It has certainly been an action packed first week in Argentina! We began in Salta and continued south to Cafayate (wine country) and arrived this morning to Cordoba where we will be spending a few days in and around the city.
Argentina is absolutely gorgeous, the food superb and the people who call Argentina home are beautiful, interesting and somehow have the ability to stay up all night-- dancing, eating and drinking into the early morning hours! Dinner in Argentina usually starts around 10:00 pm and you would be hard pressed to find a restaurant even open prior to 9:00 pm. Bars and clubs get busy around 1:00 am (around when bars and clubs back home start to close their doors) and every city we have been to so far takes a few hour siesta around 3:00 pm-- when stores, restaurants, etc. close for a few hours. It takes some getting used to-- but it certainly is a fun structure to the day.
Our time in Salta was great-- a pretty city with amazing food and fun streets and parks to explore. It was a bit of a culture shock coming from Peru and Bolivia, but we have managed to adapt just fine... starting by taking showers more often! We spent an afternoon hiking in a nature reserve in San Lorenzo (just outside of Salta) and took a gondola to the top of a small mountain where we had amazing 360 degree views of Salta and surrounding areas. We even took in our first peña show (folk music, dancing and general entertainment-- usually combined with dinner and drinks) and we got more than we could have ever bargained for... In addition to the usual peña line-up we also got a Michael Jackson music video, a creepy ventriloquist act and a power outage at 1 am which caused the show to end abruptly an hour early. At the market in Salta, Beth and I also bought mate gourds and have taken up the fine art of sipping on mate throughout the day-- it is an acquired taste, but I have grown to enjoy the taste and process very much! Also important to note that I had the best steak of my life in Salta at a parilla called Viejo Jack´s. Yum.
Cafayate was charming and a wonderful place to spend a few days sipping on wine and soaking in the gorgeous scenery. Over our 3 days in Cafayate we visited 5 wineries (our favorite was Bodega Etchart), experienced the thrill of ATVing for the first time (I think I may have a new hobby-- both dangerous and expensive), went on a hike to a waterfall (which we actually could not find due to poorly marked trails-- a lovely hike and picnic in any case), spent an afternoon at the chaotic and gigantic community pool (until a child vomited next to me and then we left), we visited a goat farm and rented bikes to get around town to go wine tasting. Cafayate was lovely-- it`s as simple as that. Cafayate has the best empanadas I have ever had made with love by Norma and Eduardo who own the Casa De Empanada. Again, yum. I higly suggest any of the empanadas with blue cheese.
And now Cordoba, where our first day has been great, just walking around the city and getting a feel for everything. I was shocked today when I spotted a synagogue in town-- the first Jewish institution I have spotted this entire trip! Unfortunately the synagogue was closed (Jews take siesta too), but hopefully I can make it back over the next few days-- after visiting likely well over 100 churches so far on my journey it would be great to visit a synagogue or 2 and get a feel for Latin American Jewry.
It is now 8:30 pm, which means it is almost dinner time. The day is still young here in Cordoba... And you never know what your night may hold in Argentina!
Ciao amigos!
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