So we headed out to see him. Excellent concert!! Ive never seen anybody so happy to be on stage, the crowd was crazy though, little fear of being trampled!! The next day we went into La Boca which is a super brightly coloured neighbourhood, all the buildings are covered in artwork and we watched a tango show. Then went out to a nightclub for some dancing, late night though as it doesnt even start til 2! Sunday was very exciting as we went out to a soccer game, Boca Vs La Plata, we lost but the crowd was great! Its been busy and id love to catch up on sleep but there is something going on everynight. We started Spanish school today, which we will take all week and is great so tonight we are cooking a dinner with new friends and going to be earlier... before 2!