We made it to Argentina!!!

We had quite the time getting out of San Pedro, even when we knew the bus was going to go. Wednesday night we went to the office to confirm the time of our bus's departure but the office didn't know because it all depends on the border patrol who are sporadically in the office and never pick up their phones (even though their hours are listed as 8am-11pm). So what we had to do was walk to the border patrol about 1 km away, at 8 pm, and ask when the bus would be leaving. It all depends on the weather. If the weather is bad they leave at 6 am to give themselves time to drive slow. So at 8 pm we walked to the border patrol and waited outside with about 100 other people trying to find out when the bus would go. Of course the border patrol wasn't "open" (even though there were workers there) and we stood outside until 9:30 pm before we heard anything. The bus was supposed to be a go at the regular time the next morning but our bus driver told us all to come back the next morning at 6:30 so we could get in line and get through the border (they have to stamp your passport on the way out) before everyone else. So Shelby, Adam, and I were at the border with a few other locals at 6:30 but we stood there for an hour until anybody else showed up. Finally it was 8 and we were pumped to get through the border and on the bus! But we waited... And waited... And waited. Finally at 9 am border patrol actually opened and we were able to get through to the front of the line in about 15 mins and get our stamp and climb on the bus. When we finally sat in our seats on the bus it was such an unbelievable relief. We were finally on our way! The bus to Salta was smooth sailing. It was a long bus ride, about 12 hours in total and we lost an hour so it was 10 pm by the time we arrived. Thankfully the Argentina border had gone smoothly. A side note on that: apparently Canadians, Americans, and Australians need to pay a reciprocity fee($75) to enter Argentina, and it has to be paid online before you attempt to cross the border or you will be sent back. Well, I didn't know that. Shelby's uncle actually informed us while we were still in Bolivia so we were able to get that done ahead of time but I could have really been screwed. I think I would have been ok because lots of people in San Pedro asked me if I had done that so I did have some other warning but that could have been one big oops!

Anyway we got to Salta about 10 pm and made it to our hostel at about 10:30! By the time we checked in and went out to find supper it was past 11, but we weren't the only ones out and about. The restaurants were packed with locals, including their young kids, which we thought was pretty weird considering it was a weekday. We saw lots of new, interesting, and weird things in Salta. I really liked it, it was a small city and quite beautiful. We were no longer in the middle of the desert. Although it was still dry there, it was nice to walk on paved streets and see all the beautiful European-influenced architecture again. Also it was a lot warmer! The days got up to mid twenties and the nights down to about 7 degrees. It wasn't below zero at night!! Woohoo. We saw orange trees growing in the plaza and started to see a more Americanized population! People actually dressed up in nice clothes to go out (I actually felt like a slob in my hoodie next to these beautiful Argentinian woman in dresses and high heels). But so many women were wearing hideous platform shoes! Like seriously just a huge chunk of rubber on the bottom of their shoe like 5 inches thick. Please tell me that's not in style in Canada! Another different thing is that as we were driving around I noticed that their traffic lights go from green to yellow to red, but they also go from red to yellow to green. So everyone has to be really prompt on stopping because the guys who have the red start to go on the yellow! Also we learned from our tour guide that their kids (all ages) go to school for only 4 hours a day, either in the morning or the afternoon! Everyone eats late. Families with kids who go to school in the morning eat around 9 pm but families with kids who's go to school in the afternoon eat between 10:30 and 11, sometimes as late as 12am. Can you imagine?! They have lunch at the same time as us, around 1 pm. It was really weird for us to adjust to. The restaurants don't even open until 9 pm so we have been eating really late here. Our hostel was only one block from the main strip of restaurants so we walked along and finally just picked one! It is strange how they have their menus set up here. You think something is priced ok (steak for $18, chicken for $12, etc.) but that's all you get! You have to order sides separately which is like another $5-10 bucks so meals here have been soooo expensive for me ($25-$30 a pop). But everyone gives you a basket of bread to start which is always delicious. :) Argentina is supposed to be famous for it's steak so that first night Shelby and Adam got filet mignon but I was feeling like ribs. I was very glad with my choice because the ribs were delicious but their steaks were really over cooked. After supper we got back to our hostel at 1 am. We had a tour the next day at 7 am.

The next morning the three of us woke up and made some tea because the hostel breakfast wasn't ready until 8. We were the first ones to be picked up at 7 so we got to sip our tea in the van for the next 45 mins as we picked everyone up, and we got to see some more of Salta. Shelby and I sat in the front seat next to the driver so he could talk to us in English (Adam sat behind him). We were the only English speakers on the tour. The rest of the tourists were Argentineans, who are crazy by the way. So rowdy. Every time a somewhat up-beat song came on they started clapping their hands and singing! It was so different and funny and our guide said it was very typical Ategntinean-style. Our tour that day was a 12 hour tour of Cafayate valley/canyon/town/winery! We started by driving about 2 hours until we reached the valley/canyon. We made a pit stop after an hour at a little gas station/cafe where I ordered bread and jam to go (in Spanish)! I say this because I will just tell you how frustrating it is sometimes to not know Spanish well enough. I can order something, like bread and jam, in Spanish but then they always ask more questions after that, like what kind of bread I want, and I never have any idea what they are saying so I just stare at them blankly, they stare at me blankly, I try to guess what they said so I say something back in answer to the guess, it's wrong, things get more confusing, a local rescues me or else we just stare at each other until they fill in the blanks themselves. It's somewhat embarrassing. But at least I can talk a bit and I don't just have to point and gesture like a fool. Alright so after this pit stop we continued on to the canyon. It was very very beautiful. It was a clear day and the sky was a bright blue, there was a river running along the bottom of the canyon, and we were circling around all the cliffs which were amazing geological creations! The up thrusts of some of the cliffs, the formations of the beds and layers and striations were just so cool. Most of the rock was really deep red with iron minerals but there was also lots of green, for copper, and yellow, for biological deposits, which made it that much more beautiful! And it was all accented with the greenery in the valley. We stopped at a few beautiful look out points and a place called an amphitheatre, so called for it's acoustics. It was actually a kind of inlet in the cliff. You walked down somewhat of a hallway (20 feet across, hundreds of feet tall and open to the sky) which opened up into a huge round "room" also open to the sky. When we walked in there was a man sitting about a quarter of the way up the far wall, talking. It sounded like he was yelling in your ear due to the acoustics of the place. Then he started singing some opera like song in Spanish which was really nice. Then the audience clapped and yelled for more and he said a few words and got his musicians to start up the next song. He started out singing and raised his arms to signal to everyone to start and they all started singing their National Anthem! There was probably 50 people plus the man singing and it sounded really amazing, and it was such a sudden surprise I felt like I just received a very cool gift to be standing there listening to all these Argentineans singing their anthem in the amphitheatre. I took some video of it. Then we continued on to Cafayate, a small city of 20,000. It is home to many wineries and as we drove in we passed many fields of grapevines. We were there for a tour of the winery. Our tour was actually done by one of the English speaking guides who brought a group there, because no one at the winery spoke English. I think this took away from our tour because it was very short (about 20 mins) and very general. The most interesting thing we learned was that the winery makes a few different wines at different altitudes. Being at a higher altitude cause the skins of the grapes to be thicker (I guess to combat the cold nights). Red wine is actually colourless until they let it ferment with the grape skins which give it it's colour. The thicker skin gives the wine a darker colour and causes it to be more dense! It also gains a different aroma and slightly different taste (a little more bitter to my taste). Then we got to taste 4 wines: a white wine made at 2 different altitudes and a red wine made at 2 different altitudes. It was very interesting to compare the tastes. We also got to try some of their homemade cheese (really good!) and some homemade salami. Then we went for lunch at a local restaurant where we each had the menu (three courses chosen by the restaurant for a little cheaper price). I had an empanada (they are way smaller here than in Bolivia), pumpkin stew, and fruit salad. We then walked around Cafayate for about an hour until it was time to head back. We stopped at a few more spots on the way back to take pics and made it back to the hostel at 8 pm.

When we got back we had an email from Bamba, our travel agency, confirming our bus to Puerto Iguazu. It was not what we thought it was. They couldn't get tickets on the same day (there is a transfer a couple hours into the 25 hour bus ride) so it would take us 2 days to get there. This meant, if everything else went smoothly, we would arrive in Buenos Aires on the 17th, the day Shelby was to fly home. She wanted to see Buenos Aires (not just from a plane) so we decided to fly to Iguazu to save us time. It turned out to be a really good choice. We went to the airline office and got about $80 off the online price so the ticket ended up being about $110 extra. We got our bus ticket refunded to us so that helped out with the price. The 2 hour flight compared to the 2 day bus ride we would have had went very smoothly and Shelby and I were pumped to be moving on! After we sorted all that out we went out for supper at a really cool Cafe and then went to bed (I was I exhausted). Our flight the next day wasn't until 6 pm so we got to bum around Salta which I was pumped about because it was so nice there. When Shelby and I went to purchase our tickets that morning we found the main square (beautiful) and saw some kind of celebration going on. There were people dressed up kind of like our traditional Aboriginals in Saskatchewan with big headdresses and colourful clothing, and there were two bands playing and many people milling about. We never found out what the excitement was about. We bought our tickets and walked back to get Adam for lunch. We went back to the square for lunch where we bought fresh strawberries from a street vendor and got serenaded by a singing man at our restaurant (don't worry, Shelby tipped). It was a beautiful day so we enjoyed sitting on the patio in the sunshine. We then found a little hole-in-the-wall ice cream parlour where I got the best banana sundae ever and then we walked back to the hostel to get a taxi to the airport. We had to say good bye to Adam after 10 days together which was sad. He was lots of fun to travel with. He still has to apply for his visa to Brazil, so I hope he gets it and maybe I can meet up with him again on our trip.

Shelby and I made it to the Salta airport, a very small and deserted airport! Our flight was the only one going at that time so there was only about 30 people in the entire airport. It was very quiet! Our flight went without a hitch and soon we were landing in Puerto Iguazu. To our surprise, it was HUMID! When we walked outside we were greeted with 95% humidity and warmth, even at 8:30 pm! We were also greeted with so much greenery, it was amazing! The sight of the vegetation and the smell and the feel of the air immediately took me back to Costa Rica! It was tropical! And I started missing my sloths. :( We got a taxi to take us into town, about 25 km away down the highway so we paid out the nose but we got there and settled in! We went to a fancy restaurant because it was across the street and I tried gnocchi for the first time! Everyone coming in was super dressed up and there I was with my yoga pants and lulu shirt and hiking shoes on. It was pretty funny. I'm not used to this different atmosphere! It's like everyone is a fashionista here. After supper we went back to the hostel where I started reading up on the falls! I was quite excited for our excursion tomorrow! We had a tour booked through Bamba so a van came and picked us up at 10 am the next day.

Before the falls we stopped at the point where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina all meet (a three-forked river). Then we continued on to the falls. We learned to our misfortune that the river was so high that the path to the main attraction was closed (the Devil's Throat) and San Martin Island, an island next to the falls, was also closed! So all we could do was walk the upper circuit, the lower circuit, and do the optional boat ride if we wanted. Despite those two things being closed, Iguazu Falls was my absolute favourite thing we have done so far on the trip. It is so hard to describe how beautiful it is. I will just say that everyone has to visit this place while they can. Argentina shares the falls with Brazil but Argentina has 80% of them so we got to see a lot of the falls. Apparently from the Brazil side you can see a panoramic view you don't get from the Argentina side, but I think it is better to be able to walk among the falls. If I had another day I would have gone to the Brazil side too but we were too tight for time, plus Shelby didn't get a Brazilian Visa. We walked the upper circuit first which was a 650 m path with about 10 different balconies where hoards of people gather to get pictures of the falls, watch them roaring down the side of the cliff, and watch the rainbows form from the sunlight hitting the spray of the falls. Because there is so much water roaring down at such a fast space, the spray from the falls is amazing. After our walk of the upper circuit and many pictures, we went for lunch at a BBQ buffet (super good) and then continued on to the lower circuit, a 2500m path. I liked the lower circuit better because there was less people and we could get a really good view of the falls. The farthest point is very close to one of the falls and if you go out there you get drenched in 2 seconds flat. Of course Shelby and I went out and laughed and attempted to get pictures through a ziplock bag on my camera which didn't work great. After this we went down to the docks for our boat ride. During the boat ride you get to drive to two different sides of the island, close to the falls, and grab pictures. Then they rush you as close as they dare into the falls and you get pelted with water from the spray (it feels like bullets and you can't open your eyes). So we got soaked but when we could open our eyes it was so beautiful!! Ah I wish I could convey how awesome it was to be that close to these amazing falls. Everyone has to go and experience it! There was a man video taping the ordeal and Shelby and I bought the video from him to watch. It shows a great view of the falls and pretty funny reaction from us as we got drenched! The boat ride was our last stop at the falls and we headed back to the bus (after snapping many more pictures). I was so satisfied.

That night was Shelby's last supper where we would get to choose the restaurant (tonight we are on a bus and tomorrow we have a tango night dinner and show booked and the next day she leaves) so I let her pick! She chose a nice restaurant downtown and we both ordered some of the famous Argentinean steaks. Mine was so so thick, like 4 inches thick, and big! I had a wine sauce on mine and it came with potatoes and vegetables. Shelby chose a bacon wrapped steak which unfortunately was very undercooked and she only ate about 2 bites of it, even after sending it back twice. It was just too thick. I ate all my steak even though it was pretty undercooked in the middle. It was really good. Then we got dessert (I got apple pie and she got a lava cake). It was a really good last choice meal! Today we laid out in the sun for awhile. It is so nice being in tropical weather again! Man I missed it! Unfortunately today we left the tropical weather at 3 pm for dry Buenos Aires. For the first 30 mins of our bus ride the two young bus drivers invited us up to the front seat to sit with them! We got a good view from up there and a lot of good laughs because they spoke zero English and we don't speak enough Spanish to hold a conversation. They did know the word "boyfriend" though and when we both answered yes they were dismayed. They were also dismayed to learn we were only 19 and 20! It was pretty funny but after that we knew they just wanted to charm us so we went and sat back down in our seats. We are to arrive at 9 am tomorrow and then we have another food tour booked at noon and our tango night at 7! The next day we'll do some kind of city tour before Shelby's flight! Crazy that she leaves already. 5 weeks with her flew by! I moved some dates around so I will have 4 nights in Buenos Aires before moving on to Uruguay. I'm not sure what the rest of my plans for Buenos Aires will be but I will keep you posted!

PS: even our supper on the bus was served to us at 11 pm! They had to wake Shelby and I up to eat!