Day 28
There is nothing the Argentines love more than a bank holiday. No matter that every shop closes at lunchtime or that on Sundays the cities become ghost towns, the Argentines need at least one further day off each week to survive their hectic work schedule. We were actually lucky enough to be leaving Iguazú at the start of an epic four day bank holiday, meaning that the buses were booked solid by the locals. We were also fortunate enough to be trying to get to Salta at a time when the perfect confluence of the bank holiday, a gig by Argentina´s biggest rock star and the anniversary of the sight of the Virgin Mary nearby meant that the city was harder to get into than Holborn station at 6.30pm.
Our only option was to get an indirect bus, which required spending a night in Resistencia, a town poised on the edge of the barely populated wilderness of the Chaco. Knowing little of the place bar that it has perhaps the most unoriginal street plan in existence (see the perfect grid below) we were pleasantly surprised to arrive at what turned out to be the artistic centre of Northern Argentina. Its few streets are littered with over half a thousand sculptures, the result of a joint project between the local council and various arts organizations. The result was rather beautiful.
Day 29
Unfortunately man cannot live on sculpture alone and a backwater town during a bank holiday is not the most diverting of locations to pass the time. Tom and I decided to spend the time playing in a kids park (the see-saw was particularly enjoyable) and reading on a particularly fine bench in the town square. Having finished King Lear I spent this time reading several hundred pages of Isabel Allende´s "The House of Spirits"; a fantastic book which is best described as Peru´s answer to "One Hundred Years of Solitude".
For dinner the previous night and lunch this day we feasted at a buffet restaurant which presented plate after plate of appealing meats, fish and salads. In a quirky twist you paid for your food by weight, which led to some surprising strategising. Josie made the mistake of buying chicken and thus having to pay for the weight of the bones she didn´t eat. Tom and I knew however that the secret of good economising lay in the spinach and potato tarts.
That evening we caught the bus to Salta.
Day 30
We arrived in Salta at some ungodly time in the morning and were not in a good mood when our hostel told us that they had misread our booking and only had two beds. Salta was booked solid for the bank holiday/rock concert/Virgin and the best the hostel could do was suggest that Josie and I go to (more expensive) hotel a 45 minute walk outside of town. It took a lot of self control not to bite the woman´s head off, but we somehow calmly suggested that they buy us a taxi there as penance. The woman obviously felt a bit guilty and personally drove Josie and me to our hostel, leaving Tom and Lizzie behind with the two available beds. Heading into the unknown Josie and I arrived at an unmarked house with a front room dominated by a statue of saint covered in one of those long gaudy dresses so beloved in the churches here. To our surprise the place turned out to be rather great with complementary towels and all the works. Tom and Lizzie however had a horrible time at the original hostel, having to share their respective rooms with drunk rockers in town for the gig.
For lunch I spied these balls in the supermarket called ´kipe. I asked a few fellow shoppers what this strange meaty ball was and they all replied with ´it´s delicious´ and a knowing look in their eye. A quick look in my dictionary and I found out it was tripe. Always game for a new dish I immediately bought it and enjoyed freaking out the girls with my description of its rich intestine-y taste.
Perhaps feeling guilty about the way we had been treated, Salta decided to name a street after me. Whilst of course I was touched, I would have thought they could have spelled my surname correctly.
In a further show of guilt, the hostel owner who had mucked up our reservation suggested that we accompany her that evening on her visit to a settlement of the city´s indigenous population. We jumped at the chance and in my first ever Spanish telephone conversation I arranged for her to pick us up at 5 in the evening in her car. Driving out of the city, Marta (the hostel owner) told me of the prejudice the indigenous population faced with constant encroachments on their land by the government, police harassment and a lack of access to electricity, water supply or employment. Marta, an engineer by trade, was trying to map out their land in order to guarantee their legal title to it and it turned out she hoped that our motely crew of four English lawyers would be able to use our knowledge of ´United Nations law´ to help the people. Whilst the BPP syllabus didn´t quite stretch to that, I promised here that at least we would try to raise some awareness.
Arriving in the countryside we arrived at ´The Community´, a section of fenced off land that belongs (for the moment) to the ´Cholonca´ people , a branch of the native Central Andean population. We spent most of the afternoon with a charming family sipping Maté (a popular Argentine green tea), eating the bread that Rosa (the woman in white below) had just baked and discussing our various cultural quirks. They told me of the importance of family in their community (it appears generations lived under one roof) whilst I told them of England´s high divorce rates. We worked out that in both our cultures it is bad luck to spill salt and walk under a ladder and discovered a mutual love of Frutigran biscuits (see my earlier post). Whilst we never got on to the subject of their position in Argentina society, they were clearly a lovely peaceful community and I wish them every luck in retaining their land.
(A group photo with Rosa and her daughter)
(A view of their settlement; the power cables pass by but the Cholonca have no access to them)
For dinner that evening we went to an incredibly touristy ´peña´; a night of traditional dishes and ´traditional´ dancing (i.e. men in leather trousers and women with big dresses). The outfits got more and more outrageous as the night went on and because our table was actually on the dance floor our plates came into contact rather too often with the dancers´ bums.
I ate stewed llama with Andean potatoes, carrots, spices and ´mote´ (a South American legume that I´ve never seen before). The llama tasted and had a texture very similar to lamb and did not go well with the Cabernet Sauvignon we ordered. Maybe the ´local food´ will be better in Bolivia and Peru.
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