Photos are here
![]()
Monday, 24/02. 46.2
Awesome! Great feeling, the road was not even and with plenty of stones. I ruptured the tire on those stones. Coming back up was not fun though and as I was walking I could not believe that I just rode THIS road! I guess if I knew it was that bad I would not do it again. I guess.
So this morning I've decided I had enough rest and rented a bike from local tourist information office to go to the beach on the river Parana. On the beach I saw a few people sitting in shallow waters that were barriered. What a great, I though and stepped in to the water (just to tick another box).
And there were them, little fishies surrounded my feet and started eating them. It tickled. I did not check but I guess it was similar fish that is used in 'fish spa' everywhere now. My own sp salon in the middle of nowhere in Argentina.
Then I took another road to the national park where I rupture the tire of my bike, walked a bit and came back as I was afraid it was going to rain.
46.2, people! I wanna do it again!
![]()
P.S. I also visited ruins, for which this place is famous, but this is less interesting.
![]()
![]()
Somehow there are not that many Russian backpackers around. I heard so many times that I am the first Russian people meet. Finally in the hostel I managed to meet another girl from Moscow. Well, she actually lives most of the time in BsAs, work remotely as web designer and sells exotic bulls back in Moscow with her 'reach friend'. She is 21 and she is perfectly fine being web-designer today and living in BsAs, but she might as well go travelling whether she wants to at any time, or do something else. I admire this in new generation (are they called generation X?): they have this internal freedom to do what they want. They can think of their careers later, when they 'find themselves'. And they search is slow, no rush, no hurry, no stress. 'Today I might do this, tomorrow that, will see if I like it'. They are not in the power of stereotypes and free from responsibilities. It does not mean they are irrseponsible. They just free. I envy them in this. They have no 'I need to do this', only 'I want to do this'.
Saturday, 01/03. Another Carnival
Friday afternoon I decided that I had enough of Salta and hit North to Jujuy. I hear there was Carnival in nearby villages and wanted to check this out.
I arrived in the evening of Friday, so Saturday morning I was on a bus station trying to figure what bus goes to Humuhaca (took me aaages to remember this name!).
Have you ever seen traffic jam in the Andes? I did. It took 4.5 hours instead of normal 2.5 to get to the place!
Humuhaca is a town and quite big. I expected to see surreal small village surrounded by mountains, but met huge crowd of people who came for Carnival from all over the country and big (ish) town well still surrounded by beautiful Andes.
Carnival here is different from Missiones where I was a week ago. There is no samba parade, but rather 'devils' parades and cumbia music plays at every corner. They also are more ruthless using 'nieve' (white stuff from the can that smells like bubble gum, not sure how it is called in other languages, snow is a literal translation) and chalk. Everyone is covered in this!
I was 'too clean' so get my portion of fun too.
In the evening I went to another village (I think it is town too) Tilcara, where celebrations are bigger. The place is very touristic with restaurants and hotel at every corner. Plenty of people everywhere, huge traffic (feels like Moscow as nothing moves). Cumbia and chalk and nieve and paint (oh, yes, my face was yellow at the end of the night).
Met the girl from Salta and walked with them around, then more people from my Salta hostel. People dance together, drink together, talk with each other: best place to meet people and practice Spanish (or find myself Argentinian 'husband').
I came back to Jujuy to my hostel in the morning.
Something wrong is happening: I party in the North of Argentina more than I did in Buenos Aires. And yes, Salta never sleeps.
![]()
Sunday, 02/03. Jujuy
As I came back in the morning, I decided to have a day off today and stayed in the hostel. I have paid until Monday to make sure I visit everything I want in the area.
So today I visited Jujuy.
I guess when a taxi-driver in BsAs told me that Jujuy is better than Salta he actually meant region, not the city. City of San Salvador de Jujuy is ugly and dirty (ok,ok, I already made a note not to visit big cities on weekends, but I do not see this place being any better on weekday as well).
There is nothing to see except la Cathedral. There is no place to go except the market. And market is great. I finally can see good fruits in Argentina (struggled with veggies though). I bought my standard set of cucumber, tomatos and red pepper for 10 $! Cost me 2-3 times more everywhere else.
The view around reminds that I am in the mountains, 1300m above see level.
![]()
46.2 km/h is a speed with which I went down the hill on the bycicle that I rent in San Ignacio.
Awesome! Great feeling, the road was not even and with plenty of stones. I ruptured the tire on those stones. Coming back up was not fun though and as I was walking I could not believe that I just rode THIS road! I guess if I knew it was that bad I would not do it again. I guess.
So this morning I've decided I had enough rest and rented a bike from local tourist information office to go to the beach on the river Parana. On the beach I saw a few people sitting in shallow waters that were barriered. What a great, I though and stepped in to the water (just to tick another box).
And there were them, little fishies surrounded my feet and started eating them. It tickled. I did not check but I guess it was similar fish that is used in 'fish spa' everywhere now. My own sp salon in the middle of nowhere in Argentina.
Then I took another road to the national park where I rupture the tire of my bike, walked a bit and came back as I was afraid it was going to rain.
46.2, people! I wanna do it again!
P.S. I also visited ruins, for which this place is famous, but this is less interesting.
Tuesday, 25/02. Buses
В автобусах я впадаю в анабиоз: я не хочу ни есть, ни пить, вообще ничего не хочу. Сажусь в кресло и сплю. И неважно, 2 часа ехать или 20. Поэтому переезды легко переносятся.
Сегодня я впервые ехала на автобусе больше 6 часов (в сумме 20).
Автобусы тут бывают 3х типов: полу-спальные, спальные и супер-спальные. Похожи на самолеты: с откидными креслами и едой. Горячий ужин и завтрак с кофе. В супер-спальных, говорят, даже шампанское дают. Надо будет попробовать.
Я, конечно же, спала всю дорогу, немножко смотрела Жизнь Пи по-испански и спала.
Wednesday, 26/02. Salta
This post was supposed to be about Salta, which is very nice colonial town with mummies of children in a museum and sweet biscuit that I got addicted to. I even wrote something on the day. And then I went for asado with the hostel.
The hostel I am staying in has 2 building close to each other. The second is in a nice old building one block away from mine and has huge common space. That is where we all went for asado.
I ended up playing Russian card game with Israelis (I miserably lost the first round!), riding on the back of the truck in the night streets of Salta, drinking cerveza, fernet, cerveza, tequila, cerveza again, going to the night club with latin music. I came back to the hostel at 5.30 and I have rafting planned that starts at 8.30. Damn it.
Thursday, 27/02. Rafting
When I went to bed I managed (I surprised myself!) to set alarm clock for 7.30 (taking into account that my tablet still shows UK time it was not easy job to do after liters of cerveza, even if it is like water here). I woke up (another surprise) still not fully emmm... adequate thinking whether I should go at all.
After short breakfast jumped into the van for 1.5 hour journey to the river. And again I surprised myself as I was able speak meaningful Spanish with the guides.
Argentinian couple, brother and sister, with whom I went rafting offered me mate. Mate has this uplifting effect, so I felt much better after it ready to go into the water.
We reached the place at around 11.30, There were 7 of us in total, except family from BsAs, a couple from Chile on vacations and two girls from BsAs as well. So I ended up being the only non-Spanish speaking person in the raft, and for this I had personal attention of all stuff, also being the first Russian they met, learned a lot of new words (artas, adelante, alto, etc).
Rafting had rapidos (another word I learned - whites?) of 2nd and 3rd level of difficulty, whetever it means, 12 km long, 12 rapidos. The rest of the time we were able to enjoy surroundings with short explanations in Spanish.
Somehow there are not that many Russian backpackers around. I heard so many times that I am the first Russian people meet. Finally in the hostel I managed to meet another girl from Moscow. Well, she actually lives most of the time in BsAs, work remotely as web designer and sells exotic bulls back in Moscow with her 'reach friend'. She is 21 and she is perfectly fine being web-designer today and living in BsAs, but she might as well go travelling whether she wants to at any time, or do something else. I admire this in new generation (are they called generation X?): they have this internal freedom to do what they want. They can think of their careers later, when they 'find themselves'. And they search is slow, no rush, no hurry, no stress. 'Today I might do this, tomorrow that, will see if I like it'. They are not in the power of stereotypes and free from responsibilities. It does not mean they are irrseponsible. They just free. I envy them in this. They have no 'I need to do this', only 'I want to do this'.
Friday, 28/02. Israelis
There are many and many young Israelis travelling in South America after their obligatory military service. With some of them I played card games another day. Today I had lunch with another couple that I met yesterday.
The army is obligatory in Israel for both sexes, and just after school all kids should serve 2 (for women) or 3 years (for men). They serve close to their homes and have 'shifts': 11 days on the base/11 days at home. They get a profession, lfor example, a girl I met was trained to be a pilot, but then changed to photographer.
There is a reason why in countries with obligatory military service it is done just after school: young people are easier to influence, but from the other side, how is it easier to choose your future career when you're 17? They have this 2-3 years to grow up. People I met are 22-23 years old, but they look and behave differently from 22 yrs old from western countries. So maybe it is not all that bad at the end?
I make so little photos, this blog is probably not very entartain
There are many and many young Israelis travelling in South America after their obligatory military service. With some of them I played card games another day. Today I had lunch with another couple that I met yesterday.
The army is obligatory in Israel for both sexes, and just after school all kids should serve 2 (for women) or 3 years (for men). They serve close to their homes and have 'shifts': 11 days on the base/11 days at home. They get a profession, lfor example, a girl I met was trained to be a pilot, but then changed to photographer.
There is a reason why in countries with obligatory military service it is done just after school: young people are easier to influence, but from the other side, how is it easier to choose your future career when you're 17? They have this 2-3 years to grow up. People I met are 22-23 years old, but they look and behave differently from 22 yrs old from western countries. So maybe it is not all that bad at the end?
I make so little photos, this blog is probably not very entartain
Saturday, 01/03. Another Carnival
Friday afternoon I decided that I had enough of Salta and hit North to Jujuy. I hear there was Carnival in nearby villages and wanted to check this out.
I arrived in the evening of Friday, so Saturday morning I was on a bus station trying to figure what bus goes to Humuhaca (took me aaages to remember this name!).
Have you ever seen traffic jam in the Andes? I did. It took 4.5 hours instead of normal 2.5 to get to the place!
Humuhaca is a town and quite big. I expected to see surreal small village surrounded by mountains, but met huge crowd of people who came for Carnival from all over the country and big (ish) town well still surrounded by beautiful Andes.
Carnival here is different from Missiones where I was a week ago. There is no samba parade, but rather 'devils' parades and cumbia music plays at every corner. They also are more ruthless using 'nieve' (white stuff from the can that smells like bubble gum, not sure how it is called in other languages, snow is a literal translation) and chalk. Everyone is covered in this!
I was 'too clean' so get my portion of fun too.
In the evening I went to another village (I think it is town too) Tilcara, where celebrations are bigger. The place is very touristic with restaurants and hotel at every corner. Plenty of people everywhere, huge traffic (feels like Moscow as nothing moves). Cumbia and chalk and nieve and paint (oh, yes, my face was yellow at the end of the night).
Met the girl from Salta and walked with them around, then more people from my Salta hostel. People dance together, drink together, talk with each other: best place to meet people and practice Spanish (or find myself Argentinian 'husband').
I came back to Jujuy to my hostel in the morning.
Something wrong is happening: I party in the North of Argentina more than I did in Buenos Aires. And yes, Salta never sleeps.
Sunday, 02/03. Jujuy
As I came back in the morning, I decided to have a day off today and stayed in the hostel. I have paid until Monday to make sure I visit everything I want in the area.
So today I visited Jujuy.
I guess when a taxi-driver in BsAs told me that Jujuy is better than Salta he actually meant region, not the city. City of San Salvador de Jujuy is ugly and dirty (ok,ok, I already made a note not to visit big cities on weekends, but I do not see this place being any better on weekday as well).
There is nothing to see except la Cathedral. There is no place to go except the market. And market is great. I finally can see good fruits in Argentina (struggled with veggies though). I bought my standard set of cucumber, tomatos and red pepper for 10 $! Cost me 2-3 times more everywhere else.
The view around reminds that I am in the mountains, 1300m above see level.
No comments:
Post a Comment