Argentina, the Sunshine State!!!!

The drive to Salta was beautiful. It looks a lot like the Southwest in the US....lots of small mountains, dry land, tall cactus, and colored rock formations. We crossed the Tropic of Cancer and drove by a fascinating, 7 colored red rock formation (very similar to the stuff you see in Sedona). The city gave me a good vibe from the start....tall trees separate the paved streets from the colonial style buildings and people stroll through the Spain-like plazas all day long. We found a family run hostel with an Argentine man, his Brazilian wife, and 2 Brazilian children age 12-14. The kids were great and I quickly became friends with them (we were on a similar maturity level) through games of backyard dirt tennis and language exchanges. One of our travel mates was born in Argentina (moved to England when he was 2) and had been talking up the steak, empanadas, and wine for weeks. You can tell the Argentinians are of Spanish descent....because they claim to have the best of everything.....but I think they may be right about this one.

The first night we went out with 2 swedes, 2 brits, 3 americans, and 2 australians to the first restaurant that we saw. It looked a little shady, but we were starving and tired from our 8 million hour trip there so we didn't care. The steak menu was an entire page and I got nervous because I ALWAYS get food envy....so I decided to order the same things as everyone else. We got a massive steak with 2 fried eggs on top, french (freedom) fries and liters of wine. We stuffed ourselves silly and really enjoyed the food....but it definitely was not the BEST steak I had ever had, and Jonathon reassured me that this was average at best. We walked to liveliest street in the city and sat at a table on the sidewalk drinking the tasty (and economic) Quilmes Cristal beer. They usually sell it by the liter (about 3 regular beers) and runs about $3 at a bar or $0.80 at the grocery store. There was a live band playing and a fat guy dancing with a beautiful argentinian women. We then split up and some of us went to a dance club while the old people (myself included) went to a funky coffee shop/bar type place that had a live cover and playing. Really good music and company made for a nice evening. Went to bed fairly early and slept through breakfast the next morning.

We walked through the city and passed through multiple plazas with fountains, trees, and plenty of outdoor restaurants with people soaking in the sun and sipping on beer and coffee. My highlight of the day was going to the grocery store.....it was a REAL grocery store with doors, and prices, and deodorant, and sandwich meat. I think I walked around like a kid in a candy store for about two hours and popped out of there with a big beer, a jar of dulce de leche (this tasty caramel like spread....you could eat a paper towel with dulce de leche on it and it would still be amazing), an apple, and a pack of Ritz crackers. Spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out on the covered patio of our hostel playing Rumi and relaxing. There isn't too much to do in the city, but it was exactly what I needed. We had made plans to go to this restaurant that caught our eyes the night before, it looked fancy but I decided that I would suck it up and pay the big bucks for one night. It was worth it....just think of the single most amazing filet mignon that you have ever had in your life, then quadruple the size and divide the price by 10. We paid six dollars for a steak bigger than my face and tender enough to cut with one swipe of a butter knife. I took that mother down along with a side of fries and a liter of sprite and entered a food coma that I wouldn't recover from for a few days.

I woke up feeling like I had clogged arteries from only 2 days in this place and decided to go for a hike. We found a path that led up to the top of a tree covered hill that overlooks the city It took about 40 minutes to get up and we were rewarded with a beautiful park and panoramic views of the city. The city is much larger than it feels like (500,000 people) and is placed in the middle of a large valley. We hiked down and I patted myself on the back and felt that I had earned the 5 beef empanadas that I would consume within the next 10 minutes.

We spent one more similar day hanging out, playing cards, strolling through the streets and taking in the Argentine lifestyle. I am still trying to figure out how everyone isn't a fat alcoholic with food and wine this good and this cheap....but I may never understand it. I am starting to see why dozens of people have told us that they stayed in argentina 3 times longer than they had planned to. We were forced to move on because we were meeting Kroopf's dad in Iguazu Falls (right on the border of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay) and booked a 23 hour bus ride from Salta to Iquazu. The buses are amazing here....it's like flying first class in an airplane except you are not 35,000 ft in the air going 500 mph, so it is less scary and a tad slower. They played movies for the first 8 hours and then we pretty much slept peacefully the rest of the way there, except for the 15 hour torrential rainstorm (literally 15 hours straight). I woke up to the entire bus flooded with an inch of water and my left sleeve drenched. I have never seen a storm like that....but it could have been worse. I will try and get back on here to describe the wonders of Iguazu Falls and Buenos Aires, the REAL city that never sleeps.