Salta and beyond

I just spent the last ten days in the Salta province, located in the NW corner of Argentina, bordering Bolivia to the north and Chile to the west. I spent a few days in the city and the rest of the time exploring the rural mountainside. The city of Salta itself is very pretty and relaxed, but I was really there waiting to get a trekking trip worked out with a guide. I was not about to go into the mountains alone, knowing that hiking in this part of Argentina is quite different than Ireland in regards to sign markings, roads, towns, people - the usual stuff that keeps you from being completely cut-off from civilization. But I made the most of my time there and tried to limit my cnn viewing (the elections!).

The main things to do in Salta are: see the Spanish colonial cathedrals, go to the high-altitude moutain museum and see the frozen child that was found in the mountain (one of many that had been sacrificed), go up in a gondola to the top of a small mountain that overlooks the town, and best of all, sit at a cafe surrounding the main square, 9 Julio, and people-watch (although the constant begging and/or solicitations can be a bit of a nuisance). I'm most likely giving a lukewarm description of the endless activities that abound in this town, but I wanted to be in the mountains and let nature restore me while I was away from Buenos Aires.

So after my circuit around town, I signed up for a bus tour, as I was still waiting for a guide to get a group and trip together. Normally I hate these kinds of bus tours (and I didn't realize how long 14 hours was going to feel, especially after my 24-hour bus ride a couple of days before), but there was so much to see and I didn't really know how else I was going to see it without going from one town to another on the regular bus, day-by-day, not sure if where I end up will even be all that great, etc. Anyway, with this tour it was a love-hate relationship. Spectacular scenery, but then we were told by our guide, Estella, when it was a "kodak moment" and we could have 10 minutes to walk around at her selected stopping point. Of course I appreciate that she has done this trip hundreds of times and knows the layout of the land, but then where is the surprise and discovery?

We stopped for lunch in a place that felt like the middle of nowhere (probably because it was); a few adobe houses, some farm animals, a church, and a restaurant for tourists. We had delicious llama stew and empandas, malbec to drink, and a sweet corn porridge for desert. We were a group of ten that consisted of Dutch, Spanish, Cuban, Argentinian, and American. The election results were just out, so we naturally toasted to Obama.

Back on the bus, I sat, looking out the window at the views, the bumpy roads and my tailbone killing me, pain leftover from an accident when, as a nine-year-old, I fell from the pipes in my parents' basement, practicing for a future game of paranas against my sisters. I had some other worthwhile flashbacks to Japan as well: my stay at the Buddhist Zen monastery with my sister, where I was sitting in half-lotus, my legs falling asleep and turning purple, and the Zen-master saying to the group that if you feel pain, you should ask yourself why do you feel this pain? So there I was on the bus and asked myself, why do I feel this pain? And tried to detach and have a Zen moment. It didn't really work and I developed a pounding headache from the high altitude instead (around 3700 meters).

Estella passed out coca leaves for people that were feeling unwell and instructed us to put them in our mouths like chewing tobacco, first placing them on top of each other, then rolling them into a tube. I'm not sure if I felt anything, but it was fun to try it. I guess it's illegal to take coca leaves over the border for many kilos can produce a gram or two of cocaine. I was talking to someone that was on a bus and there was a coca leaf raid where the police officers found bags and bags of the stuff under the bus driver's seat. But while in Salta, you can buy the leaves anywhere, and the locals mix it with some sort of sodium bicarbonate to get a buzz.

Perhaps the coca leaves were the most interesting part of the tour. The scenery was awesome, like I said, and I took pictures until my battery ran out, but it really just felt like one step up from looking at photographs in a book - no time to absorb what I was seeing, to experience it in depth. It was just skimming the surface. This is why I prefer walking long distances.

There were two Dutch girls on the tour, cousins traveling together, and toward the end of the tour, one told me that her mother had just passed away less than a year ago so her dad decided to walk the Camino to Santiago, starting in Holland. It took him 3.5 months. Then she mentioned a back story from the movie Steel Magnolias, that on the set Julia Roberts was complaining about how hot she was in the southern heat and Shirley MacClaine, another fellow Camino-walker, told her to just be happy to even be alive and be where she was at that moment, to realize how lucky she is to even be able to experience being too warm. This stuck with the Dutch girl and it stuck with me as something I'd like to remind myself of when I start complaining. After all of that I felt rather silly that here I was, in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, complaining (even if not aloud, I was clearly uncomfortable), and this girl was most likely grieving and suffering the loss of her mother, not wanting to take a moment for granted.
Well, that was the tour. Another day passed and finally the excursion was set to go....