Northern Argentina

From Villazon, we walked across the border to La Quiaca, Argentina. As there is very little to do in La Quiaca, we went straight to the bus terminal to find the first available bus to the city of Salta.

Salta is another nice city, but the highlights are in the surrounding areas. First we went to the north, through the mountains to the Salinas Grandes, in search of some dry salt flats. Then back to the city through the pretty town of Purmamarca, which involves a very steep descent into the valley from above the clouds.

Llamas next to the highway

Salinas Grandes - When rectangles of salt are extracted you can see the pools of water underneath

Salinas Grandes

The road to Purmamarca

Purmamarca market

The next day we went south through the Quebrada de Cafayate to the city of Cafayate. The highlight of this trip is really the journey. There are so many beautiful mountains of all different colors and compositions, and a ton of interesting rock formations.

The Devil´s Throat

El Sapo - The Frog

The flourescent green bush

The Llama building in Cafayate

(For those who look without seeing, the Earth is earth, nothing more)

After Salta it was off to Cordoba, where I voluteered back in 2009. At this point my travel companion and I decided to split up, to take some time off and to each be able to follow the routes we want to. I spent my first day doing a version of "This Was Your Life," in which I visited all of the places I went to in my time here. The second day was Easter Friday, so almost everything was closed. I ended up going to the giant annual artesan fair, which is huge and has artists from all of South America.

Pedestrian shopping street

Parque Sarmiento

Tonight I´m back on a bus, and I should arrive in Mendoza in the morning!

The End of Summer

It's hard to believe, but it's been almost a month since I arrived. By this point I'm feeling pretty well settled into the program, but as February changes to March there are going to be quite a few changes around here.

First, this weekend another big group of volunteers are leaving and only about half of the people that I started with will still be here. We're also getting three or four new volunteers to replace them. While I'm looking forward to meeting the new people, it's a bit sad that some of the people I've grown attached to are no longer going to be here. I started with a really good group.

Second, school begins again as summer vacation ends. This means I'll no longer be working for breakfast and lunch, but rather a post-school snack and dinner. Currently I've been waking up before the sun, and we leave the house while the sun is rising. Now work won't start until after 4:00 in the afternoon, and I won't be getting back into Cordoba until after dark. On one hand, this is excellent news for a night owl. On the other, it has been kind of nice having such long days because even when I take a three hour nap it still feels like I accomplish a lot during the day. It will be nice being able to go out at night though, since that is a big part of the culture (that I've been too exhausted to participate in).

In other news, one of my roommates and I are planning a weekend trip to Villa Carlos Paz, which is one of the touristy cities close by. If we can get things organized (organization tends to be an issue around here).

I hope everyone is doing well!

About time...

Time is a funny thing here.

I came in knowing all about what I lovingly refer to as 'Latino time' (where things are allowed to go at their own pace, and schedules are very loosely followed). But what I wasn't prepared for was just how strange time works here.

On the one hand, every day feels like it's as long as two or three. A few days feel like a week, a week feels like a month. I think this is because we wake up so early to go work at the comedor (7:00) and get back around 2:00 (at which time everything closes and I usually take a long nap). The sun doesn't set until after 9:00 p.m., dinner isn't until after 11, and people don't start going out for the night until 2:00 a.m. - it's amazing that people are actually able to wake up in the mornings for work.

On the other hand, it's hard to believe that two weeks has already passed. I'm only here for about eleven weeks total, and I've already made a substantial dent in that. Other people in the program are already preparing for their departure, and we've been getting new people.

Ultimately, I think I just wanted to talk about time because I feel bad that I have yet to post any updates yet. I'm going to work on correcting that, since I have been taking a lot of pictures and have quite a few stories already, and we have wireless in the house so I don't really have any good excuses for not writing anything.

Hasta pronto!