The past two months in Argentina have not been as bizarre and foreign as my first months in Africa but they have still been eventful. Let's see, I have crossed the tropic of Capricorn while dodging spitting llamas (felt kind of bad because when I dodged the incoming llama luggie it hit a young boy. Moral hangover), seen a seven coloured mountain (seriously the mountain had seven colours due to different mineral deposits of iron oxide, manganese and other minerals that turned the mountain different shades of red, yellow, orange, white and even green), watched the sunset over the partially restored fortress of Pucará de Tilcara (rebuilt ruins that were once occupied by farmers of the Late Incan Empire over 500 years ago, ruins that may be even 1,000 years old in places), found the hidden city of Iruya tucked away deep in the Andes in the north western province of Jujuy, witnessed the most fanatical sporting event on Earth a BOCA Jrs. home football (soccer) game, traversed through the legendary Rt. 52 through the Andes which was the set for scenes in the movie "Seven Years in Tibet", hiked to the base of the highest mountain in western hemisphere- Mt. Aconcagua, ridden with the gauchos as the sun rose over the pampas, rode in a glider in the Argentine Nat'l glider championships, bought a cheap linen suit, ate my body weight in Argentine beef twice over and washed it down with gallons of steamy mate, had a Argentine girlfriend, lost an Argentine girlfriend, hiked to Garganta del Diablo (waterfall called "the throat of the devil"), hunted for rabbits with a spotlight in the back of a truck going 40mph which is a recipe for disaster, learned to speak Spanish (mas o menos) and well I think that about covers it.
Other stories...
I was in a little town called Tilcara to meet with the local agricultural agent in the area and decided to leave after a week. I went to the bus station booked a 24 hour bus to Buenos Aires for the following day, put the ticket in pocket without looking at it and returned to my hostel. The next day I show up and realize she booked it for the wrong day and I was exactly 24 hours late for my bus, the bus I thought I was to get on was booked solid and so were all of the buses for the next two days. This would not have been a problem unless a friend from back home was coming to visit me the following day and I had to get back to Buenos Aires. I went to argue with them and they let me on a bus to Salta, the largest town in the north of Argentina. The next morning, Valentine's Day, after arguing with the ticketing agent for about 15 min, he put me on an empty bus back to headquarters to discuss it with the boss. I thought that meant that the boss spoke English. No, he didn't! He just smiled and said "no hablo English." Then put a document down in front of me and told me to write down my complaint. I started in writing in English but he then took it from me, ripped it up and said, "En Espanol solamente". It took me about an hour of remembering high school Spanish classes but I finally managed to write out a two paragraph account of how the ticketing agent in Tilcara made a mistake and not me. He looked at it, shook his head in approval, gave a new ticket for free and we proceeded to drink mate until the next bus went back to the terminal. Not all of my lost in translation moments have turned out that well but will not tell you about those.
