IN. havn't really done much exciting for a week or so cos i took some time off to do some spanish lessons, figured it was probably quite important for when i get captured by columbian guerrillas and have to tell them to go away. so i can speak spanish a bit better now, still cant understand what people are saying half the time though. although a couple of argentinians have told me i speak spanish well, probably lying though. so i finally got to be antisocial for a few days and read my book which was good, ended up making some more friends by accident in the end though. was hanging around with some more dutch girls for a bit, went out to a ridiculous restaurant where there was one massive table, for lots of drunk italians to sing patriotic wartime songs, and then one tiny table, for us. had a pizzanesa to see what it was, turned out to be a massive pizza, with a milanesa underneath the topping (big chewy greasy breaded meat cutlet thing they seem to like over here), most obscene thing to eat ever. whoever came up with that idea is a bad man. they gave us the leftovers wrapped up in paper, which promptly went in the bin. that was good, but then the girls started hanging around with a gay, teetotal, vegetarian, hippy, australian, who needless to say i thought was a bit of a pillock, so shunned them and found an irish mate called jamie who liked talking about beer and girls. much better. we made friends with some english lads from the hostel by accident so my plan for a quiet night was out the window, there was talk of playing ring of fire but managed to avoid it and went to an expat bar where a mysterious looking peruvian man destroyed us (and everyone else in the bar) at pool, quite embarressing. got talking to some chilean underage drinkers, one of them was telling me how his dad was a writer so had to flee to canada during the pinochet regime, and we ended up having quite a lengthy drunken political discussion, in spanish, not really sure why spanish is so much easier after beer. from what i understood there are still a lot of problems in chile but no one really talks about it, all quite interesting.

finally got moving again and went to salta, via a really long bus journey where they played the mummy, the mummy returns and the scorpion king back to back, then lots of 80s power ballads including bonnie tyler, pretty much ideal for driving across las pampas. salta is a beautiful city, loads of colonial architecture and nice squares with statues, etc. the hostel i wanted to stay in was full so they put me in an annex over the road, where my bed was in a converted garage. nice. quite rare people staying there, lots of elderly french canadians who kept talking to me about santa claus for some reason, so avoided spending too much time there! had a good wander round the town and even went to a museum, not really what i'm about but they had a perfectly preserved mummy they found frozen in the high andes, really cool if a little wierd. its a 15 year old girl which i think was pre incan, couldnt really understand all the spanish explanations, but they had it cryogenically frozen and it was in perfect condition, all her hair plaited and stuff, amazing. took a rather rickety cable car up a big hill overlooking the city so got some nice views as well, lovely.

decided that was probably a bit too much culture for one day so signed up for all you can eat/drink bbq at the other hostel, much more my scene. food and wine was awesome, didnt really like most of the people there though, i seemed to have walked smack bang into the gringo trail, loads of posh english people bumbling around wittering about how daddy's going to set them up a business, muppets. although i did meet a bloke from kent who lives near maidstone and has a relative in vigo (where i live), quite random. left salta the next morning for jujuy, which is about 3 hours north and is near alledgedly the best scenery in argentina, according to a girl i met in buenos aires. im going on a tour tomorrow of the quebrada de humahuaca, which apparently is awesome, will have to see if she was talking rubbish or not. the town itself is much less touristy than salta, other than two german girls in my hostel no one speaks a word of english. the people look different here as well, much darker skinned and probably quite similar to bolivians i guess, and theres lots of andean style clothes and panpipes. heard a panpipe version of africa by toto yesterday, awesome. theres some sort of human rights protest going on as well, loads of people camping in the main square and massive banners over the government buildings with socialist slogans and pictures of che guevara and eva peron, although no one seems particularly angry about anything so its probably just an excuse to go camping and bbq sausages by the looks of things.

so after tomorrow i'll try and get into bolivia, apparently you have to get a bus to la quiaca then walk about 1km up a hill with the big bags to cross the border, sounds like fun. dont imagine there'll be many nice air conditioned buses with reclining seats after this either! yaaaaay. OUT