Jungles and Salt Deserts

Next week is the three month mark of my stay here in Buenos Aires, which shockingly means that I only have two more months here. I can't believe how fast everything has gone and while I do miss my family and friends in the US and can't wait to return, it is definitely going to be an adjustment going back to New York and Columbia. I have gotten used to the pace of life here and I know there are going to be a lot of things that I miss when I get back. But in the meantime, I'm going to try and not dwell on the future, and really make the most of the time that I do have left here. And now that my extensive travels have come to an end, I am going to keep working on exploring the city, and believe it or not, do some school work. As one of friends put it: even though you might have come to the conclusion that my life here is just one long vacation made up of smaller vacations strung together, and even though you might be right, I am actually taking classes, reading texts, writing papers and generally engaging my brain intellectually. Which is not to say that traveling around doesn't inspire deep thoughts. In fact, on my two most recent trips I found myself contemplating infinity as I stared at the rushing water in Iguazú and again as the hexagonal salt flats unfolded before the mountains in Jujuy. Borges would have been proud. And to be honest, I'm not sure even where to begin to talk about all the wonderful things I saw. I'll be brief and try to let the photos speak for themselves.

The first trip, two weeks ago, was to Iguazú, up north near the border of Paraguay and Brazil. Another long, but fairly comfortable eighteen-hour bus ride delivered my friends and I to this major tourist destination. The city is tiny and quiet and clearly only a place that people pass through on their way to and from the waterfalls. We stayed at an enormous hostel, filled with young travelers from all over the world, all there for the same purpose: taking millions of photos of the falls to show to their friends and family. I must admit that I took a spectacular number of photos myself, and through a cruel twist of fate at the end of the day "formated" my memory card, and thereby erased all of the photos. Who knew? The following photos you see are my friend Lara's. Lesson I learned? Don't press "Format Memory Card." Also, take time to look at what is around you, without the help of a camera lens. You might not always have the photos, and your memories are more precious anyway. Luckily I did spend a good deal of time just staring at the water as it rushed over the rocks, plunging into the mist, and I don't think I will be forgetting it anytime soon. Even though it was cloudy most of the day and even rained a bit, it was a spectacular sight. There are multiple different systems of waterfalls, all easily accessible through walkways that traverse the forests. We even took a crazy boat ride that zoomed us right up close to the waterfalls. Said boat also went dangerously fast, careening around at 45 degree angles, which was exhilarating even without the crashing water. We watched enormous, red, armored ants carry leaves. We wore expensive, glorified plastic bags. We saw the same people all day long as we walked from place to place. We got our shoes muddy. I'm not sure if this place is considered a wonder of the world or anything, but it sure is in my books. I experienced for the first time the truly furious power of a crashing waterfall and the lush depth of a jungle, and it was beautiful. 

Garganta del Diablo

Dos Hermanas

The next weekend we flew by plane to the province of Jujuy. The idea of this trip, which was organized by our program, was to give us an idea about other regions of Argentina, outside of the central provinces, that are very much influenced by indigenous cultures and have a distinct history that shares elements with neighboring countries and geographical regions, such as the Andes. We visited an Anthropology and Archeology museum in the city of Tilcara where we got to see old tools and even some skulls and bones. I realized that while I quite like the idea of human bones, and even artistic renditions (pictures, drawings, etc.) I am quite unsettled by real human bones right in front of my eyes. But thankfully that was only one activity of the trip. 

We stayed in cabañas near the mountains in the city of Tilcara. At night when the sun set, it was amazing to see the moon and stars, but almost more magical was to see the tiny lights of the houses dotting the mountainside, shining as if they themselves were stars. In Tilcara, we visited the pucará which in the indigenous language (forgive me for forgetting its name) means fortaleza which in turn means fort. It was an old settlement that at its height might have been home to 1500 people, quite a lot for this tiny village on a hill in the middle of the valley. There were a number of reconstructed houses to show how cactus wood and other natural materials were used to construct the houses. I did not know that cacti had wood. I also did not know there were so many cacti in the world, or that they could be so huge! My favorite parts of the Tilcara pucará were probably the garden (one which hilariously only contained cacti) and the llamas. I have a fondness in my heart for these animals, mainly thanks to the acclaimed (among my friends) film The Emperor's New Groove, which is actually an Disney cartoon, and on my list of top Disney films. 

But, Disney films aside, while in the province of Jujuy we also visited the towns of Humahuaca and Purmamarcas as well as the stunning Salinas Grandes. Each place had its own very distinct terrain and a feria in the center of town, selling llama sweaters, multicolored bags and tablecloths, mate cups and many other fun items. As I think back about the trip, I am so glad that I got to experience this other Argentina that is so different from the Argentina that I have come to know and love living in Buenos Aires. Everything there has a different flavor, from the language, the style of dress, the terrain, and of course, the food. The Spanish spoken in the North has a very different accent and there are words still in use today that are from Quechua (the indigenous language I could not remember earlier). The religion today is of course mostly Catholic, from the Spanish Conquistadores, but there are remnants of the pre-Incan "religious cosmology" shared by many peoples of the Andean region everywhere. Many of the older women have a style of dress that I quite envy; they wear all of their brightest, most patterned clothing at once, topped off literally with a wide-brimmed hat (You can see such a lady in my first photo. While you can't see the way she mixed her colors, you can see the shape of her clothes and her hat!). I found the regional cuisine super delicious: rotund tamales, rich goat cheese, and a desert that tasted just like mincemeat. The whole trip made me wish I was exploring this region of South American, going to Peru and Bolivia as well. I am glad that I at least made it as far as I did. 

Sunset in Tilcara

Dusk by the cabañas

Garden at the pucará

So many cacti!

Sadly I saw more llamas on sweaters than actual llamas

On our last full day in Jujuy we took a long bus ride up an enormous mountain (almost a fourteener) and back down the other side to get to the Salinas Grandes. What you see below, though it may look like a regular sand desert, or perhaps hard-packed snow, is neither. It is salt! Here they make salt, or rather, natural processes make salt and they collect it. I guess you could call it salt farming. From what I understand, this used to be a lake, but clearly all the water evaporated leaving behind all the minerals and such, which was mosty salt. To get this salt from the ground (because it is a very firm ground) and the make sure that it is clean, during the summer when it rains a lot they dig a bunch of rectangular holes in the ground that are maybe a foot deep. The water seeps up from the ground, filling the hole with water. Here is where I got confused, so please forgive me. As the year passes, the water and sun together (I'm sure there are some other forces too) crystallizes and purify the salt and evaporate the water, leaving a clean salt rectangle before the next rainy season during summer. That might not be correct. What I know for sure is that the process is completely natural, we humans have to do nearly nothing and coolest of all, the actual flat part of the salts is patterned. As the water evaporated the salt forms big hexagons in the sand, all interconnecting, all exactly six sides. I was truly amazed. Not remembering much from chemistry class in tenth grade, I think this must have something to do with the structure of the chemical compound, but again, I'm not sure. Clearly this whole trip to Jujuy was quite the learning experience, and not just the learning about myself and the world, but actually thinking about tangible knowledge like Pre-Incan history and the formation of salt. In the pictures below you can see the super cool hexagons as well as the rectangular holes that make the salt (and the piles of dirty, unusable salt next to them). Since salt actually is its own food group down here (mayonnaise is too), I was happy to learn where it is actually coming from. I looked at our boxes (yes, plural, boxes) of salt when I got home and sure enough, they are from Las Salinas Grandes. Now I'm off to eat some homemade empanadas and then prepare for a presentation on Borges. One activity will be delicious, but I'll let you decide which one. 

I'm learning to sleep on buses.

If you are uninterested in panoramic shots of various different landforms, please, skip my next few postings. I am in the middle of a travel extravaganza, and so I probably won't be able to refrain from posting lots of pictures with sky, clouds, trees, rocks and bits of Mother Earth. Just Monday morning I arrived back to Buenos Aires from a weekend trip to San Rafael, Mendoza and this evening I am headed out for another long bus ride to Iguazú Falls to the north in the province of Misiones which shares a border with Brazil. The following weekend I will finally get to travel somewhere in less than twelve hours, and I will be going by plane to Salta and Jujuy, also in the north of the country, but more west as well. It's gonna be a crazy few weeks, and I hope to have a few good stories and a million good pictures and memories by the end.  

The province of Mendoza, where I was this past weekend, is almost directly to the west of Buenos Aires, and shares a border with Chile. It is also known as wine country of Argentina. I was on a trip through my program, CIEE, which had its pros and cons. It was definitely to have everything taken care of by other people. Our lodging, food, activities, transportation - everything. All I had to do was really show up at the bus station with enough clothes to stay warm during the weekend and the rest would be provided. What was not so nice about traveling with the program was the fact that I was traveling with about 60 other American college students. I won't even explain why this is an issue, because I'm sure you can imagine everything that goes along with such a situation. In the end it turned out to be a very fun, relaxing trip, but I don't know if I really felt like I got to know Mendoza because we were such an insular little group.

What I can say is that Mendoza is absolutely beautiful. While I can't say there were many things I liked about the twelve hour bus ride we took to get there (you can see the shadow of our enormous micro in the first photo below) it is a great way to see the land. If I had flown there I definitely wouldn't have gotten to see all the beautiful trees, plains and mountains along the way. Once we were out of the plains and into the valleys it actually reminded me a bit of Colorado. And then I saw all the tourist attractions offering horseback riding and white-water rafting and it reminded me even more of Colorado. We stayed in a very nice hotel with small cabañas on the banks of the river. We slept a lot, ate a lot, and of course got out to see the scenery around us. The first day there we took a hike through a small valley/canyon and saw the system that transports the mineral water from the mountains down to the town for bottling and then distribution. I must say that these trails didn't feel quite as safe as the trails I'm used to that are maintained by some sort of mountaineering crew. Nope, these trails were full of loose rocks, branches blocking the path, and lots of other potentially hazardous elements. Nobody got hurt though and it made me think a little bit more about the American way of doing things in comparison with life down here. Are we too cautious, too organized, too structured? These are the types of questions that you study abroad for!

So after a bit of outdoorsiness (which is definitely not a word, I know) on the first day, the next day we visited two vineyards. The first was my favorite. It was a small family operated vineyard called Rubio. We also visited a larger, also family owned, but more commercial vineyard called Bianchi. We went on a tour where they explained the fermentation process of red wine, white wine, and champage, and showed us the facilities. It was very interesting but I preferred the smaller, dirtier, homier Rubio vineyard. In addition to being a vineyard, Rubio also specialize in dried fruits,  jams, olives and olive oil, and other such delicacies. I took some pictures of the fruit drying in its special wooden drying trays, jars of mermelada de zapallo freshly made that morning, and jamón hanging from the ceiling. My favorite part were the farm animals. Enormous pigs, baby pigs, chickens and roosters, dogs and llamas. And all of the animals basically had free reign of the farm. Except for the llama, he (or she) had to stay in her cage. Also, check out all of the leaves on the ground! It is finally feeling, and looking, like Autumn around here. The temperature has definitely dropped, leaves are dropping as well, and I actually don't mind, but probably only because I know that we aren't heading towards temperatures in the teens in addition to a nasty windchill. This is indeed comforting.

Our final day in Mendoza we went outdoors some more. Some kids went rappelling down rocks and others flew across rivers on zip lines . I chose to do zip line and it was pretty fun. The best part was the group of older couples that was hanging out on the bank of the river. They were very entertained by our antics, taking photos and asking us if we were having fun, which in fact, we were. Rounding out the trip was an evening bonfire, complete with the Argentine version of smores, and skits that mocked American and Argentina stereotypes. There were a few soccer games on the basketball court. And there also was a small kitten we found roaming around the grounds of the hotel. We named her Medialuna after the popular Argentine croissant because she liked to curl up just like one. She hung around with us for a while and then scampered back into the bushes. 

It was a long ride back to the city, but I was glad to be back. Like any trip, while you are gone, you miss things that you never thought you would. You realize a million things in your everyday life you take for granted, and you promise to take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities in the city as soon as you get back. I'm excited to go to Iguazu and Salta in these next couple of weeks, but I also can't wait to be back in Buenos Aires for more than three days and make good on my promise to the city. 

Malos Aires

A running joke here is that Buenos Aires (literally translated as "Good Airs") is a real misnomer and that the city should be called Malos Aires ("Bad Airs") instead. Between the cars, the buses, the smokers, and the rest of the polluting entities that go hand in hand with any large city, it's true - the air really isn't that great. However in the past few days it has gotten nearly unbearable. A smog has settled on the city and it does not seem to be going anywhere. It is stinky and makes my eyes slightly irritated and I imagine if I had particularly bad allergies or asthma, I would be in even worse shape. I thought that I would get used to the smell after a while, because that's usually what happens with noxious odors, but unfortunately such has not been that case. It's now the fourth day (for me anyway) of living in the smoggy air and I have yet to adjust. I am blowing my nose and rubbing my eyes as we speak, trying to avoid breathing through my nose and having to smell the odor.

Photos Courtesy LANACION.com, Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved

I am getting ahead of myself though. Let me explain what is actually going on and where all this smog, or humo, is coming from. Apparently at the delta of the Rio Paraná, located in the interior of the province of Buenos Aires, the farmers decided to burn the livestock pastures to renew them. Other reports say that the pastures were being burned to renew and prepare for new crops of soybeans. In either case, these are fires that were started deliberately, but carelessly and without the right technique, equipment, etc. and now the fires are out of control (so the government admitted publicly yesterday). Anyway, newspapers say that the smog itself is really more of an annoyance than an actual health concern. However the smog is causing larger problems as far as travelers are concerned. More than a few major highways have been shut down because the low visibility accompanying the smog has led to large car accidents. Additionally, many of the bus lines that go to the outer provinces are not running, and flights from the domestic airport are limited. Of course the government and farmers are throwing the blame every which way, firefighters have been photographed hilariously carrying a single bucket of water, and the porteños complain that the smog wakes them up with its stink in the middle of the night. The Secretary of the Environment and Sustainable Development of Argentina says that only a climate change (wind, rain, etc.) will extinguish the fires. I personally will be my crossing my fingers for something, anything to chase away the smog. And after this, I will not be complaining a bit about a few smokers and some car emissions. 

Meat and Movies

One of the first things that most people told me when I would tell them that I was going to be studying abroad in Buenos Aires was that I had better prepare myself to eat a ton of delicious steak. And up until a few weeks ago, I was eating lots of delicious carne. My host mom would make meat for dinner at least three times a week and ordering a steak at a restaurant, a delicious steak, would really only run you about 5 dollars. No such luck anymore. The President, Cristina, who is also the former First Lady (her husband Nestor Kirchner, was President before her), has run into big problems in her first 100 days in office. I’m not very good at all of this economy, importing, exporting, etc. stuff, but I will try my best to explain what is going on. Argentina has a huge export economy, supplying soybeans and other crops to many countries around the world. To protect the economy, supposedly, Cristina raised the export tax to 45%, which significantly cuts into the profits of the farmers. Clearly, they are not happy about this. And so, they decided to stop delivering meat and some other food items, but mostly meat, to Buenos Aires.  Since this was probably a less than satisfactory explanation, I will direct you to some more reputable news sources in case you want to learn more. Check out the New York Times and the BBC.

Within days the meat counters at grocery stores and carnicerias were empty save for some chicken, restaurants posted signs that informing customers that certain items were unavailable, due to the situation that everyone is aware of, and what meat could be found was much more expensive than usual. Cristina refused to negotiate with the farmers under such conditions. There were huge demonstrations at the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada, the Argentina White House, and for the first time in what have been many years, the people took to the streets in cazerolazas, a particular type of protest where everyone bangs pots and pans from the balconies, in their cars, out the window, etc. I really wasn’t sure what was going on that first night, but it was crazy. 

One of the most interesting things about this particular issue was that that middle class of the urban areas was siding with the agrarian, working class of the interior. Everyone I spoke to was definitely against Cristina’s crazy idea. However, after a few weeks, even though the Economist predicted it could be two months, the farmers agreed to stop the paro of carne for thirty days to negotiate with the President and see if they couldn’t come up with a better agreement. The meat counters are slowly filling up again, but people are also stocking up, worried that Cristina and the farmers won’t come to any agreement and there won’t be meat again soon. It's a very interesting time to be here!

In other news, I told my mom on the phone yesterday that I’m afraid Buenos Aires is making me soft. I used to be able to just go and go and go. A normal day in New York usually included babysitting and/or interning, going to one or two classes, going to the gym, and then of course doing a few hours of homework. As I’m sure you have been gathering just one of those activities would probably be enough to fill up a day here in BsAs, and I am afraid that when I get back to New York I will have been spoiled by this leisurely schedule and not be able to do all the things I used to. For example, just so you truly understand how lazy it has become, yesterday I went to one class in the morning, my afternoon class was canceled, and so I took a three-hour nap. I know, I hate me too. You aren’t alone. It’s actually sort of driving me crazy. I am trying to get myself to relax and tell myself that I deserve a break, but I definitely wish I had more to do sometimes. Maybe once I have been in classes longer I will have more to do. In the meantime I am trying to find other activities to fill the days so I can at least say I made the most of my free time and didn’t just sit in the apartment watching reruns of old Hugh Grant movies… which to be honest is sometimes fairly tempting.

Luckily, starting today, I can sit around and watch movies and still consider myself to be culturally active. It is the first day of BAFICI, the Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente. I think that is what the acronym stands for anyway. We are going to see a movie at the festival for my Nuevo Cine Argentino class. When I’m in New York, I never have the time or energy (I guess because my schedule is so busy) to find out when and where the movies are at the festivals and then actually go get tickets, and then actually go see them. I am taking advantage of the fact that I can while I am here, and so between now and April 20^th, I will be seeing 12 movies! Now some of you might say that is a bit overboard, but I am very excited. I love movies and I am super excited about the ones I am going to see. Some of them have already come out in the US and I just never got around to seeing them, and then some of them I have never heard of, but have been recommended via some well-directed Google searches. I will be going to see:

Mister Lonely

Glastonbury

Cao Sem Dono

Le Voyage de Ballon Rouge

El Cielo, La Tierra, y La Lluvia

Night and Day

Paranoid Park

Una Semana Solos

Boarding Gate

I’m Not There

Historias Extraordinarias

Go Go Tales

It is going to be BAFICI madness here in Buenos Aires. I’ve never done the film festival thing, so I’m not even sure what to expect. I am guessing it will just be like going to see a regular film, but with that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes with being in the know and part of a hip, cultural event. A little like Sundance with a whole lot less snow, schwag, and famous people. All of which frankly, I can do without. My first film is tonight, right after my Borges class at UBA. I am preparing myself already for the craziness.

I am actually fairly excited for this class, because I’ve read all the material and feel like I know what is going on material-wise a bit more than last time. Which I guess isn’t that hard because I hadn’t read anything before the last class. This time, I have read all the stories at least once, and then even done a little extra online research, just to make sure I understand all the ideas Borges throws in there, assuming the reader already knows what he is talking about. This weekend I even went to go see a theatrical production of one of the stories, “La Biblioteca de Babel.” I wasn’t really sure how they were going to stage it, because it is really just a description of a Library, which “some also call the Universe.” It was a short, staged reading, with three actors. One gave a brief biographical introduction on Borges, the other recited the descriptive parts of the story, while a third actor spoke the parts of the story that are more personal, the parts where Borges’ voice and opinions seem to seep into the writing. It was very good show, taking a lighter approach to the text, and as a girl who I went with noted, this made the canonical text (as far as Borges goes) a bit more approachable.

Afterwards my theatergoing companions and I had to good fortune to have found the information of a little Cuban restaurant called Paladar Doña Fela. I use the term restaurant a bit loosely, and mainly because it was a building, where we ate dinner. That’s about where the similarities end however. It is actually what is called a puerta cerrada, or closed door. They are small “restaurants” hosted at the chef’s house for a small ground of reservation-only guests, usually on Friday and Saturday nights. It’s a bit strange, in some ways more formal that a restaurant, and in many ways less formal. We were welcomed into the chef’s house, and sat in the living room, eating some fresh plantain chips, chatting with the other guests of the evening while we watched fresh mojito’s made right in front of us, mint courtesy of their own plants. We were then showed around the house, onto the patio, and the gorgeous rooftop. Afterwards we all sat down for salad and bread, and then afterwards our dinner of Chicken and Moros Cristianos (black beans and rice). It was really great, but the night was only beginning! One of the waitresses turned out to also be the entertainment for the night. So in between dinner and dessert, we were treated to singing and dancing, with everyone joining in after a few songs. Very fun if you ask me, it should be a required part of all meals, if you ask me. The dessert was a delicious combination of flan and tiramisu and followed by a champagne toast. The meal, which began at 10:00, was not over until 1:30 and cost a whopping 30 dollars, including a nicely paired bottle of white wine, shared between my two dinner companions and me. It was really a “dining experience” more than anything else. I can’t wait to try the other ones around the city.

One of these days I promise I am going to have something to write about that doesn’t make it sound like I am on the world’s longest vacation. I promise. Until then, estoy disfrutando de todo,  or, I’m just enjoying it all.